Updated: see comments

In case ebaY’s alleged little glitch (and the aftermath thereof) earlier this spring didn’t convince you ebaY has the ability to, and/or are actively hiding your listings, causing Rolling Blackouts, or by any name, (such as throttling) selectively giving you no visibility, have a look here.

Test Item do not Bid or Buy Hide Listing from Search I eBay Test - Click to enlarge in new tab or window

That’s not the only revealing test listing we find … on andrew.fullmer@ebay.com’s list of ‘items for sale‘.

Also present;
THIS IS A TEST ITEM & SHOULD NOT BE SEARCHABLEIN THE UK

Golly gee, why would ebaY want to hide listings? Why would there be a test of hiding listings if they didn’t plan on hiding listings? If your listings are actively being hidden, isn’t that contrary to the entire purpose of using ebaY?

And isn’t that cheating, if not stealing? If a company deliberately deprives you of what you are paying for, shouldn’t there be some legal recourse?

People should complain to the FTC and their State’s Atty Generals if they believe they are being scammed by ebaY.

It doesn’t matter if the listings are ‘free’, through whatever promotion dejour, so long as they are represented to be the same as listings which one would be charged for.

Consider that millions of sellers are potentially impacted, to say nothing of prospective buyers, who may never see your listings, and therefore are also cheated from finding the best deals. This would seem to be a very significant amount of theft of services, and just plain sleazy conduct / bad business practice.

Don’t forget to pass the word along to everyone you can that by all appearances, ebaY is scamming the living daylights out of people.

The way they glorify Cassini’s miraculous mindreading abilities, what else can it do? – No telling. Would they and/or do they steer buyers to the most expensive items, which need to be shipped the furthest, or have the least protections etc? In short, whatever carries the lesser risk/highest profits and/or least liability to ebay/paypal. and the most to it’s cherished guinea pigs, ermm, I mean users?

I recently documented Cassini steering shoppers right to questionable deals, as well as sponsored ads on ebaY which linked to obvious counterfeit site[s].

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