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Sellers beware - eBay will restrict your account without notice!!
I have so much to say about my experience selling on eBay’s platform. I’ve held out on posting to the seller community forms but I have to say this particular set of actions taken against my seller account is widely ridiculous all things considered. I’ll spare the casual reader the fact that I’ve lost over 2,000 on eBay just in the past 10 weeks (we’ll discuss that in a later post). Segway if they would have put this much effort into uncovering scams we’d all be in a much better ecosystem to sell products online.
Let me tell you what I know. It was a Friday morning and I woke up to a random restriction on my account via email. My money had been put on hold and all my posts including those with auctions had been taken down.
I was really confused by this as I sell electronics and have a top rated seller status. I would have excepted some kind of explanation but I proceeded to call into to eBay to try and get answers to why my account was restricted.
the email simply stated they picked my account to ensure the safety on the community but I don’t do anything suspicious, I literally just sells phones and most of which are fully unlocked. If anything my biggest hurdle on eBay is not getting scammed by return scammers who regularly find ways around all the common bylaws of eBay.
so I called, they requested a boat load of info including my articles of incorporation, banking details, copy’s of manufacturers orders, and my id.
to which I sent in all this info and waited. The weekend passed and I decided to call back as not only was my account restricted but my money was also on hold only a few days before Christmas.
I finally got a response at 12 midnight that night and they basically requested that I send all that info back in again, this time requesting I can’t send any pictures of the documents witch is crazy as allot of my purchase orders are by hand in person.
i still complied with these requested and sometime during the wee hrs of the morning got another email.. this time they wanted me to upload a whole bunch of tracking info. Which is weird as all my tracking info is auto populated thru eBay.
they then request for me to wait till all of my items were delivered which is crazy and I’ll tell you why!!
a few of my orders seem to have been delivered to an intermediary delivery agent who seemingly would be delivering the items to another country! Also I shipped a few packages thru eBay’s “Global Shipping Program” which is notorious for taking eons to deliver packages but comes with seller protection so I opted to use this international shipping option!
in conclusion eBay has been a huge hassle, has only protected me from scammers 2 out of 7 scams, I’ve lost thousands of dollars, and now have thousands more on hold.
I’m not sure if I’d suggest eBay selling to anyone at the moment. They don’t seem to have good customer service as you can’t actually take to the team that makes and real decisions.
it’s a slight **bleep** show with no real reliable solutions to real world problems like scamming.
and now to add more insult to injury they’ll freeze your account for no apparent reason then deny you access to your own money.
I’ve paid eBay thousands of dollars in commissions and would have hoped they would treat their sellers with more respect opposed to sending us thru so many hoola hoops just to make them money on their platform
worst of all it’s 6 days after initial contact I’m told I have to wait another 3 days for anyone to get back to me and I still don’t know **bleep** I did exactly that caused this sudden restriction to begin with.
some good advise to new and old sellers on the us platform sell here with caution. And invest into building your own website that you can advertise thru ads to sell electronics you’ll end up spending the same amount in ads to promote your own site as you’ll pay eBay in fees!!
kh-stanley1
·2 years agoHi everyone,
Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.
Thank you for understanding.
ckimodog
·2 years ago@jasoheat_0
This thread is over 1 year old and luremobile is not selling anymore.
retro_entertainment_collectibles
·3 years agoApple, Samsung along with many others in varied products hire firms to watch out for the manufacture and/or property rights holders. eBay VERO is an interface to them, Trust and Safety is an interface to community. Most of these protective entities are law firms or sub-contact law firms. EVEN if product is legitimate does not necessarily allow for resale. Apple has authorized resellers such as T-Mobile.
eBay cannot give you cause as to why they have restricted the account as the restriction has likely come from an entity who represents the original product manufacturer(s). If they were to do so they are essentially sticking themselves into potential litigation.
With varied products unless a seller be that private citizen or business is authorized to resell product then they are not authorized. It's that simple, literally.
First Sale Doctrine is not applicable to resale for profit.... EVER.
Export, even if through a forwarding company is also often disallowed as the manufacturer has resellers who pay to be able resell with a domain. For example back in the day when PC's were the in thing UBISoft we worked directly with, reseller. Now whether we acquired product direct from UBISoft's distributors or even delisted product from warehousing we could not resell a single UBISoft title outside the continental USA and towards retail ONLY within assigned market domain. That's how big biz works.
There are retailers that pay say Apple to be able resell product within a domain(s), they do so towards a level of exclusivity thus not needing to compete with say some small store or online entity. Just as Gamestop with given products pays for exclusive domain. Its why for example Gamestop run some specials on some video games yet you wont see said special being run at some private game store. Domain. Those deals are not brokered through say Ingram Micro, a video game distributor. They are brokered with the OEM albeit product might ship to Gamestop via Ingram.
On the web "Domains" tend be portioned up by nation, so iPhone to be sold in the USA cannot be sold to Canada no matter WHO the sales entity is even under "First Sale Doctrine" as Canada (lets say) has no such law on the books.
Now towards third party eCommerce in general it's a target. It's been a target but is and has been an increasing target as is the case with other areas of the Internet. eBay flipped more buyer centric due to problems onsite and with said problems come pressure. In the USA alone costing to deal with issues caused via Internet costs government literally hundreds of billions of dollars, it was over 100 billion in 2012. Social media issues, improper medical advice, counterfeit items, plain old rip offs and scams, consumers taken on and on and on... People don't think of that stuff, eBay does as they are a target as does Amazon. You think eBay is restrictive? Amazon is far far far more customer centric and that too has hurt eBay over time.
I find it amazing how many people blame eBay for the state of what happens on the site. Sellers dont pay eBay to protect us albeit eBay at time's does so.
Ask why buyers leave eBay. Most will leave because they've had a bad experience or two as there are plenty of places to shop. Sellers leave because they EXPECT eBay to look out for them in an environment that is constantly under attack by rip off sellers, rip off consumers not to mention external entities such as law enforcement, governments, manufacturers and then some. eBay doesn't have Amazon's market leverage or Walmart's for that matter. Those two ARE retailers, in fact last I knew cant sell Apple ANYTHING at Amazon unless authorized by Apple and Apple won't authorize anyone to do so.
We all as sellers have our various self-interests and I'm not defending eBay but it is important to also see the bigger picture. That bigger picture effects all of us including eBay. That bigger picture is and has been for years a growing intolerance of what and how people sell online that are not portions of mainstream commerce among governments, authorities, manufacturers, medical industry and more.
It's unfortunate indeed as eBay charted the course allowing folks to make their own paths to livelihood and THAT is what has been so abused. The VERO program never would have been needed if it were not for sellers doing the wrong things even if they'd no idea they were. Trust and Safety need not be needed if some people didn't do wrong things. Back end login for authorities would not be needed if some people didn't do wrong things. That's just the truth and there simply is no way to correct what some people do.
I dont blame eBay for what other people do that results in eBay having to react to it and respond to ever increasing pressures by manufacturers, governments and more.
ckimodog
·3 years ago@luremobile
Hi there. Sorry for your experience. You appear to have good feedback and happy customers. However, selling multiples of the same, especially electronics will raise red flags. Did Ebay ask you to provide receipts of any kind for all those Iphones? Another reason this may have happened is Apple really doesn't want their items being sold here due to all the fakes and fraud. Not saying this is your situation, however this what's been happening on Ebay in the last few years. The law is cracking down on many e commerce platforms concerning this on going problem.
The only thing I can advise seeing as you seem to have all the info is reach out on social media via Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/ebayForBusiness/
These are US CS agents who work for Ebay and can hopefully help you with your problem. The other Ebay CS agents you contacted are outsourced, contract labor located over seas and most of the time the info they give you is false or incorrect. They really don't care about your problem, because it's not their problem.
Many positive posts on this forum with their ability to be helpful. Give it a shot.
Hope this works for you and you'll be back selling in no time.
Good luck and Happy Holidays.
luremobile
OP3 years agoThanks for the response I’m obviously frustrated to say the least.. I’ve done so with no results. They’ve just said I have to wait on a response from the trust and safety team. I think the biggest thing I’m upset about is absolutely no explanation! I have no idea why this restriction just hit my account furthermore their hiding thousands of dollars a few days before Christmas! SMH but thanks for the response
jasoheat_0
·3 years agoremember your postive feedback and ratings mean nothing to ebay nor do they care , worst ccustomer service ever , i have been lied to more times then told the truth , i use to love ebay now I HATE EBAY . good luck with the worst customer service ever
ms.rodriguez*
·3 years agoWow, with so much hatred toward Ebay, you sure have a lot of items up for sale. Some are very nice indeed. Goodluck with your sales.
jasoheat_0
·3 years agono my good items are for sale elsewhere and HATRED for this company has grown year over year with this idots that run this platform into the ground , FYI in 2019 there were 179 million buyer and now theres 133 million a drop of over 12% this past year( they completely dropped the ball on using the pandemic to increase the customer base ) , yes i have hatred for ebay and the idiots that have made it a nightmare platform , and luck on sales there is none with the idots at the helm , my sales and listing were so much better years ago UNTIL the idiots ran off the customers and keep doing so , enjoy the fee increases and ad fees increases and international sales fees increases and all the other fees ... Ms rodriguez i wish you all the luck with your sales but i would not rely on ebay for anything , there market share keeps shrinking , i wish you all the best
dbfolks166mt
·3 years agono my good items are for sale elsewhere and HATRED for this company has grown year over year with this idots that run this platform into the ground , FYI in 2019 there were 179 million buyer and now theres 133 million a drop of over 12% this past year( they completely dropped the ball on using the pandemic to increase the customer base ) , yes i have hatred for ebay and the idiots that have made it a nightmare platform , and luck on sales there is none with the idots at the helm , my sales and listing were so much better years ago UNTIL the idiots ran off the customers and keep doing so , enjoy the fee increases and ad fees increases and international sales fees increases and all the other fees ... Ms rodriguez i wish you all the luck with your sales but i would not rely on ebay for anything , there market share keeps shrinking , i wish you all the best
While I have no hatred for eBay it is far from the exemplar company it once was. At one time I sold about 80-90% of my items on eBay but when the tide started to turn I began to diversify across a lot of other platforms and now sell less than 20% of my merchandise on eBay. While the FVF's have held pretty constant since the days of PayPal it's the other additions that are annoying: the move to MP, the promoted listings prisoners dilemma, the lack of seller protection especially when it comes to NAD's and Chargebacks, the phasing out of the GSP and the constant system "glitches".
While I still list on eBay it is at a level far from what it used to be and very selective with regards to the types if items I list and the value due to the increasing scamming and buyer theft.
jasoheat_0
·2 years agoactually i dont and sales on ebay is like there customer ( buyers ) falling , every quarter