Sunday, October 12, 2014

eBay Rogue Sellers

Not a consumer advisory posting, merely an indication of how single-minded and irritable I can get.

You've probably guessed or inferred by now that I am a neophile. I love looking at and acquiring new things. I keep this manageable (mostly) by looking on eBay, lots. My favourite category, of course, is "Tablets and eReaders" - I keep thinking that surrounding myself with new tech toys will make me happy. Of course, what I am beginning to realise is that it's not actually having these devices, it's what you do with them. It's how you use them, they should be enablers, not items to be admired in their own right. In fact, they should be unobtrusive. So when my Chromebook freezes and needs to be restarted, that is a fail. But the situation we find ourselves in today is a combination of the consumerist culture we live in, and the beatification of new tech products; so we think that acquiring new tech will save our (basically empty and meaningless) lives, as well as proving to our peers that we are doing well for ourselves - we must therefore be happier and more content.

Anyway, there is a seller on eBay who sells hundreds of tablet cases. He/she (hereafter referred to as "they") must have some sort of automated program, because within seconds, the pages of the "tablet / eReader" category are flooded with adverts for these cases.
My problem, or issue with this, is that there is a perfectly good category in which tablet cases should be advertised. And that category, surprisingly, is "tablets & eReaders Accessories".
When I want to get vaguely aroused by looking at new Amazon Kindles and the latest Samsung eight inch tablets, and iPads that are completely out of my price range, I don't want to have to scroll past pages and pages of adverts for cases for said tablets.

So this morning I reported one case per page that I had to scroll through. I'm not sure that will have any effect whatsoever, but I must have scrolled through 12 pages of the "tablets / eReaders" category and I probably saw about three tablets. The rest of the listed items were cases sold by Ecell Accessorize. So eBay now have 12 reports of items for incorrect listing. I expect no-one ever normally looks at those reports, but I am hoping that the volume of reports might indicate that something is amiss.
Either that, or they will think that I have a personal vendatta against this seller and they will dismiss my reports as the twisted ravings of a bitter and spurned madman.
Let's see if the process works...

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