eBay Browse/Search Manipulation

We, the undersigned, wish to petition eBay for a redress of grievances brought about as a direct result of eBay not upholding their own policies they have set on the subjects of fee circumvention and search/browse manipulation.

An unfair business advantage has been created in the eBay marketplace by some sellers who are using techniques to manipulate eBays search and browse functions. This activity, which goes against eBays policies on fee circumvention and search manipulation, has been reported to eBay by numerous sellers for many months. To date, no action has been taken to remove the reported listings or to penalize the repeat offenders who are creating the un-level playing field.

This unfair business practice of continually revising ones eBay listings to monopolize the newly listed section of eBays browse/search function, is injurious to both sellers and buyers in the eBay marketplace.

Sellers paying featured plus fees have been affected by not receiving the full exposure they should be receiving from the featured plus service.

Buyers who are using the newly listed search/browse function on eBay get return listings that the buyer doesn't want. They want to see newly listed items, not items that are days old. The results that are being returned to them are fraudulent.

e-Bay has stated that, account suspensions are usually reserved for those sellers that continuously disregard policy. These reported sellers participating in the search/browse manipulation have been actively manipulating the browse/search categories daily; most numerous times daily, for many months.

We, the undersigned, call for the permanent suspension of these repeat offenders, and for the reimbursement of Featured Plus fees paid out since this issue began.

This petition is to be signed only by eBay sellers and buyers who are against eBay sellers creating unlevel playing fields by using Search/Browse manipulation techniques; and against eBay for not upholding their policies on fee circumvention and browse/search manipulation.