We’re unable to verify your identity at this time.

[championofithaca]

Hello,

I've sold only two items on eBay.  I sold both of them prior to when PayPal split off from eBay.  Now I'm trying to sell my 3rd item.  After I press the "List Item" button, I get this message:

Please Create a Seller's Account

Before you sell on eBay, you'll need to open a seller's account for identification purposes.

Create a seller's account at no charge. It's fast and easy.

Click here to create a seller's account.

Then I click "Create a seller's account" and I get this message:

We’re unable to verify your identity at this time. Please contact us and then come back to this page and click . If you close the page, you can always come back by starting a new listing.

I click "continue" and nothing happens.  I've tried FireFox, Chrome, Microsoft Edge, and iOS.  I've tried doing this on my desktop, my laptop, and my phone.

The credit card on file is expired.  When I click on it to update it, I get the same "unable to verify your identity" message.

I did an online chat with an eBay representative.  She said wait 24 hours and try again.  I did that to no avail.

Then I talked on the phone with a different eBay representative and she said she can't help me.  She said if some other eBay user also reports the same issue with the "continue" button being non-functional, then they will submit a helpline call to the software developers. 

Her only suggestion was for me to create a new account.  This is a sub-optimal solution, because then I'd loose my reputation.

I'm not on Facebook nor Twitter, so using those channels to communicate with eBay are not ideal for me.

If anyone has any suggestions, I will appreciate your help.

Thanks.

[championofithaca]

Hi Soutern*sweet*tea

I checked my addresses per your suggestion.  My "ship from" address was wrong, so I updated it.

I went to ".../sh/fin/settings" and I get this:

I've never gotten an email from eBay letting me know when I can register to have eBay manage my payments.  I'm not sure how to go about getting this email.

I went to enter my backup payment info.  It said enter your "one time payment" information, but then all of the controls were grayed out and I couldn't enter anything.

I noticed that the credit card that ebay has on file for me in "Payment methods for seller" has expired.  So I clicked on "change".  Then I got a message about needing to create a seller's account and so I clicked on "create sellers account".  Then I got the same old message I've been getting all the time about "We're unable to verify your identity at this time".

Finally, I thought I'd try listing again, just to see if the address update had any effect.  I get the same message about verifying  my identity.

[southernboyd.x]

I am having the same issue on both my personal and business accounts. Both were set up when PayPal was part of eBay, and that seems to be where the issue lies. I have also had very little luck with support and they still don't seem to realize this is not an isolated incident.

Good news and perhaps something to check into: I managed to get my personal account resolved myself by removing all known references to PayPal in settings, listings, drafts and most importantly, Business Policies. I'm not sure Business Policies is even a thing anymore, but if you set them up in the past, they'll still be there.

Go to Seller Hub, then select Listings. Near the bottom on the left navigation, you should find Business Policies.

I deleted all policies (you can't delete the default ones). Then to get rid of the default ones, you will have to opt out via an almost unnoticeable link toward the upper right-hand side. Once that was done, I made sure I didn't have any listings, drafts or templates referencing any of those policies.

Once I did all of that, I was able to go to Payments and add my bank account as a Payouts account (something required for eBay's new managed payments on seller accounts). Prior to doing the previous steps, this wasn't even available to me in the UI.

After I added the Payouts account, I was able to list items on my personal seller account. Sadly, I have not yet had the same success with my business account, but I am still working on it (without eBay's help).

Somewhat frustrating as I have spent several hours both with and without eBay support, trying to get this resolved. Last time I tried, the call mysteriously got disconnected after almost 2 hours letting them "investigate" and "research" the issue. I even missed the holiday selling season because it was just too much of a headache to deal with for what might have amounted to only $100 in sales. I have always thought eBay's UI, and selling system as a whole, was convoluted and clunky for such a huge company, and this latest experience has only affirmed my opinion. Unfortunately, they don't have any real competitors to motivate them to improve it.

Hopefully, this will help others get their accounts working again.

[pizza442]

Did the 'delete business policies' (saw and started to delete individually the Paypal ones but ended up checking all the Paypal boxes then hit delete but it deleted all the business policies).  Still can't get past the phone number verification without the error message in red saying 'can't verify phone number'

[southernboyd.x · Accepted solution]

I was told by support that eBay no longer allows VOIP numbers (e.g. Google Voice, Skype, etc.). Might that be the issue now?

[championofithaca]

Hello southernboyd,

That was indeed one of my problems.  So I updated my account from a VIOP number to a real number.  I also had to update my physical street address.   But even after those updates, eBay wouldn't let me update my credit card.  The card had expired.  And I still couldn't list an item for sale.

I wound up calling eBay 11 different times.  I spent about 9 hours on the phone during those 11 calls.  The last time was about two weeks ago and I got transferred from the first level support person to a second level support person.  Her name was Julie and she was very helpful and knowledgeable and she was able to fix the problem.  She was the fourth 2nd level support person that I talked to.  

I was so relieved to have this problem resolved that I forgot to ask her how she fixed it.  I apologize to the readers of this thread for forgetting.

I think the moral of the story for me is if you keep calling eBay and doggedly insist on getting help, you will eventually connect with a knowledgeable 2nd level support person who can help.

Thanks to everyone who posted.

[razorraed]

that's right, lol

[kh-vince]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.