Summary:
On March 15th, eBay removed many listings of eclipse glasses due to safety concerns, which is understandable. This was likely done by a bot, because no proper verification was done to determine if sellers had genuine and safe eclipse glasses, and eBay did not offer sellers the chance to produce verification for AAS approved products. This issue is important because it affected our reputations as sellers, but also the reputation of the AAS with eBay's safety statement. Currently, eBay's safety statement on our glasses is misleading and a lot of our clients are thinking that they have purchased a defective product, which is false. Ebay didn't even ask for proof of purchase from us before issuing the safety statement. Otherwise, all of our eclipse glasses are brand new and they are imported directly from the manufacturer, American Paper Optics, into Canada.
The AAS has been contacted and warned about the current situation. In the meanwhile, we have invited buyers with concerns related to eBay to read this news article from the 2017 eclipse. The exact same issue occurred in 2017 but with eBay this time. Link: https://www.mlive.com/news/us-world/2017/08/amazon_made_the_problem_worse.html
Genuine sellers were also targetted by eBay's massive listings takedown. Before following eBay's misleading and possibly false health concerns, ask the sellers first for their proof of purchase. The proof of purchase contains one of the name of the eclipse glasses manufacturer that is listed on the AAS as an approved vendor or manufacturer. Currently, the AAS and its listed manufacturers have not issued a recall of eclipse glasses that are AAS approved. For all reliable source of information related to safe eclipse glasses & news updates, the AAS and its listed manufacturers are widely viewed as a trustworthy source, especially with recalls, not eBay.
Updates:
March 18 2024: I have contacted eBay customer support three times to appeal against their false safety concern on American Paper Optics eclipse glasses. Two times by phone on Friday and Saturday and one time through chat on Sunday. In all three attempts, representatives have said they have escalated this matter to upper management after seeing that I'm a AAS approved vendor. In one ironic case, the representative themselves relied on the list from AAS for approved vendors to counter my claim, failing once again to notice my eBay ID on the site without pointing. Here is the transcript from Sunday: ebay-support-transcript
I have contacted eBay customer support three times to appeal against their false safety concern on American Paper Optics eclipse glasses. Two times by phone on Friday and Saturday and one time through chat on Sunday. In all three attempts, representatives have said they have escalated this matter to upper management after seeing that I'm a AAS approved vendor. In one ironic case, the representative themselves relied on the list from AAS for approved vendors to counter my claim, failing once again to notice my eBay ID on the site without pointing. Here is the transcript from Sunday: ebay-support-transcript
March 20 2024: After verifying my status on the AAS website as an approved vendor, eBay approved my appeal. I'm currently working with support to get the same eBay ID listed on the AAS website back up. Link of the appeal result: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11H6ZbQH-ONyFQRhdUQPW8d_P1uZBiyja/view?usp=sharing
March 30 2024: eBay's AI bot once again falsely took down my listing without checking for my username on the AAS's website. The issue was resolved quickly but this time, I suffered monetary damage as a result of the second damage control. I gave eBay the benefit of the doubts on its first false takedown. Now, I really want to speak to a Montreal news reporter. If you are interested on doing a story of how an AI from eBay falsely issued a safety warning to an AAS listed vendor, then contact me at: contact@compileware.com
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