Ebay
At a point a while ago, while a number of sales were running, ebay suddenly without warning or explanation knocked all our sales off and suspended us. I had 100% positive feedback and they had not given any warning or asked anything before.
We could get no response from E-bay in the UK, so faxed the president of the company in the USA.
We then got a request by email from an email address that you could not send email back to, the email asked me to mail or fax proof of identity, address and copies of receipts for a list of items that were for sale showing we owned them to a PO box number or faxed to a London number. My first reaction as it was an identity scam by someone else and there was no way to verify it was from ebay. Having thought about it and the information requested, I decided to go along with it, but selected material to supply that would be of limited value if it was a scam. having sent it, I heard nothing.
About a month passed, and I got an email saying the account was reinstated. still no explanation as far as I could see as to why it happened.
Anyway for a while I didn't use it much, as I was doing other things, but now I am buying and selling a a bit.
I have had emails from a number of other people who have had their accounts also suspended without explanation, so it is a general problem we all may from time to time have to put up with. As a leisure user, with no business dependent upon it its annoying but not critical, but of course if anyone was to have a business that was based around selling on ebay then this practice would be a major risk to them.
I suspect its due to their being so many scams on ebay and them not having the staff allocated to be able to research them fully, and while we may have felt that inserting a number of standard searches to highlight likely items and researching them quickly, would have been the better approach, perhaps they are reacting to concerns by others. Therefore someone says something looks suspicious, and i suspect ebay suspends the user, so they cannot be criticized. However this does little if anything to stop scams, and at least one email I got from another member making a very low offer for an item suspended might suggest that some may use this as a means of getting cut price goods. I was not desperate to sell, so have only sold at the sort of price I would have set as a reserve and still have the rest.
Please let me know and the outcome later if any. I won't publish your name or information on you, but it may help to understand practices in use, and at least you will know that it also has happened to others. You may also find it useful to tell others who question you about it, ie 'you must have done something or they would not have suspended you', to read this page. You should not take it personally, keep cool, and maybe it will work out if not then there are many other services you can use instead.
On the 14th February 2004, they took off one of my items, said it was an adult item and against there rules, it was a video with a film classification of 15. OK the title might have been suggestive if that sort of thing terns you on, but with no ability to contact them, my emails was returned by a robot saying I had to use their form, which would not work anyway. Of well it was on this ovation only one of 100 items I had listed.
The lesson I think, is that as we cannot contact ebay by email, and they don't act relationally, you should never put any reliance ebay sales running to completion. My advice is therefore never to make it over important in your business or life.
Below is a copy of my earlier information on this page showing what happened the email I got etc. I have not added a copy of the email requesting information received later as I still do not know if it came from ebay or not, and a copy of it might provide the information needed to set up a scam involving identity theft.
Historic information now :-
|
Important note re ebay Ebay has for some unexplained reason knocked all my sales off, I am trying to get an answer as to why. I had a 100% positive feedback and no problems with any buyer or seller, and was unaware of breaking any rule, so it came as a surprise. No warning, no problem just suddenly mid sales the emails below. |
After buying and selling for some time, with a perfect feedback rating trading large items as well as small what did they actually say, well below are both emails I got. I asked for an explanation but they do not reply. My wife's account that was not even selling anything at the time also got booted off in the same way.
All you can say is its a good job we have not built a business around selling on ebay or we would have been in a mess wouldn't' we. as we are we have lost a few thousand pounds by their stupid action.
Dear
videoarchitect |
|||||||||||
Dear
Keith Park
|
||||||||||||
So what have I said to them that they will not reply to
Can you please explain what it is I am supposed to have done to breach the ebay rules. As far as I am aware I have not. I had just got into using ebay, had 100% positive feedback and had no problem with any sale or purchase. Your action appears to me to be completely unreasonable. At the point you cancelled my auctions I had a number that would have resulted in sales, all the equipment being sold is available and as described and legal. If you had a problem with any of them, or felt I had breached your rules, shortly it would have been the right course of action to first contact me and point it out or ask me to correct it. Keith Park |
See information at the top of this page on the outcome.
Link to our previous advice page on buying on ebay,