Restricted account - standard practice

[waking_beauty]

I've been selling on eBay for 9 years without issue. A few days ago I saw a message at the top of my payments page stating that my payouts are on hold b/c my account has been restricted and will be released when my account is reinstated. There was a link, I followed it and it said I should have received an email stating why my account was restricted. I did not receive any email as to why, so I called in (twice now) both eBay employees stated there was no reason for the restriction, but it was standard practices to routinely do this and to review sellers accounts and all I need to do is make sure all sold items have been shipped and delivered. I use ebay labels, with tracking so I'm good on that...and they said to make sure I don't have any open unresolved issues/cases/returns/missing items etc with buyers. Any I had, were resolved. They said they too see I did not receive an email from eBay as why I have been restricted and have asked their technical team to resend the email. They said the only way to get my account unrestricted is to respond the the email. It has been 3 days now and I still have not received any email as to why my account was restricted and I can't resolve the issue till I receive that email. Also am told it can take another 3 days for them to remove the restrictions once I respond to the email. Has this happened to anyone else. My account is above average, in good standings. This is very disruptive to my business, livelihood and seems really very odd.

[mam98031 · Accepted solution]

You should have gotten the email.  Ebay always sends them out.  Check your Ebay messages on the site as well as your personal email account.  Don't forget to check your trash in your emails.  It should be somewhere.

There is ALWAYS a reason for the restriction.  The CSR you talked with was WRONG.

While Ebay does have random security checks that Ebay does hold your money while performing and it takes 3-5 days.  It does NOT ever "restrict" you.

To be restricted, something happened that Ebay deemed a problem that you need to address.  Now to find out the reason check these two links below.  The first is your Seller Dashboard in which you can see if you have too many defects in one or more areas that has caused your current issues.  The other is the Service Metrics, which is another way in which Ebay evals all sellers.

https://sellerstandards.ebay.com/dashboard?region=US

https://www.ebay.com/sh/performance/service-metrics

One you review these links closely, come back and tell us what you see.

Are you actually RESTRICTED or is your funds just placed on hold.  The two have completely different meanings.  How did you determine you are RESTRICTED if you didn't get an email from Ebay?

If you are assuming you are restricted because your funds are on hold, then you are not restricted.  There would have been an email from Ebay.

It is possible the CSRs you spoke with are actually correct.  Your account is just experiencing a RANDOM security check which will place an hold on your funds for 3-5 days, but does NOT restrict your account in any other way UNLESS their security check unearths some issues.