Compensation from ebay

[melbourneclearance]

I was banned by ebay last week for 7 days for trying to sell outside of ebay for the following message to a customer enquiry, this is the exact quote:

"Hi there,

There are 2 options to pay without the freight. Both options will require you to buy through ebay without paying just yet as I can only send an invoice after a purchase.

Option 1. Pay on pick up
Option 2. I send you an invoice without the freight and you pay through PayPal

You can pick up items by giving me at least 2 hours notice of the time and day. This item is available for pick up from Clayton in Melbourne.

Best regards,  "

"Clayton" is the item location in all my listings, readily in plain view and not exactly a national security secret. I also said that the buyer had to buy through ebay first. ebay banned me from ALL activities within ebay except for items already sold, took away all my listings too. During the height of Christmas rush when my sales were at an all-year high.

I rang them and abused them as soon as I noticed the ban, maybe an hour after the fact, they lifted the ban right away and apologised, blaming their US colleagues (which I suspect sit in the next cubicle in the Philippines). Such sanctions always come with deprioritising of listings, etc, etc, and I noticed that after the ban was lifted for 2 straight days my sales were the lowest in some time. So I rang ebay again and abused them some more and asked for compensation. They gave me $50 which they said was their maximum allowable. But this by no way compensated for their trigger-happy dark soul which has cost me a lot of money during the best times of the year.

Has anyone got a bigger compensation from ebay before? I have had 3 compensations from ebay before, a free month of subscription for listing bugs, a $10 voucher for other listing bugs, and now a $50 credit for their idiocy.

I think ebay should pay me more compensation, seeing that it is an American company and they should be used to paying compensations.

[whiznumber6]

I didn't think they were banning for a (perceived) first offence - I copped a warning from them for a similar message a couple of weeks back (and after the item had actually been sold, buyer asked for the pick-up address), no ban.

[melbourneclearance]

It wasn't my first offense, but I took all the others on the chin, no bans though. The last warning I got from them was from something like Jan or Feb this year. So a 7-day ban at Christmas after such a long time, even if the charge were justified, would have been harsh. But since the charge was not justified, I want to go on a make-their-life difficult path. If we do something wrong we get punished. Why should they get only a slap on the hand for something so idiotic?

[justkidzbiz]

Definition of Paranoid ...........eBay!!!

[tennis_dot]

what a joke, there is a guy in my category with phone number and address in 100+ listings.

His reward for breaking the rules = he is way above me in the best match.

162716 and 208451 

[springyzone]

I'm not surprised that ebay would want to come down hard on those who trade outside of ebay. 

But I am constantly amazed that they slap bans on people without first getting a human to properly check out the flagged offending message.

I presume a computer program spotted your message as one of possible interest or one that may have been breaking the rules. That's fine. But there's not a computer on earth yet that can apply reasoned judgement so it should really have been passed on to a human before any action was taken.

I'm impressed you got any compensation out of them. Well done. Maybe more people who are unfairly hit should press for the same. It might cause them to take a more cautious approach.

[melbourneclearance]

I asked the customer service if it was a computer banning me or if it was an idiot sitting there banning everyone. She said it was a person from their US team (Read: Yes, it was an idiot), and that they will get this person retrained. Someone with that much power should never have been let out of the cage before they were ready in the first place.

[tennis_dot]

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@melbourneclearance wrote:

I asked the customer service if it was a computer banning me or if it was an idiot sitting there banning everyone. She said it was a person from their US team (Read: Yes, it was an idiot), and that they will get this person retrained. Someone with that much power should never have been let out of the cage before they were ready in the first place.

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oh that was what they did with John Donahue