My eBay account has been suspended for “abuse”, and eBay won return my e-mails asking why, what next?
(To answer some questions, I’m forwarding the message out to the world that I got. Note that the body of the message contained no links at all) suspension@ebay.com wrote: > eBay eBay sent this message to [my name] ({username]). > Your registered name is included to show this message originated from eBay. Learn more. > > FPA NOTICE: eBay Registration Suspension – User Agreement – Abusing eBay – [my e-mail] > > > > > Dear [username] ([email]), > > We regret to inform you that your eBay account has been suspended due to concerns we have for the safety and integrity of the eBay community. > > “Abusing eBay” of the eBay User Agreement states, in part: > > “…we may limit, suspend, or terminate our service and user accounts, prohibit access to our website, remove hosted content, and take technical and legal steps to keep users off the Site if we think that they are creating problems, possible legal liabilities, or acting inconsistently with the letter or spirit of our policies.” > > Due to
It was either spam, or someone hijacked your account and abused eBay. The latter has happened to my dad (someone hijacked his account and listed some scam auctions including a motorcycle). Their customer service is reasonable. Google to find their customer service phone number and actually call them. Also, you may want to read this: “How do I know that an e-mail was really from eBay?” Forward the e-mail to spoof@ebay.com and they *will* get back to you to let you know whether the e-mail was legit or not within a couple of days. I have done this a few times myself.
Yes, it was a legitimate e-mail. I have an alert in my eBay inbox to prove it. I will happily post it if there’s interest. When I got the message (it was Sunday morning), I didn’t click on the message, I pointed my browser to www.ebay.com and clicked on “My eBay”. If I remember right, I actually read the message on my cell phone first and then pointed my PC browser to it. I have kept an eye on my bank accounts, nothing appears to be gone, but I will likely follow that link and go that route as well. That’s really the only thing I am capable of doing. As it stands now, when your account is suspended, you can’t change a single bit of your personal information and/or change your password!
sav2880, per your question, I was never able to get those accounts back, which was irritating as I had amassed a perfect feedback score and had been registered since 1999. And I tried everything — emailing people, beseeching staff, asking how I could set things straight, offering to pay extra fees. (That all might sound strange, but remember that 5 years ago it wasn’t quite the behemoth it is today) Even now, I remain nonplussed that they expect that someone would get kicked off and then never ever use the site again ever, no takebacks. I did eventually get back on eBay. Someone told me that the eBay system flags potential re-signer-uppers by looking for duplicates: duplicate mailing addresses, duplicate credit cards on file, duplicate email addresses. So, when the bad taste was out of my mouth and I was ready to use the site again, I signed up with wholly new, discrete information. Never did have a problem. I don’t know i
eBay suspended my account once. I had opened two accounts, one in order to buy for myself and one in order to sell for a business — and with the seller’s account had unwittingly broken some minor violation about promoting one’s external site. A competitor reported me to eBay as trying to cheat the system, apparently. When I logged in with the buyer account to ask at the eBay user forums about the seller violation, someone there reported me (for having multiple accounts while one had been suspended? I don’t know) and then both were shut down. My experience at the time was that eBay was patently unhelpful and unresponsive. I was told offline by sympathetic users that eBay’s basic policy is that, since they have X million users, they don’t have to waste any time responding to the “unfair account suspension” complaints of one person. I was also told that eBay will kneejerk close an account at any complaint, no matter how valid, with no investigation. In other words, if you want to shut do
