Do I need to worry about listing the same products in the same categories?

[djstonefish]

if i were to list the same products in the same sort of categories as before, would it flag me.. i sell random things in random categories so it's not like im only limited to jewllery or clothing or anything

if suspended seller:
sells item A in category 1
sells item B in category 2
sells item c in category 3
and so on...

then new seller, new stealth account :
sells item A in category 1
sells item B in category 2
sells item c in category 3
and so on...

from a location close to where the suspended account was am i in danger?
on asking ebay live chat about using the same images and descriptions they said it would be ok... but i appreciate live help dont have the whole picture!

[aspkin]

Lol... what did you ask live help for?

And yes you'll be fine listing in the same categories.

[djstonefish]

thought it was worth a try... can't seem to get much of a response elsewhere, and i've tried EVERYWHERE so figured I'd try that route!

are the pictures and actual descriptions a risk as well do we know? I do i need to re-photograph my items? and rewrite my descriptions? if the products / categories thing isn't a problem i can't see the photos / descriptions being one - i understand i need to change picture hosting service.

[aspkin]

Some say eBay tracks image metadata.. but I don't believe that to be the case. I mean sellers use other sellers images all the time, would eBay start banning because of that? I don't think so. There are a few threads on it if you want to read more about it.

http://www.aspkin.com/forums/ebay-di...you-maybe.html

But it is a good idea to rewrite descriptions, remember you're trying to be someone else. It's not mandatory.. but it makes it a lot harder for eBay or anyone else to recognize you.

[djstonefish]

ok thanks, I will have a read of that other thread.

[sick-bay]

If I have to re-use old pictures, I re-crop them to a slightly smaller size ( a few pizels smaller.

I crop the old photo from the upper left corner, INWARDS (down and right) a few pixels, then re-save it to a new directory I call "SAFE".
This causes the image information to be different at the beginning of the file.
The new image file will no longer be identical to the old, and the checksum will be different.

It's a quick shortcut.

The way I see it, listing the same photos in the same categories is more a BUYER generated problem.
If you think you had disgruntled buyers who did you in, or reported shill bidding on you, or stuff like that, then those same bidders are going to be combing thru the same categories, and they are sure to notice your patterns.

Bidders who get sellers fried are no dummies, they are even smarter than eBay, so they are a formidable opponent.

I say do not list in similar ways if you suspect bidder complaints as the cause of your suspension.

If not, then I think cross-comparing image data and listing substrings betweein millions of combinations of listings would be such a huge server load on eBay that it would take the CIA's Cray supercomputers to accomplish in real-time.

[sick-bay]

you can try thumbs plus
Cerious Software - The Home of ThumbsPlus!

it will apply the same batch of commands to a large number of pics (say, all files in a folder ) in bulk.

so you can tell it to change the tint (towards the blue or the yellow) by a few percent , and apply the same change to 300 images, and it will do it in bulk

this will change the image binary data for virtually every pixel (except pure black and pure white), and make the new file not match the old one.

thumbs plus is shareware, which continues to have most functionality after the 30 day trial.

[djstonefish]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. My suspension was one of the silly ones, nothing serious, nothing ⊗⊗⊗⊗, illegal, fradulent, just wrong place at the wrong time, too many negs for late delivery, tripped the SNP alarm and got booted off. Under the old policies (and the new ones) I would have been able to sort out the problem with the mutual feedback withdrawal but all my problems happened in a gap of about 6 months between ebay deciding "feedback is final" and then changing their minds and allowing you to work with buyers to resolve your disputes.

Sadly I am no master criminal, I'm just here to earn an honest living!

[sick-bay]

Originally Posted by djstonefish

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. My suspension was one of the silly ones, nothing serious, nothing ⊗⊗⊗⊗, illegal, fradulent, just wrong place at the wrong time, too many negs for late delivery, tripped the SNP alarm and got booted off. Under the old policies (and the new ones) I would have been able to sort out the problem with the mutual feedback withdrawal but all my problems happened in a gap of about 6 months between ebay deciding "feedback is final" and then changing their minds and allowing you to work with buyers to resolve your disputes.

Sadly I am no master criminal, I'm just here to earn an honest living!

SO, your suspension is buyer-triggered, then cautions about changing listing pattern are in order...
bidders who left you neg FB are still browsing those same categories...

[djstonefish]

Originally Posted by sick-bay

SO, your suspension is buyer-triggered, then cautions about changing listing pattern are in order...
bidders who left you neg FB are still browsing those same categories...

I've actually spoke to all the buyers who left me negs and sorted out their queries etc, given part refunds or freebies and most agreed they would remove their feedback had the facility been there - however my unfortunate timing was between the end of mutual feedback withdrawal and the new feedback revision here in the uk. So my buyers couldn't actually do anything about their feedbacks. I don't think my buyers would report me, as they were all happy in the end. My problems only started after the couriers I was using went into administration, so it wasn't actually my own doing.