Reasons eBay Will Remove a Listing – Delete an eBay Auction

 Reasons eBay Will Remove a Listing

All eBay listings must comply with its auction policies and restrictions.Thousands of users buy, sell and bid on items every day on eBay, the Internet’s largest online auction site. You can sell a huge variety of items, goods and services on eBay. However, if your listing doesn’t comply with eBay’s acceptable use policies, the service may remove your listing and, depending on the severity of the infraction, take action against your account.

Item Prohibited by Law

If the auction lists an item that is illegal to buy or sell, eBay may remove your listing for violating its acceptable use policy. Such items may include, but aren’t limited to, illegal drugs or drug paraphernalia, many kinds of weapons, stolen goods, imitations or knock-offs of designer brands, hazardous material that is illegal to ship, certain types of pornographic materials, most live animals and the pelts or skins of endangered species. If you’re selling your item internationally, eBay may remove the listing if the item is illegal in other countries even if it’s legal to sell in your own.

Item Prohibited by eBay Policy

An item doesn’t necessarily have to be illegal to sell for eBay to remove your listing. The auction site provides a long list of restricted and prohibited items, including used underwear or swimsuits; adult or pornographic material; materials promoting hate speech, racism or violence; Klu Klux Klan and Nazi memorabilia; items stolen from the sites of natural disasters for the purpose of selling them as mementos; used cosmetics; and many other kinds of items.

Copyright Infringement

Although eBay only restricts some kinds of intellectual property, such as celebrity autographs and works in the public domain, it prohibits the sale of any item that infringes on another person’s copyright. This includes bootleg concert recordings; unauthorized copies of books, music or other media; unauthorized PDF versions of books; and modchips or other software intended to enable a user to illegally modify or copy software or a game. If eBay removes your listing due to a copyright infringement and it’s your first offense, it may send you a notice explaining the nature of your violation and linking you to the site’s tutorial on intellectual property.

When eBay Removes Your Listing

Depending on the reason why your listing was removed and the severity of your listing’s policy violation, eBay may automatically refund you all of the fees associated with the listing. If eBay doesn’t automatically refund your fees, you can still contact its customer service team and personally ask for a refund. When eBay removes a listing, as its owner you receive an automatic email detailing the policies that the listing violated and linking you to any relevant documentation or tutorials on the site.

Relisting Your Item

If eBay removes one of your listings, you should not relist the item unless the new listing addresses the problem for which it was removed in the first place. For example, if the item isn’t prohibited but the listing contained offensive images, you may be able to relist the item without the offending images. However, if you relist the item without fixing the issues that caused eBay to remove it, you run the risk of eBay removing the listing again and possibly taking action against your account.

How to End Auctions on eBay

eBay allows members to end auctions early, but there are some things you should know. Auctions on eBay typically run for three, five, seven or 10 days and end when the auction period is over. This will occur regardless of whether there is a bid on the item.

 There may be some instances; however, where you may wish to sell to the highest bidder or discover there is a problem with the auction while the auction is still running. When this is the case you may wish to end the auction early. Although eBay does allow its members to end their auctions, keep in mind there are requirements that you must meet before you end an auction prematurely.

Instructions

1 – Log on to your eBay account with your username and password. This will bring up your eBay home page.

2 – Locate “My eBay” in the top right corner of the home page. Click on the gray “My eBay” link.

3 – Scroll downward to the middle of the page. Find “End Listing Early” under the “Alert’s and To Do’s” section of the page. Click on the blue “End Listing Early.”

4 – Type the item number of the auction that you wish to end into the gray box. Click on “Continue.”

5 – Choose how you would like your eBay listing to end. Ebay gives you two choices. Select “Sell Item to High Bidder” or “Cancel Bids and End Listing Early.”

6 – Highlight the circle next to the reason that most closely matches why you are ending the auction early. As an example, you may choose that you have lost or broken the item, or there is a serious error in the auction description. This will end the auction, and the item will no longer be listed for sale on eBay.

Tips & Warnings

It can be hard to remember the item number unless you write it down. You can make it simple; however, by highlighting and copying the item number from the auction page and then pasting it into the box on the page to end your listing.

You can only end an auction if there are more than 12 hours to go before the auction is scheduled to end. If there is less than 12 hours left, you will need to contact the buyers to see if they will cancel their bids. You may also assist them and cancel the bids if they are unsure how to do this.

Note that you will still be charged a listing fee for the item even though you have ended the auction early and it did not sell.

How to Stop Your eBay Auction From Selling to the Highest Bidder

Managing your auction on eBay can be time consuming. The terms and conditions at the eBay website discourage sellers from picking and choosing among bids to select a winner for the auction. Instead, eBay encourages sellers to set reserve prices and to use the tools within eBay to limit bids by bidders who may not be as desirable for your product. In the event that it becomes necessary to cancel a particular bid or end an auction early, eBay does provide ways to perform such tasks.

Instructions

1 – Sign in to your eBay account with your user name and password.

2 – End the listing early if there are at least 12 hours until your auction’s end time by selecting “End Early” from the “More Actions” drop-down menu in your item listings. If the auction’s end time is less than 12 hours away, eBay’s help pages advise that your only option is to cancel an individual bid. Under eBay’s rules, the only legitimate reasons to cancel an individual bid are the loss of the item in question (in which case all bids must be cancelled), the bidder changing her mind or an inability to verify the bidder.

3 – Select whether you wish to cancel all of the bids or you wish to sell the item to the highest bidder.

4 – Choose the appropriate reason for ending your auction early. You can indicate that the item is not for sale anymore, that you made an error when listing the item, that you made an error with the pricing or that the item is no longer functioning or is missing.

How to Delete an eBay Auction

EBay is an online auction site that allows buyers and sellers to congregate in an online shopping center. A wide variety of items are acceptable to sell on eBay, ranging from collectible figurines to real estate. In some cases, a seller will need to delete an eBay auction. This might be due to an error in the description or price or destruction of the item. You can end an eBay auction early if you meet certain requirements set forth by eBay. These requirements are enforced to prevent abuse of the eBay system.

Instructions

1 – Determine if you meet the requirements to delete your eBay auction. According to the eBay terms of service, an auction with at least 12 hours left for bidding can be canceled without question. Auctions with less than 12 hours left can be canceled if there are no bids and you have not manually canceled any bids. If there have been bids on your item, you are required by eBay to sell the item to the highest bidder. You are unable to delete your auction if you set a reserve price on your item and it has not been met.

2 – Open the eBay auction cancellation form page in your web browser. Sign in to your eBay account.

3 – Enter the item number for the auction you wish to delete and click “Continue.” You can find the item number on the item listing page. It is listed on the right-hand side of the page under the “Other Item Info” heading.

4 – Determine if you will sell your item to the highest bidder, if applicable. Choose “Sell item to high bidder” to sell the item. Choose “Cancel bids and end auction early” if you do not intend to sell the item. Click “Continue.” Note that only the options you are eligible for will appear on this page.

5 – Indicate a reason for deleting your auction. This step is mandatory and cannot be left blank. Once you enter your reason, your auction will be deleted.