Account suspension without warning

[flowingzilver]

Hi all.

I am struggling to get in touch with ebay to get answers re my account restriction. Here's what happened.

I've been selling professionally for over a decade.

Ebay has restricted my account (MC011) on the 24th April 19. This is the message they wrote:

A review of your eBay account has raised some concern that your use of services may not meet the guidelines in eBay's User Agreement. As a result, we've taken the following action on your account:
- Selling privileges have been temporarily restricted. You won't be able to list new items. You're also not allowed to register a new account.
- Some or all of your listings may have been removed (ALL listings were ended).

I have been a top rated seller for many years and my account metrics are all healthy. The feedback score has dropped a bit due to some issues with Australia Post but mostly I'm well above 99%.

Transaction defect 0.2%

Late shipment 1.98%

Cases closed without resolution 0.19%

All well within top rated status.

I am not selling anything against TOS. Same items as 3 years ago, nothing changed.

I am at a loss as to why they have restricted my account.

I called support, they told me to please close all cases in resolution center and appeal the decicion.

I did and get a permanent account suspension notice the day after (basically saying I can never sell on ebay again).

Now I am not getting any replies to my emails. Whenever I call I get flogged of with the same answer: the correct team is only contactable by email and their response time is 3-5 business days.

I don't even know what the problem is.

How can ebay suspend a long time seller without warning?

Has anyone experienced anything like this?

Can you please point me in the right direction?

Many thanks

Flo

[lyndal1838]

You are not the first seller to have this happen to them.

The bad news is that at least one of the members who posted here on the boards was never able to get her selling privileges

reinstated.....ebay will never admit that they made a mistake no matter how much proof you can present to them.

[kopenhagen5]

Is it possible you have had a competitor tell untruths about your account to eBay ?

I had a PayPal account closed for virtually no reason and was told PayPal and I have parted company after an appeal.

After calling many times, the girl putting me through to a manager said, off the record just open another PayPal account and use a different bank account. That's what I did. Never received the balance in my account either. It was just all wrong but i moved on.

Similarly my father has been locked out of his email simply because we accessed it from a cafe and as they have moved we can't verify it using the phone number of the old address (no longer connected).

Spoken to so many and Microsoft say nothing you can do, open a new email. 

My father is 91 and we now need to try and remember all the companies that need notifying as well as contacts. (A nightmare)

So I guess the message is, don't open any accounts online that are too important like a business as they may be shut down any moment without reason or sense. Online accounts cannot be reliable.

[*tippy*toes*]

First things first, close your store. It is highly unlikely they will reinstate your selling privileges, but they will happily keep charging you for a store each month. If you do get lucky, you can reopen it again.

Even though it's highly unlikely you'll be able to sell again, I would still get in touch with eBay and demand to know why. Don't email, or use live chat. You're wasting your time. Use the call me back option and then ask to speak to a supervisor. Keep using that option until someone gives you a straight answer. It could take a few goes. You deserve to know why when it's not obvious.

Remain calm and polite at all times. Politely request that they don't recite stuff off a computer screen, you want to know the exact reason. Often they will punch a few keywords into the computer and start spouting whatever it spits out. Usually having nothing to do with your issue.

There are ways to sell again, but sadly, it would mean starting from scratch, including all the restrictions of a new seller (listing limits, 21 day hold on funds etc). It takes discipline, but it can be done. I also understand with 9000+ feedback, that would be a real kick in the guts.

Please keep us posted with any updates after you've spoken to eBay. If all looks lost, then I will send you a message on how to start again. It's not something I will post publicly. 

[yeoldecoinco]

Absolutely awful, you have my sincere sympathiies.

eBay, the judge, jury and executioner and no proper reason given, seems very unfair.

Start by following the very good advice tippy has given and see if that gets anywhere.

If not, may I suggest trying through Facebook. 

Two and a half years ago a friend of mine got suspended indefinitely by eBay over one transaction of 95 items that buyer claimed non delivery, even though PO tracking to Portugal showed delivery. There is a thread about it on the boards from late 2016.

CS was useless, but the seller then joined the eBay sellers Facebook group and managed to get some people at eBay to look into it and restore her account, after a lot of effort. Thanks very much to clarry for helping out on that one.

eBay don't like social media being used against them, so there is a good chance you will have more luck with this method if trying customer service proves fruitless.

If you do get the account restored, think about tracking for your cheaper Australian posted items and also check your items to ensure they are of good quality and as described.

12 neutrals and 9 negs is quite a lot out of approx 600 transactions in the last year.

Whilst a couple of the neutrals were undeserved, there were a few positives posted that could easily have been negatives.

The PO now has tracked letters that only cost about $2 each that can, with a bit of clever packing, be used for small jewellery items or coins. I have started using tracked letters on cheaper items more and more and it does help in cases of claimed non delivery.

I have had a good run selling on eBay for almost 20 years now, but am VERY conscious it could all end very suddenly, so a website and some selling alternatives is a good idea if one relies on eBay for income.

Best of luck with it.

[yeoldecoinco]

Just one more thing.

It may be worth keeping your store open for a while and copping a few store fees, until you have exhausted every method of getting re-instated.

Otherwise you will lose those 9000 feedbacks.

[*tippy*toes*]

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@yeoldecoinco wrote:

Just one more thing.

It may be worth keeping your store open for a while and copping a few store fees, until you have exhausted every method of getting re-instated.

Otherwise you will lose those 9000 feedbacks.

---

The OP won't lose their 9000 feedback by closing their store. They would if they closed their account, but not the store. All they would lose is their free listings, which they can't use at the moment anyway, and the little red door beside their name. Plenty of people close their store and retain their feedback score.

[Anonymous]

Just a thought but... were you drop shipping ?

eBay are landing hard on drop shippers using arbitrage rather

than warehouses.

They have been **bleep**ty for years about having eBay purchases

arrive in Amazon boxes and the like.

[brerrabbit585]

Have you or buyers been putting contact details in messages? That can get you suspended after it happens two or three times.

[chameleon54]

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@yeoldecoinco wrote:

I have had a good run selling on eBay for almost 20 years now, but am VERY conscious it could all end very suddenly, so a website and some selling alternatives is a good idea if one relies on eBay for income.

Best of luck with it.

---

The family is having some major health worries at the moment and the missus would like me to sell the farm, pay off the debts and semi retire. The idea has some merit and our ebay sales are going well enough I could go full time ebay selling again............BUT stories like this scare the pants off me. It would be a huge risk to rely on ebay alone, the way cases like this are currently handled.

Frankly I,m not game to take the risk. I realise ebay has got more sellers than buyers, but I would have thought it was in their interest to have policies and procedures in place to allow succesfull sellers to remain on the site and grow their businesses.