After all this talk the last few weeks about how the eBay Trust And Safety team removes listings first, asking questions later…. I’d like to tell you that if there’s a instance where you are the victim of someone violating your rights it’ll be taken care of quickly…. but…..
Not so fast there McGraw!
I can now say that I’ve had experience on both sides of the eBay Trust & Safety department. And I can tell you how amazed I am that this department seems so unresponsive. Maybe it’s because I called them the Keystone Cops the other day – but I doubt they ever heard – LOL.
My issue this time is over another seller who ‘borrowed’ a picture of mine. Well, actually it was an eBay Store Certified Designer Logo I have been authorized to use. You can see it on my website at www.clovercity.com. Normally, I really wouldn’t care if someone ‘right clicked’ and saved the logo to their hard drive.
But, this seller – took it a step further. Instead of saving it and then uploading it to the eBay picture services, or to Photobucket she directly linked to my site – stealing my ‘bandwidth.’ While not the worst thing ever, it is considered bad manners on the Internet to cyber squat like that.
So, I wrote the seller and asked her to remove the links. She wrote back, apologized and said someone had told her that was the correct way to host photos. (I think she really got a few wires crossed). She promised she’d remove them but could I please give her a couple of days. So, I wrote back told her how to use photobucket to host her photos and told her she had two weeks to remove the links.
Two weeks later, the seller had used my suggestion about Photobucket on her new listings, but never removed the links from her existing listings – about thirty listings.
I think I was fair with her, giving her two weeks. So I was slightly annoyed – and felt very used- that she continued to list new products without fixing the old listings – so yes, being human – I reported all the listings to the eBay Trust and Safety department. I received an auto-reply instantly and a week later – nothing had been done… umm, so much for the Trust & Safety department helping the little guy.
Luckily, in an instance like this – it’s better to get creative than to get mad. So, because she is ‘pointing’ her listing to an image on my website – I can change a few things. I went to work creating a new graphic (see above) and renamed it the original logo’s name. Before I uploaded the new graphic to overwrite the old, I renamed the original graphic and and changed the name on the URL that points to it.
The result: an invite to learn eBay to everyone who visits this sellers listings, complete with my URL.
I don’t have a solution for you if you find your photos are being borrowed and eBay Trust & Safety isn’t responding, except to suggest that you watermark each of your images. If they do get used by someone else, your branding will be all over them. The person borrowing them will look like a loser and you’ll be marketing your business.
Remember, it’s always good business to try and keep a level head. You don’t want to end up looking like a jerk because someone else is getting away with something you know is wrong. Yes, it’s frustrating – but it’s very bad business to look like a sore looser. I’ve heard of sellers changing the graphics to say something like “this seller is a bandwidth thief” Yes, that’s true, but really people who see the post – think worse of you then the offender.
If possible, try to turn the situation around to your benefit. Now, I get a smile when I see those links showing up in my report – means more people are seeing my ad.
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