All About Pocket Knives

I have a George Herron designed Paragon made black Micarta Skinner listed for sale on Ebay. It’s been up for several weeks, suddenly today I get this email from Ebay saying that they have ended my listing for violating their search manipulation guidelines. After you read this, please let me know how this makes sense, because I can’t figure out the logic
Here it is: “Hello sharpnshinyknives,
Your listing didn't follow our Search manipulation policy. Manipulating search results to gain unfair visibility of a listing is not allowed.
What activity didn't follow the policy
Your listing title contains the keywords "Micarta". We understand that you might have used these keywords to describe your item in a better way; however, these keywords can affect the search result which eventually may lead to poor buying and search experience on eBay. If the information is required for better understanding of potential buyer(s), you can include it in the listing description. Please relist your listing accordingly to comply with eBay policy. If you are unsure about the item details, request you to be sure about material, brand etc before relisting item.
What you need to do next
Please review your current listings to ensure they follow our policy. Any future listings will need to follow our policy too.

What is the policy
- Using keywords that are not directly related to the item for sale is not allowed. All the words in the listing need to be accurate and refer only to the item for sale
- If the item is an accessory for or compatible with another item, “fits” “for” or “compatible with” should be stated before the name of the compatible item. However, “fits” “for” or “compatible with” is not allowed before the brand names of jewelry, clothing and accessories, or universally compatible items
- Listings that make comparisons with other products are not allowed
- Listings that promote other listings are not allowed
- Listings can’t include keywords with question marks, as this can be misleading for buyers. If any item details are unclear or unknown, they should be left out of the listing

Additionally:

- It’s not possible to offer a choice of different products in a single listing
- Manipulating search results to gain unfair visibility of a listing is not allowed

How this affects your account
Because you may not have been aware of this policy, we're sending this notice to educate you about it and ask that you follow this policy in the future.

- Listings that didn't follow this policy have been ended and placed in your unsold items.
- We have credited all associated fees except for payments processing fees and the final value fee for your listing(s).

Listings that don't follow this policy in the future will be ended.
Why we have this policy
This policy helps buyers quickly find what they are looking for every time they use eBay. Clean search results improves buyer trust, increases purchasing, and results in buyers coming back to eBay for future purchases.
More information and help”


It looks to me like Micarta is now a banned word or something. Could this be because it’s made from a petroleum product?
I haven’t taken the time to have an aggravating call to Ebay yet, but I will.
Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Some moron (or moron bot) that doesn't even know what Micarta is, would be my guess.

They think you're misusing the trademarked word "Micarta" in effort to sell something that is not genuine Micarta.

I guess I won’t be calling eBay about this. I can’t find a single phone number to speak to a human being anywhere on the site or Google. All the numbers on Google take you to a recording that says Ebay is here to help, go online etc,etc. But then it hangs up. Or this number is no longer valid for Ebay. They really don’t want to talk to you. What a way to run a company.

I doesn’t make sense to me. I believe the problem is on their end & I don’t know how it could be corrected without the involvement of a competent human. Good luck with that. Seriously.

I just checked eBay and they have thousands of listings for knives with the word "Micarta".
Something fishy definitely going on.

Could it be that someone reported your listing to eBay saying it does not follow their policies?
Dis-grunted someone searching eBay?

Bob

That has occurred to me Bob, but I sure haven’t seen Ebay take action when I report sellers who are selling fakes, they don’t do anything about that and I have reported a few.

Geo, you are right it will be a miracle if I talk to someone that can actually help.

I searched the words knife Micarta and got 7198 hits. Looks like eBay will be losing a lot of business if they apply this across the board, wow!

Ebay is great until it isn't and then there is no help at all for a seller.

Don't know why you can't talk to somebody at ebay, I have done it a bunch of times. In fact I usually have them call me and it is usually in less than five minutes from when I ask for a phone call.

eBay =

But if your listing says, " . . . no case," that's ok because everyone knows you weren't manipulating with the word "case" in a knife listing.

Yeah, eBay =

There are no phone numbers that you can call, at least after 45 minutes of searching I couldn’t come up with a single working number. If you can get out of the feedback loops when you are trying make contact, then you can get to a “chat bot” and after they try a few pat answers on your request to speak to someone, they offer to contact you.
I got through to someone in India that had no answers and offered to transfer me and dropped my call after 20 minutes. Then I asked them to call me a second time and got a guy that also was in India. After 25 minutes of him checking and checking and checking, he transferred me to a woman who was in the US. She didn’t have an explanation but did see the problem and promised to appeal this and they are suppose to let me know the results. I’m not going to hold my breath.
I got turned down on my request for compensation for my lost time and money.
It shocks me that a company as big and well used as Ebay is doesn’t offer a phone number for you to call. The only numbers they have published are for customers that are the victim of fraud and no other numbers. Even the corporate number for the headquarters doesn’t get you to a person, it just refers you to the fraud phone number. They really don’t want to talk to you. Is this because they think everything can be handled on the computer?
Every “contact us” takes you to a menu of things to choose from and no other way to contact. None of those choices takes you to anything but another menu of articles or “helpful” suggestions. If I ran my business that way when I was working, I wouldn’t have made it in business.

You can’t call EBay anymore!! You have to use the online contact to chat with a representative !! It’s been that way for quite sometime now.
I have had a couple of knives picked out randomly I believe that were taken off due to a computer interpretation of a Word !! Not by a Human Being In your case the word ( Micarta ) and since you looked it up ( Micarta ) then you already know it involves a very wide range of materials to make !! And that threw the knife into possibly as many as 10 different categories that were not associated with a knife !! Your listing may have been in the Linen Section of EBay along with many other non knife related categories !! Or someone could have reported it being in their Linen Closet Just re-list the item and don’t use the word Micarta in the heading Use it in the description

I agree with Gene. I recommend that you call them and explain the situation (after you have calmed down a bit). I have called ebay a few times when something wacky happened with one of my auctions and each time I got a reasonable human being who apologized and actually fixed the problem. For example, I recently got negative feedback from a buyer because I refunded the excess shipping they paid. The Ebay person immediately zapped the negative feedback and actually laughed when I told them about it. However, your situation even more bizarre!

Please read my last post Your item was randomly picked out by the EBay Word Scanner !! As you said there are hundreds of knives listed with the word ( Micarta ) in the heading of their knife listings !! And yours just got picked out !! Why ?? It’s random and there is no rhyme or reason to it !! There are people who use the word ( Ivory ) in their heading and nothing happens But let me do it and Poof It’s Gone And Ivory is a Big NoNo and I will Repeat myself that you cannot any longer Call EBay , It is all done thru Contact Us to reach a representative to Live Chat

There is a seller/manufacturer of knives (Lord and Field) that gets by with sometimes 10-15 different terms in the description that is keyword spamming. And then there is the guy who takes pictures of his listings with scantily clad; "well-endowed" women. Stupid bidders put crazy bids on those listings as a result (despite not taking a genius to figure it out; this could be a college thesis if you were to write a paper on it...). Yet, nothing's ever happened to them. These two sellers both annoy the heck out of me.


And yet one word, which did describe your listing got picked out as being keyword spamming? What the heck?!!!

Sweetpieces4you wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 9:34 pm Please read my last post Your item was randomly picked out by the EBay Word Scanner !! As you said there are hundreds of knives listed with the word ( Micarta ) in the heading of their knife listings !! And yours just got picked out !! Why ?? It’s random and there is no rhyme or reason to it !! There are people who use the word ( Ivory ) in their heading and nothing happens But let me do it and Poof It’s Gone And Ivory is a Big NoNo and I will Repeat myself that you cannot any longer Call EBay , It is all done thru Contact Us to reach a representative to Live Chat

Tim, thanks for letting us know about this change. When I click on contact ebay, I get the following message with choices:

Contact us
Chat with us
1 min wait time
Have us call you
1 min wait time

So, are you saying that if I click on "Have us call you" (which is what I have done previously) they will no longer call back?

The Callback option does work But I have found the Live Chat option works just as well and I can understand what they are typing instead of what they are saying

It is pure stupidity with very little chance of dealing successfully with ebay. Don't waste any more time and just play the game as ebay wants you to.
Use the word "Micarta" in the description of the knife, not in the title.
Actually i think very few knife buyers would search the word "Micarta".
kj

I've had listings pulled and it was Ebays mistake. I just had to call them, and the contact info is at the bottom of the page usually, then I explained the reason and had to re-list because they pulled it, all bids ended, but was allowed to sell it again and had no problem. But sometimes their checkers misunderstand stuff and don't know what micarta is and after explaining it to them, no problem. Your results may vary.

I went to war with them over the term 'ivory micarta'. I entered and re-entered then called. I explained to the service rep that this is a man made material and is no way related to ivory. She explained to me the so long as I used the word 'ivory', the listing would be deleted.
What I did was to change the spelling to eyevory micarta and the listing went right thru with no problem.

Ray

Every now and then I have trouble with the word “Bone”. I also got a warning about selling reptiles when I listed a knife with “Snakewood” handles.
If this is the future with AI, then I’m afraid.

I know I should just play along, but I got pretty ticked off at the implication that I manipulated anything. I have my grandpa’s Irish temper.

I had a listing on eBay for a pocket knife with bone scrimshaw scales. The card that came with the knife from the maker had the name of the scrimshaw artist on it and the material which said "Bone" I listed it as with "bone scrimshaw scales" The listing was flagged and removed and I was issued a warning because I had listed a prohibited item... "Ivory" ... Nowhere in the listing did I mention ANYTHING about ivory. I think some idiot reported me and a machine decided I was "guilty"....

Sharpnshinyknives wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 12:31 am Every now and then I have trouble with the word “Bone”. I also got a warning about selling reptiles when I listed a knife with “Snakewood” handles.
If this is the future with AI, then I’m afraid.

I know I should just play along, but I got pretty ticked off at the implication that I manipulated anything. I have my grandpa’s Irish temper.

I understand the anger and frustration but there really is no need to take ebay's idiocy personally. You know you have done nothing wrong and that you have acted with integrity. That is what matters.
kj

I spoke with eBay a few months ago about their tax fee, they changed their calling service, you can’t call them, they wii call you back. Sign into your account go to help and on the bottom of the page contact us. Then select selling for example and then a topic. Some topics don’t give you call back options, like create listing but selling fees does. Good luck, it’s crazy you got flagged when there are a lot of other listings that should.

Here’s a link to the contact eBay page.
https://www.ebay.com/help/account/defau ... ce?id=4379

EBay is a Wild and Crazy venue for any type of knife I have been selling my personal property there for over 6 years and have sold over 25,000 knives on different accounts By Myself Many might not think that’s a lot , but do it all yourself and then tell me that You have Top End to Low End knife collectors and I have sold to All of them You have to be aware of who is Bidding, Buying at all times I have dealt with All Types of People
I came here to get away from the craziness for awhile And to my surprise this site has been very , very good to me I would recommend this site to Any Collector/Seller
Unfortunately I have to return to the Crazy for awhile to Sell a Few Dozen, Very Sweet, Fixed Blades that I’m willing to let go and some other odds and ends that someone will purchase
Don’t let EBay bother you It is what it is It’s the small percentage of people you have to watch out for and I do