About a month ago, I (52f) decided to start a little reselling biz. I had a 7 year old personal account, but wanted to be able to keep everything separate, so I opened a new account for selling. I got some stuff (mostly vintage) from estate sales, and posted my first listing (a glass vase for $20). My account was immediately suspended. I called CS and they told me they just needed to verify and asked me some questions about my sources. They then undid the suspension. I was hurt, but set it aside. I posted a second item (vintage doll, $30ish) and was immediately suspended AGAIN. I was feeling very unwelcome on eBay at this point. I called CS again, and was asked to verify again. The very nice lady on the phone increased my selling limit without being asked to, and set it up to $50k because of my other account having good feedback (I assume - she didn't tell me she did it, I just saw the result on my seller's hub). My items both "sold" quickly, but neither buyer paid and both tried to get me to call them directly. I refused, citing eBay rules, and turned them in as nonpaying bidders, noting that they had tried to get me to contact them directly. At this point, I'm totally bummed out with my eBay experience, and ready to just give up. So I took the items down and just left the account alone to reevaluate whether this was something I really wanted. Those were the only two items ever posted and I took all my own pictures and wrote all my own material for the listings.
Once I got over having my feelings hurt, decided to try again. I did some reading and the books said that having consistent brand recognition across platforms was important. So I tried to register my shop name on Instagram, but it was taken. OK, no prob - eBay rules say that you can change your shop name once in 30 days, so I changed my shop name and my screen name to something that worked on both sites. The new shop/user name even both used my actual name so it was kind of perfect. I changed my business email to match, since having the old shop name as my business email was just weird at that point - it didn't fit with the new name at all. All of these things fell within the eBay rules - I checked first, to be sure. It said you can change the shop name once per 30 days - and they sent me a congratulations on changing the shop name and user ID to something I liked better.
I didn't do anything with the account after that for a couple of weeks because I got sick and was just really busy afterwards. When I logged back on, I discovered that I'd been indefinitely suspended one message said I'd broken eBay rules, another just said there was a "pattern of behavior" that was dangerous to the community. The ability to contact live chat had even been removed. I eventually did find a way to contact them - but the person said that there was a "pattern of behavior" that she couldn't disclose and she was unable to help.
I assume that the suspension happened because of the name change, since it occurred the day after. But I had checked the rules before doing it very carefully to make sure it was OK. Does anyone know what rule I broke? And whether I'm likely to ever be allowed back? I wish I'd never seen that marketing book!
