Account Restriction Help

[ruellas]

Hello-

So today, out of the blue, I received an email that my account has been restricted. I’ve been with EBay for about 3 years, have a 98.7% positive feedback rating, have one defect ever due to an item just being out of stock and have always done what’s right for my customers. Sometimes I go way beyond what’s expected even. 

The reason my account was suspended was because of my girlfriends account (now fiancée). She created an account this fall, I helped guide her through the process and she was good to go. She put up a few listings and she was on her way. Well, something was wacky with her phone and she never saw any notifications come through alerting her of any sales being made.  I can honestly say, I have no idea if her phone was doing something weird or not but it is what it is.  In a nutshell, she listed items, made some sales and never shipped anything out for about a month. No one called her or anything and it was kinda of surprising it had gone on as long as it had without her account being closed. But immediately, upon figuring out that she made a big mistake with this, I told her to call EBay immediately and figure out what you need to do to make things right. So she did, they told her to sit tight and someone would review her account and tell her next steps (This never happened). So I told her, any of the orders that you’re able to ship still, ship them. So she did and it closed out any of the orders that were left.  We’re talking about 5-6 orders total on her account that she didn’t ship on time and she shipped maybe 2-3 of those as the other two had filed cases at the same time we found out. She called eBay, I even got on the phone to help talk to the agent Bc I know the process a little better. We were very transparent and very apologetic. It was her fault, she knew it, and wanted to make it right. So she made it right and shipped the orders. This was back in Novemeber/Early December.  

So today, I called customer service. I was told my account was getting closed permanently. When I asked why, they said because of my association with my fiancées account. About a month ago, she came to my warehouse with me and we were sitting on a lot of product so I had her help me create listings. Drafted listings. She never, not once, listed anything, sold anything or bought anything. She created drafts of listings fir me to finish later on my own. She of course logged into my account on her phone. She logged out a few days later. 

So essentially, my account is being closed because my financee in a time of struggle, decided to come to work with me to help me out.  And I’m no idiot but you can’t tell me eBay can’t see EXACTLY what actions are taken when someone logs into their account.  So they would see if she tried selling that day which she didn’t. 

I asked the gentleman on the phone to point me to a place that I could read the rule I had broken. He was unable to do so. 

Is this typical for Ebay to take such an aggressive action on a seller like me? Just looking for guidance or anything that would help.

[klhmdg]

If your GF and you ever used the same IP address to access eBay and her account is suspended, yours will be suspended also.

[slippinjimmy]

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@ruellas wrote:

Is this typical for Ebay to take such an aggressive action on a seller like me? Just looking for guidance or anything that would help.

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Yes it's been standard procedure on eBay to do this since forever. When an account is permanently suspended all associated accounts are also suspended.

It happened to me more than 20 years ago when an employee of mine who used my computer and my address was suspended for failing to to pay for purchases.

In order to get reinstated I had to get him to pay his sellers and convince them to withdraw their non-payment claims.

There used to be a statement in the Help Files that clearly stated what happens but I can't find it at the moment. In any event, when it comes to suspending/restricting accounts eBay does not reveal too much (for good reason) about the how and why other than the by way of extension of the rule that once your account is suspended/restricted it is against policy to open or use another account.

To eBay

[albertabrightalberta]

This is an example of the danger when sharing IPs.

[ruellas]

I’m literally going to lose everything because of this.  

What the hell happened to this country…….

Thanks. 

[kensgiftshop]

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@ruellas wrote:

I’m literally going to lose everything because of this.  

What the hell happened to this country…….

Thanks. 

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So will anyone else they associate with the suspended accounts.

[mtgraves7984]

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@ruellas wrote:

I’m literally going to lose everything because of this.  

What the hell happened to this country…….

Thanks. 

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@ruellas 

We certainly hope not.

And I wonder, too.......

We empathize. Let her live. Godspeed.

[iart]

This may have been a rule for a long time but it seems that over the last few months it's been strictly enforced.

It's obvious you aren't scamming anyone and that this solves nothing.

[slati_2013]

It is why us old time eBay sellers use a desktop or laptop for selling. I never use my phone or iPad to sell on eBay. Younger sellers prefer using their phones. And yes, as others have pointed out, if you share the same IP address, you will both be banned. If someone who is banned logs into you account even if you do not share IP addresses, you still will be banned. 

[luckythewinner]

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@ruellas wrote:

So essentially, my account is being closed because my financee in a time of struggle, decided to come to work with me to help me out.

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Your account was not closed because your fiancee helped you. 

Your account was apparently closed because your fiancee user her phone/app to manage your account, and later on that same phone/app was used to manage an account that was (at best) a serial violator of eBay policies and standards. 

[buyselljack2016]

So essentially, my account is being closed because my financee in a time of struggle, decided to come to work with me to help me out.

_________________________________________________________________

no that is not the reason.

The reason is, as explained,  the accounts have been linked by association.  One goes down, all go down.

[yuzuha]

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@slati_2013 wrote:

It is why us old time eBay sellers use a desktop or laptop for selling. I never use my phone or iPad to sell on eBay. Younger sellers prefer using their phones.

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There's nothing wrong with using your phone as long as you're the only one who uses it. The problem in this situation was that OP's girlfriend logged into OP's account on her phone, thus linking the two accounts. The same thing would have happened had she logged into OP's account on her computer. It was the logging into OP's account on a device that was associated with someone who was restricted that did it.

[chapeau-noir]

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@ruellas wrote:

I’m literally going to lose everything because of this.  

What the hell happened to this country…….

Thanks. 

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I'm not sure what this has to do with our country - it's just eBay, and they have rules about linked accounts.  IMHO, they're over-enforced, that's for certain.

[candd205]

I don't know whether this will help to reinstate your own account, but if your girl friend owes any money on her account, maybe get her to pay her debt. But, as long as she owes anything, you don't have any chance.

[ruellas]

of course you would need to know that the other person has been banned first and she never was told this. Once again. She had 5-6 orders. One defect and fulfilled the other orders and then one other customer got upset and filed another case. We aren’t talking about 500 orders. No one lost money. And she called in, told the truth about what happened immediately and did was she could to resolve the issue. She was to receive a call from someone to talking about resolving things. A call that predictably never came. They also said I’d be receiving a call and never did either, of course. 

So how are you supposed to prevent a banned account from accessing your account if you didn’t know they were banned?  
This is the level of professionalism EBay engages in tho - told me my account was banned forever two days ago and yet I have orders being placed still. So that’s cool. And they are holding my money so over my dead body will I be sending anymore orders to customers.