Ebay blocks my account and refuses to respond

[comcol]

It has been nearly 4 weeks since Ebay removed all my auctions and gave literally no reason.

After numerous calls and emails I was informed that my account selling was blocked due to my account being hacked by someone 13 years ago!!!!.(which I don't ever recall happening). I kid you not. This is their reasoning.

Why should that mean I can't sell? No idea. They won't give a response other than to say they have sent a request through to another 'department' to do something.

Meanwhile, they still charge me fees...lol

[gutterpunkz05]

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@comcol wrote:

Sounds like you work with Ebay, CHAMP.

Maybe if you could read you might like sound like such a tool.

In regards to my previous issue, it was EBAY who first used the legal avenue by sending me an affidavit to be signed by a legal practitioner and return to them for a refund. Which I did. They refused to live up to their original statement and so I informed them of legal action. It was a black and white issue and they were in the wrong. Period.

Maybe if you can't provide sensible responses to the actual thread you should not comment at all.

I keep all phone conversations, emails, screenshots of Ebay for a reason. I understand the way they flout the law and as a business they should be accountable just as I would be for my business.

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No,  I  " ÜSE"  Ebay.  Comprehendo!   I dont have to like them, to make money out of them.   Losses are Losses plain and simple.

Life goes on.

I was within a Bees Weiner, of abusing ebay and telling them where to shove it.  Then I walked away, thought more of it

and decided to recoup my losses instead.

Hopefully your selling privilege will be reinstated, but as I have previously stated Ebay, or should that be their employees CAN

be very vindictive, and it is quite simple to screw with a database, a typo to be precise will be sufficient.  Of course they can always trawl out the  ... Your account has been compromised.... or.... your account has been linked to another account that has contravened ebay rules    ETC, Etc, Etc.  They could even say your account was compromised 13 years ago,  try proving otherwise.

In my case, I was penalised by Ebay, within 48hrs of appeal determination.  Took 2 months to get fully operational again, No threats, legal or otherwise.

PS,  I think I know how to read, except when ebay international disputes revert to the buyers native language, and then I am screwed without google translator.

[chameleon54]

I have had a few issues with ebay including a glitch that reduced visibility of items on one of my stores to the point that it didnt sell anything for three months. On all occasions I have just tried to take a proffesional, factual attitude in dealing with CS without getting too upset and hairy chested about it. Every time the issue has been sorted satisfactorily and on several occasions I have been given ex gratia payments by ebay for the inconvenience / loss of sales caused. Still selling ten years later and sales are going better than ever.

Having said that I,m with gutterpunk. I dont delibrately try to bite the hand that feeds me. I just make the best use of the system thats there and make ebay work for me rather than me working for ebay. If that means I,ve got to " suck it up " occasionally, thats just part of doing business. I charge my buyers a small " suck it up " insurance fee on every sale and if theres a problem, simply take the attitude that the buyers have already paid for the problem, so its not really my drama.

[digital*ghost]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

I just make the best use of the system thats there and make ebay work for me rather than me working for ebay. If that means I,ve got to " suck it up " occasionally, thats just part of doing business. 

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Of course, I suspect all sellers do, but there's a difference between biting the hand that feeds you* and standing up against such a blatant and provable injustice. 

*A phrase which can just as easily be applied to eBay when they restrict a seller's account for seemingly no reason. 

[gutterpunkz05]

suck it up " insurance fee

LOVE IT.   Might have to  re-name one of my ledger columns.

[x3n0m]

.. in the case of comcol I would suspect that one of his/her competitors is on an ebay insider business program and comcol (and others) were consistently stealing their sales away .. how many others have fallen by the wayside to appease that fatcat seller is anyones guess as if the information is true it would be a closely guarded secret just how many accounts have been treated this way as could lead to a massive class action law-suite against ebay.au .. so if what comcol says is true every professional seller should be alarmed not deriding with haughty overtures of "sucking it up" just to appease a pack of racketeers with an effective working monopoly in the Australian ecommerce space least ebay.au pull the plug on your account or some other punishment ..

After absorbing this information provided by comcol as possibly factual there is no way on earth I would bother to build a business reliant on ebay as a sales partner as my time is too important to me to have a sales partner working against me .. as if cassinni best match defraud, fees on postage and off site adverts on item insertions sending buyers to competitors is not bad enough now ebay sellers need to contend with "suck it up" costs?!! where the **bleep** is the ACCC on all this?;  alseep at the wheel .. clearly it is only the tip of a nasty iceberg sure to crash our economy and destroy our way of life ultimately designed to send our descendants to economic slavery (or worse) ..

In the time I have spent using ebay it has become crystal clear that ebay is not a trustworthy sales partner thus in my opinion anyone who gets too cosy and comfortable thinking it is a stable platform to build/grow a business upon (with suck it up costs built into pricing etc)  will almost surely get shafted at some point at best or at worst left in the lurch (possibly bankrupted) carrying a bag of stock that ebay either hides from customers or in the case of comcol pulling the rug completely ..

[x3n0m]

.. comcol would have known if his/her account was compromised 13 years ago as would have needed to reset a password at the very least to recover the account .. so if we have all the necessary information it is clear to deduce from this that ebay's excuse is flimsy and it's only pupose is to cover malicious intent ..

[gutterpunkz05]

Every seller has to factor in losses,  Suck It Up Insurance, sounds as good as I have heard.    I wonder what the Big B&M Traders

list there losses as nowadays.  It used to be   5FD.

[*tippy*toes*]

I recently sold some concert tickets (Elton John). I listed them as an auction and after I received the first bid, I realised I had listed them at cost price, forgetting entirely about eBay and PayPal fees. I felt a bit deflated. I ended up having 25 watchers, but they sold with just the one bid. I felt even more deflated. Then I reminded myself that I usually make at least 1000% profit on my other items (yes, that is one thousand, not a typo), so I've probably more than covered the fees I'll have to pay. Yeah, well and truly. Still, it was a perception thing!

[chameleon54]

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@x3n0m wrote:

.. in the case of comcol I would suspect that one of his/her competitors is on an ebay insider business program and comcol (and others) were consistently stealing their sales away .. how many others have fallen by the wayside to appease that fatcat seller is anyones guess as if the information is true it would be a closely guarded secret just how many accounts have been treated this way as could lead to a massive class action law-suite against ebay.au .. so if what comcol says is true every professional seller should be alarmed not deriding with haughty overtures of "sucking it up" just to appease a pack of racketeers with an effective working monopoly in the Australian ecommerce space least ebay.au pull the plug on your account or some other punishment ..

After absorbing this information provided by comcol as possibly factual there is no way on earth I would bother to build a business reliant on ebay as a sales partner

Your choice, all the more buyers for the people who do sell on ebay.

as my time is too important to me to have a sales partner working against me .. as if cassinni best match defraud,

The cassini best match thing has definitely been a problem in the past, but it seems a lot of those artificial hand brakes have been removed now and sales are flowing much more naturally on ebay these days.

fees on postage and off site adverts on item insertions sending buyers to competitors is not bad enough now ebay sellers need to contend with "suck it up" costs?!!

Works for me and saves me sweating the small stuff.

where the **bleep** is the ACCC on all this?;  alseep at the wheel .. clearly it is only the tip of a nasty iceberg sure to crash our economy and destroy our way of life ultimately designed to send our descendants to economic slavery (or worse) ..

WOW, just WOW, that's a real mouthful to try to digest. I think some-one has been watching too many conspiratorial sci fi shows.

In the time I have spent using ebay it has become crystal clear that ebay is not a trustworthy sales partner thus in my opinion anyone who gets too cosy and comfortable thinking it is a stable platform to build/grow a business upon (with suck it up costs built into pricing etc)  will almost surely get shafted at some point

That is a bit more realistic than the last bit and could quite feasibly occur. The answer is to make the most of it while it lasts, don't take it too seriously and most importantly, have a plan B. I have developed another non internet based business, partly for the reasons you have just mentioned. If ebay no longer works for me I have an alternative income stream in place to take over.

at best or at worst left in the lurch (possibly bankrupted) carrying a bag of stock that ebay either hides from customers or in the case of comcol pulling the rug completely ..

My stock doesn't owe me anything, so not likely to send me bankrupt. I have a shipping container full of stock that was paid for by selling a few of the jewels from the shipping container years ago. Now anything I sell is all profit. My sales on ebay are better than they have been for many years and increasing rather than going backwards. I do the best I can for my customers, without taking it to heart. If you treat it all too seriously it just does your head in. Better just to go with the flow and not stress about it all.

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[countessalmirena]

Chameleon, you are a breath of fresh air, and were I selling on eBay I would seek to have a similar approach.

I hope, too, that the terrible bushfires over so much of Australia aren't affecting you and yours, as well as your plan B.

I hope the same for all of the excellent people on these boards.