eBay

paytonrules2003 · ‎11-11-2022

On October 26th I got an update from eBay asking me to update my seller information, specifically my email and telephone number. They have not changed in the 17 years that I've sold on this platform so I verified them and the screen said DONE. No problem right? WRONG

The next day I got a nasty ACTION NEEDED message that stated:

We recently asked you to review and update some details on your eBay account. Looks like you haven't made any updates yet. Your payouts will be on hold until you fix this. Please do this by 2023-01-24 to get your account back in good standing.

I called in and was told that I was fine, it just might take time for the system to verify things since they were sending the message out to many sellers. Each day I had a nasty pink banner telling me to update my information and on November 4th I got the threatening message again. I called in, got routed through 3 people into Europe somewhere and was told that I was fine. This time I made one of them actually send me a message in eBay verifying that fact:

Thank you so much for reaching out to us for the account information inquiry, you needn't worry about any update to the information since it is currently undergoing said verification with no issues at all.
The payouts are active and eligible to be sent to the bank account on file.

Problem solved, right? WRONG!

The daily pink messages kept coming and the threatening ACTION NEEDED message came again this afternoon. Another phone call and another routing to Europe, to the UK this time. A very nice young lady put up with my by this time very angry response to this continued threat to not pay me what I had earned.

We went through everything step by step and I found to my horror that since my phone number was a landline they could not verify it by sending a text message to it. I literally had to change my primary number to my wife's cell phone number in order to get my information verified. And even that was not good enough at first because they sent a verification code to my email address which when I put it in was not enough for the system to verify me. Only when they sent a second verification code to my wife's cell phone was I able to be verified and hopefully off the pink threat list!

Which leads to the following questions:

1. Why did it take 3 weeks and 6 phone calls for someone to tell me that I needed text capability in order to continue to sell on eBay?

2. Is that even legal? Since a larger proportion of older adults in the US may not have text capability like yours truly (maybe I'll change my screen name to Dinosaur1 or something) is that not age discrimination?

3. Why is this second layer of verification so important? Even the patient lady said that I could request a call back from eBay on my landline if I needed it and that it was more necessary in Europe than in the US to have this type of verification.

4. Why does Ebay continue to make simple things hard? Instead of sending threatening emails couldn't they simply have sent one saying they needed to be able to send me a text in order to verify my account information?

5. Am I the only dinosaur left or is anyone else in this predicament? If you are getting these messages and don't know how to deal with them you simply need to find someone with a cell phone to help you out.

All this angst because I was perfectly happy using the same phone number since 1987 and not thinking that the world has a right to track my every move through a cell phone!

evelyb30 · ‎02-16-2023

Get a burner from Wal-fart? Only thing I can think of.

I'm a dinosaur too - still have a landline because cell service here isn't reliable; I'm in a hole and can't reliably get good over-the-air television either. (computer-wise I rewind to 8088s, tape drives and Fortran. Even used punch cards a few times.) I had one doctor's office send four verification codes via e-mail and those took hours to get through for some reason too. My bank however can get a landline automated phone call through in seconds. One more vote for the landline. Cell phones are great for some things, but reliability isn't always one of them. For mine to be reliable I have to hook it to the house Wifi. (LOL)

She who dies with the most toys still dies; when's the estate sale?

dotcom_lawyer · ‎02-16-2023

I’m surprised ebay doesn’t require sellers to be vaccinated in order to sell as well (LOL).....It seems ebay wants to put people under their thumbs.....hello big brother. I’m so happy that I don’t sell here anymore. I started in the days of money orders and never had a problem....and I bought and sold a ton of stuff (I had another selling ID at that time as well). More technology has not made things better. If you disagree with me....don’t bother responding.....I don’t care.

itsjustasprain · ‎02-16-2023

@evelyb30 wrote:
Cell phones are great for some things, but reliability isn't always one of them. For mine to be reliable I have to hook it to the house Wifi. (LOL)

I thought that was standard practice... if you dont have it switch automatically to WiFi when you are at home then you are burning up airtime for no good reason. That would not help your phone calling unless you are somehow routing that through WiFi as well - such as VoIP calling.

buyselljack2016 · ‎02-16-2023

I am new to the cell phone world. Well, at least new to having my own phone. On rare occasions I have used my wife's cell.

I got the cell because I needed to have it to get verified by Facebook so that I could message eBay for business on facebook to attempt to determine why my "established seller of nearly 22 years", with the same landline for eBay, could not get that landline # verified, but I digress.

With this cell, as I sit here at my computer connected to the wi-fi , I find that my outgoing calls are broken up. The wi-fi seems to not be a solution to the hit and miss poor cell service at my location.

coolections · ‎02-16-2023

Looks like the OP got a cell phone after all. They have listings active. Good for the OP to finally catch up, they were only 20 years behind. 😀

a_c_green · ‎02-16-2023

@buyselljack2016 wrote:
With this cell, as I sit here at my computer connected to the wi-fi , I find that my outgoing calls are broken up. The wi-fi seems to not be a solution to the hit and miss poor cell service at my location.

Right... or anyway, I believe that's correct because WiFi provides you with a wireless Internet connection, not a wireless cellphone connection.

Thus your smartphone's Internet browser can make use of WiFi to connect to your home Internet service (e.g. DirecTV, Xfinity, U-verse or whatever), but your home Internet doesn't provide telephone service to your smartphone. (You can use a VoIP service for calling through your home Internet, but that's not real cellular service through the air; it's phone calls over the Internet.)

Using my own (several years old) home service as an example, I have one line coming in to our house, to a switch box that provides us with home TV, Internet service to the computers, and landline phone service to the hard-wired home phones. The house has wired Ethernet and/or landline phone service outlets in most rooms, and WiFi service for any wireless devices. The one thing it does not provide is airtime for cellphone service, which is billed separately (and could come from any wireless provider, though we are currently bundling it with the home service).

I have a small pile of old decommissioned smartphones that can no longer make calls (actually I think they might still have Emergency 9-1-1 capability), but still work fine on WiFi for all the other functionality that home service provides.

ltlhonda · ‎02-16-2023

I don't have a cell phone because I do not have cell service without traveling. After 12 years I can no longer sell on ebay and I cannot get paid for items already sold. How long will they keep my money????

wlee08 · ‎03-13-2023

I'm having the same problem. Ebay is witholding my funds. I asked 'what if I close my account right now - will I get my money?' No. They said I can't close my account unless I withdraw my funds, and the only way to withdraw my funds is to add a mobile phone number. This is illegal what they are doing

krazzykats · ‎03-13-2023

I don't understand why you don't have a cell phone. It could save your life.

My 76-year-old neighbor has a flip phone but can still get texts. I set him up with a less than $20mo service, and he carries the phone in his shirt pocket. One time he fell and couldn't get up, glad he had his cell.

This is something you all should think about in case of emergency and when you can't get to your landline. Better to have one, than not. 🤔

KrazzyKats • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1998

buyselljack2016 · ‎03-13-2023

Took my "needed to get a facebook account to contact ebay for business cell phone" on my last woodsy walk. What I found is that although the "carrier" touts grand coverage for my rural area, it is indeed not so.

Not even of value for an emergency should I fall outside my front door, as it displays "no service" unless within Wi-Fi range, and then, as posted, it still doesn't work to make a call. Perhaps it would provide a 911 location.

a_c_green · ‎03-13-2023

@wlee08 wrote:
I'm having the same problem. Ebay is witholding my funds. I asked 'what if I close my account right now - will I get my money?' No. They said I can't close my account unless I withdraw my funds, and the only way to withdraw my funds is to add a mobile phone number. This is illegal what they are doing

It's not illegal. They use the mobile phone number to text you a code, which you then return as part of your login to verify that it's you attempting to log in to your account. They're not hoping to text you the money (however that would work); it's just a part of two-factor authentication to verify that it's you logging in and not some hacker on the other side of the world.

If all you want to do is pack up your account and go, perhaps you can borrow a friend's cellphone number (a friend who has not used their number for their own eBay account), add the number to your account, receive the confirmation code and move on. (I assume you have already provided them with your bank account info that will enable them to deposit your money.)

Aside from that, I would agree that having at least a basic flip-phone to make calls and receive texts is a basic requirement these days. You don't have to like it, but you may find yourself in a situation where you need it. Granted, this eBay snafu could be avoided if they had the capability of phoning you a code instead of just texting, but they don't, and are feeling no urgency to upgrade their own system to add it, so that's where we are. I would suggest that getting a basic flip-phone can provide future benefits that have nothing to do with eBay.

monster-deals · ‎03-13-2023

@paytonrules2003 wrote:

I keep having to facepalm every time someone complains about the bare minimum of tech from well over a decade ago.

If you are doing e-commerce without a mobile device...OF COURSE you are going to run into problems.

Next time why not fax your information in.

maxine*j · ‎03-13-2023

@a_c_green wrote:
... I would agree that having at least a basic flip-phone to make calls and receive texts is a basic requirement these days... I would suggest that getting a basic flip-phone can provide future benefits that have nothing to do with eBay.

Agreed. I do not want or need a smart-phone but the world convinced me several years ago that I must have a cell phone for calls and for texts. My transportation provider, my medical providers, et al, expect to reach me wherever I am, and they expect me to receive and send brief texts.

I use LG flip-phones, modestly priced and very sturdily built, and my Tracfone pay-as-you go minutes cost me less than $9 a month.

As an aside: Since Tracfone minutes rollover, I now have thousands of minutes, which shows how little I use the cell phone, and my first LG flip-phone still worked fine but had to be replaced when the 3G networks shut down. I bought it reconditioned, and ditto my current LG, so the costs are not great.

-

buyselljack2016 · ‎03-13-2023

But, once again, there we are, back at, ............... "text a conformation code" ............... to an ................. "unverified cell phone" ....................... to prove that I am me. I can not, and will never be able to, climb the mountain of absurdity that this eBay logic presents 😟

itsjustasprain · ‎03-13-2023

@maxine*j wrote:
@a_c_green wrote:
... I would agree that having at least a basic flip-phone to make calls and receive texts is a basic requirement these days... I would suggest that getting a basic flip-phone can provide future benefits that have nothing to do with eBay.
Agreed. I do not want or need a smart-phone but the world convinced me several years ago that I must have a cell phone for calls and for texts. My transportation provider, my medical providers, et al, expect to reach me wherever I am, and they expect me to receive and send brief texts.

At the risk of piling on... if you are already operating a computer and taking digital photos and uploading them for selling on-line and shipping on-line... why is getting a basic cellphone such a hardship? There is way more money being expended already on all those other steps -- cost of the computer - digital camera for photographing - business expenses for packaging & gas for car - monthly fees for Internet - ect. Adding a minimal cellphone for texts seems like a very small part of the much larger process that the seller already has in place. Most of that process involves way more costs than what the cellphone adds - plus these days having a phone on you at all times can add a big safety factor for you.