Engine seller kicked off eBay - any info?

About three or four days ago, somebody listed several 40 and 45 engines on eBay. They all looked good and I bid on several.

Yesterday, eBay sent me e-mails to the effect that ALL of this seller's auctions are "NULL & VOID" and he is kicked out of eBay. No further explanation.

Any theories? My best GUESS is the engines were stolen and the owner spotted them.

I doubt the eBay would hit this hard for a late delivery or some negative feedback.

You can get kicked off of eBay for a bunch of things and theres probably no way to tell why that guy was booted without contacting him directly.

eBay is usually pretty dificult to get banned from, though a couple of fraud complaints will get you throughly booteduntill you prove otherwise.

I was bidding on the same engines...I contacted him via email and he told me he was suspended because he had moved and his address info was not up to date with eBay . eBay is horrible to deal with..I was in "Ebay Jail" for the same thing and had to fax a utility bill to them with my name and address on it to get my account reinstated....This after I had notified them of my address and email change THREE TIMES!! I was also required to supply them with my unlisted phone number....Idiots!

Try contacting him here [email protected]

As stated by others, there is a number of things that eBay will do, usually because someone complains. On one occasion, I had listed an engine for sale, a McCoy, and in the description I had said (like many others) that it was NOT a Fox or Torp or O.S. This is considered "search manipulation" by eBay and when someone complains it is removed without notice or explanation to the seller or the bidder. When I contacted eBay they informed me that it is listed in their long list of fine print on your sellers agreement (that most of us don't read untill something like this happens) They also told me that they do not read all the ads and rely on other sellers to notify them of infractions. Some one did not like my ad I guess...

Well, it is a pain in the ##### to set up a search for, say, a VECO engine and end up with a long list of kits that would be good with VECO engines, engines that are "not VECO" and the like.

People try to snag as many people as they can to read there ad.

You are ahead doing the most on target description you can of your product and attracting only those who are interested in it, not a wider audience that isn't.

That is the value of electronic matching. Best buyers for your product quickly.

So don't tell us all what your product is not.

My two sense.

Ebay is strict about their rules. Ebay has spys that keep an eye on auctions trying to catch sellers that are not following rules. I was suspended once because my credit card expired. Ebay sent me emails telling me to give them the new credit card info but I refused because of all the SCAMS claiming to be ebay wanting my credit card information. I had no way of knowing if it was really ebay wanting the information or not. I was kicked off ebay once for a month for refusing to use PAYPAL and I said why in the ebay ad. It all boiled down to the exact wording I used. After I rephrased my statement it was fine with ebay. Ebay can be a bunch of pricks when they want to be. Its funny ebay will cut their own throat to inforce rules. I have had many auction cancelled because of the wording I used on the auction page. Ebay cancelled 64 of my ads once for saying, "No paypal I refuse to be charged another fee email me if you want to use paypal." After the 64 auctions were all cancelled I received about 35 emails from people wanting to buy the item off ebay. It worked out great I sold 35 items and ebay cheated themself out of the FEES. I have had auctions cancelled for listing it in the wrong catagory, ebay opion to which catagory is correct is more important than my opion. And there is the problem of NEW ebay employees that think they know ebay rules and cancel all the auctions claiming the item is not allowed on ebay or listed wrong. My son had an ebay account and it was cancelled a few months ago not sure why the email said for not following rules. After several emails to solve the problem he received the same email from ebay over and over, account was suspended for not following rules. No specific information so he has no idea what the problem is. Its not a problem for him he sold a few things and made a few dollars and bought the item he wanted and didn't plan to make a full time job of ebay anyway.

If I were you I would keep watching ebay. Once the guy with the engines gets the problem solved he will be back.

2 years ago there was a guy selling model airplane kits. I emailed him and he said that he had over 400 kits and knew nothing at all about model airplanes. He listed several auction just for me and I bought several kits and several rolls on monocoat. He listed kits for sale for several weeks then all his ads were cancelled. Someone made him an offer off line for the entire LOT of kits and he decided it was much less trouble to sell them in one lot than one kit at a time on ebay.

Ebay has spies??? Does the CIA know this or the FBI??

Myself, I agree with the wrong category ads and misleading "NOT" title ads being removed. We shouldn't have to wade through all the wrong ads just to see what we are "searching" for.

Some of the ebay employees are not very bright. I had a Model Airplane engine listed for sale, McCoy 35 CL and it was listed under the catagory, "Toys & Hobbies > Radio Control > Air > Aircraft > Control Line, Freeflight" and was cancelled after 5 days. The reason it was cancelled was because it should have been listed under RC. Is that stupid or what?

>Some of the ebay employees are not very bright. I had a
>Model Airplane engine listed for sale, McCoy 35 CL and it
>was listed under the catagory, "Toys & Hobbies > Radio
>Control > Air > Aircraft > Control Line, Freeflight" and was
>cancelled after 5 days. The reason it was cancelled was
>because it should have been listed under RC. Is that stupid
>or what?
>
>Gary Weaver

It was listed under Radio Control, what do the people think RC stands for anyway. Actually they should have said it was cancelled because it wasn't under engines. it's bad that we have to look under 3 or 4 different categories because of the way people list items, sure wastes a lot of time especially when you are using dial up. If we complained about all the items that are not listed properly thousands of items and probably hundreds of sellers would be removed.

The word spamming is common, did a search for OS once came up with 9 pages of which only 3 had anything to do with OS engines. Was the first time I ever heard of an OS 4 channel radio.

I saw a TV program on an eBay convention. The FBI had a booth, and there was talk from the eBay CEO about close cooperation between ebay and the FBI.

Of course it would help considerably if some of thepeople that use Ebay knew what they were doing. About half can't even read it seems like. DOC

I enjoy eBay alot. I have had a couple bad deals the very first auction I won I sent payment and never recieved the item and then this past January I bought a car off eBay. the deal went fine and I flew up to Maryland to pick it up and drove it home. Once there I figured out that the guy I bought it from had 2 eBay user names and was bidding the car up himself!!!! It ticked me off but hey it was my ride home and I had my 8 year old with me. I contacted eBay and they said they did not have enough info to do anything!!! There is alot of junk on eBay. There is this one guy that sells/sold plans to make a gun that you mount under your car hood. In the add the dirtbag says to blast other drivers with it if they cut you off and they will never know where it came from. What kind of person would promote that type of item...I'll tell you a real dirtbag. I reported it a bunch of times but as far as I know eBay never pulled the adds. The guy must of been a real nut job because he said in his adds he would not take Paypal because they charged him like 20% or something..I can't remember.

He sounds like a nut I know of. A real paranoid.

To All,

I have recently bought several engines on eBay, no problems.

And I have been considering putting some of My Stuff up for bid; in fact I already have posted a complete set of the first three volumes of Model Builder magazine. And a child's toy, a water-propelled model rocket made in St. Petersburg, Russia.

**This is not an ad! The rocket is kinda trashy, was only put up as a test of my son's picture-taking abilities and to wade through the process without risking merchandise which may--or may not--have value. And if you have been looking for that cherished Vol. 1, Number 1 MB, you've already seen my listing.**

Also, I understand the annoyances in finding a listing that says what the engine in question is not, have no interest in doing so.

However, I do have a problem with a small, esoteric collection of pre-production, proof-of-production, and never serially produced engines I either bought outright or had commissioned in Russia.

I can, for example, list "Master" engines, specifically the "M61L" long-stroke RC Pattern two-stroke, but who has ever heard of this company? I brought in 12 units in 1992, Tom Lay bought one, as did Dave Shadel, a couple were sold at swap meets to people unknown to me, several were destroyed in real harsh testing and/or crashes, I have 5 or 6 pristine examples...

What do I do, how should they be listed in order to snag prospective buyers while not pulling the "It's NOT an O.S. or YS or Saito" gambit?

Serious question, as it turns out I've got pre-production VA .049s (nickel-plated; inside and out!) even GMA never knew about, a couple old-rule F2D pieces from a batch of 20 I commissioned, a bag of Ruskie 2.5cc glowheads, and so on.

For what it's worth, I have been figuring it might be best to string this stuff out over a month or two--I don't have the time to monitor a whole bunch of offerings--and to begin each description of an item as being "Russian produced," followed by blah, blah, blah, and then at bottom of detailed description noting that other products I will be selling will all begin, again in the 55-character opening, as "Russian produced," just to give those interested an easy, accurate way to access other products.

In advance, thanks for the help,

The category number for engines is 34055, CL/FF is 34054. Dan, with your Russian engines, I am not sure I would use Russian in the caption. There are a lot of CCCP diesels on eBay, and your stuff is different. I always use the words model airplane engine in the caption. Terms like unique, preproduction, one of a kind, would be good. Your buyers are probably going to be collectors. You might try the classifieds here and at other sites as well. With a unique engine, you probably want to use more than one photo. If you want to do much on eBay, taking PayPal is a good thing. I often don't bid on something if the seller doesn't take PayPal. Paying with PayPal doesn't cost you anything.

Thanks to Jim T. for the response, but I'm fixin' to make this a new thread as either I don't get it, or eBay won't readily accomodate the sort of esoteric stuff I am interested in selling. And my question quite likely should have been made a standalone thread in the first place.

Thanks,