Permanent Restricted From Selling

[friendlyseller2000]

I moved from a non-sale state (OR) to a sale state (TX) 3 months ago and haven't sold anything for the last 5-6 months. Trying to sell an item today but they permanently restricted me from selling. I called Ebay they told me that i'm banned because they sent me 2 emails asking to update sale tax options in my account and i didn't meet their deadline. I didn't see their emails due to Gmail moved them in spam box because Ebay keeps sending me their ads and promotion emails weekly. Is there anyway to lift this restriction? Thanks

[fern*wood]

It really makes no sense.  There are plenty of sellers actively selling in states that have a sales tax, and they do not collect the tax and have no tax information on their listings.   I've never heard of ebay getting involved,  much less restricting a seller over this.

Ebay is now collecting and remitting the tax for a few states themselves. 

[tkinnebrew]

Other site are just randomly charging tax on transactions now too.  Vote green

[penguins_dont_fly]

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@tkinnebrew wrote:

Other site are just randomly charging tax on transactions now too.  Vote green

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@tkinnebrew 

It's not "Random"

Google "Facilitator Tax Laws".

Also:

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/taxes-import-charges?id=4121#section4

[lacemaker3]

@friendlyseller2000 , this is the message that eBay sends when a seller has been collecting sales tax (usually in other states than their location, and multiple states) and because of this, eBay suspects that the seller is collecting sales tax fraudulently. (I hid the quoted message; click the spoiler tag to see it.)

Spoiler

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@friendlyseller2000 wrote:
just searched my spam box and found this

"We previously contacted you about collecting sales tax and asked you to provide valid sales tax permits for each state in which you’re authorized to charge sales tax. We also advised you to remove any states where you aren’t authorized to collect tax from your tax table.

Because no updates were made to your tax table and no sales tax permits have been provided, your account has been restricted from selling for 30 days.

To prevent further action from being taken against your account, you must remove all unauthorized states from your tax table or provide sales tax permits for each applicable state.

To submit sales tax permits, please use the link below:
ocsnext.ebay.com/ocs/mudcwf?deptName=USe2MListing

To stop collecting sales tax, or to change the amount of tax you’re collecting, you need to update your tax table and then apply those changes to all of your current listings. This can be done in bulk using the following steps:

1. Go to Manage active listings by clicking the Sell link on the home page
2. Click Edit > Edit all listings
3. Select all active listings, then click Edit fields > Sales tax
4. Click View sales tax table, make the necessary changes and click Save
5. From the Sales tax drop down, select Add to all and click Save and close"

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I was going to ask why you were collecting sales tax, if you were located in Oregon (a non-sales-tax state) but I see that you have stated that you did not (and never did) collect sales tax for any state.

In that case, I don't know why you would have received that message. I will tag some eBay employees, one of them should be able to investigate your account, and find out why eBay thought you were collecting sales tax incorrectly, when you were not collecting sales tax at all.

@Anonymous   doug@ebay   tyler@ebay 

[tyler@ebay]

Thanks for the tag @lacemaker3!

Hi @friendlyseller2000 - this type of request is only made when we see something unusual on the sales tax table of an account, for instance: tax being charged in states that do not charge tax, incredibly high tax percentages input on multiple states etc. 

In those situations we request proof that you are registered to collect tax in the states that are on the tax table. If we do not hear from we you request that information again, with a temporary restriction. If we still do not hear from you we may restrict your account from selling. If there are any appeal options for the restriction, it would be included in the message from us. If there are no appeal instructions it is likely an indefinite restriction.

[friendlyseller2000]

Thank you for your reply.  I'm not planning to do sale taxes. I tried to remove (uncheck) all states in sale tax table in my account but I keep getting this error "This feature is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."

[lacemaker3]

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@friendlyseller2000 wrote:

Thank you for your reply.  I'm not planning to do sale taxes. I tried to remove (uncheck) all states in sale tax table in my account but I keep getting this error "This feature is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."

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Why did you have a sales tax table at all? If your business was located in Oregon, then you would not have been required to collect any sales tax.

[slippinjimmy]

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@friendlyseller2000 wrote:

Thank you for your reply.  I'm not planning to do sale taxes. I tried to remove (uncheck) all states in sale tax table in my account but I keep getting this error "This feature is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."

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Did you have it set to collect taxes in some States? Did you set up the table that way or did it happen "all on its own"?

[pburn]

I think this person has a computer virus. First, his emails get sent to a spam folder without a legitimate reason, and now there's a tax table (with states checked) when there shouldn't be one.

I'd be taking that computer over to my ten-year-old neighbor boy for a good debugging.

[friendlyseller2000]

I never set anything in the table and i have no idea why 20 states are checked in that table. Here's the screenshot of current the tax table in my account. To Ebay: You can check my account history that i never set that table since i changed my address to TX and never collected a dime from selling when I was in OR.

[fern*wood]

No wonder it caught the attention of someone.  Not only are all those states checked off, but the percentage to withhold is set at 100%.   Maybe you were reported by a potential buyer from one of those states.

[friendlyseller2000]

I don't think I get reported. I never listed anything since I moved to TX. It only caught ebay attention after changing to a sale tax state (TX). I had no idea why my account is set like that

[friendlyseller2000]

If you look at my screenshot, something's wrong on that tax table.  Iowa (IA), Minnesota (MN) and Washington (WA) are grayed out (un-editable by users) but why 100 is in Iowa (IA) box? Can someone log into their account to confirm this? Thank you

[friendlyseller2000]

Can you please explain why Iowa state is set to 100% in my account tax table even that box can't be edited by user? Who set it? it seems my account is restricted for errors on ebay side.

[lacemaker3]

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@friendlyseller2000 wrote:

If you look at my screenshot, something's wrong on that tax table.  Iowa (IA), Minnesota (MN) and Washington (WA) are grayed out (un-editable by users) but why 100 is in Iowa (IA) box? Can someone log into their account to confirm this? Thank you

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eBay started collecting sales tax for Iowa (as a marketplace facilitator) on Feb 1, 2019.  So, the screenshot shows that your tax table was set to collect 100% sales tax for Iowa prior to that date, Feb 1, 2019. It appears that all the states in alphabetical order from Alabama to Maryland were set that way. Whoever did it, stopped at that point, and they didn't set any tax rates for US possessions, just for states.

I'm sorry, but this is not evidence of a problem on eBay's end. Someone, who was logged on to your account, set those incorrect tax rates, sometime before Feb 1, 2019. Can you remember looking at the sales tax at all, sometime since you stopped selling in Oregon last fall, and the end of January? Or did anyone borrow your account, your phone or your computer?

eBay tried to notify you and get you to correct the issue, but you didn't respond.  It doesn't matter if that was because your email account was set to send emails from eBay to your spam folder. You were responsible to maintain communication and respond to issues if eBay contacted you.

If you can't edit your tax table at this time, it is probably because your seller account (selling privileges) have been suspended. I just checked a former selling account, which has not listed anything for about 8 years, and I can edit the tax table for that account. But, a buying-only account which has never registered for selling, can't access a tax table to edit.

At this point, if you want to try to get your selling privileges back, I would recommend that you contact eBay Customer Service on Facebook.com/eBay or Twitter.com/AskeBay. However, for account issues like this, they may need you to contact customer support by phone.