Account Permanently Restricted with no valid explanation

[camar_19]

eBay has permanently suspended my account due to "poor seller performance". However, the only negative review I have received (out of 33 transactions) was a mistake by the buyer during the feedback. The buyer left a comment stating "love the sweater and the quick shipping", however, he accidentally chose the negative icon. This one mistake brought my seller rating down from 100% to 83.3%, because I had only sold 6 items in the past 12 months. 

Due to my 8 month hiatus as a seller, I did not have any incentive to check my eBay email  (which is an email only associated with my Ebay account) or my eBay account to notice the warning notifications of my underperformance. I had no reason to actively check because I wasn't selling or buying at the time. However, when I logged in recently to sell a few items, I noticed that my account was restricted. After talking to two customer service representatives as well as eBay twitter, they have told me my underperformance as a seller has caused them to part ways with my account permanently. 

Even after explaining my situation, and never having a negative transaction as a seller, the only explanation I was given was that my performance was below standards required for Ebay accounts. If there's nothing they can do then I understand, but as a proud eBay member and small seller I did not feel that customer service listened to my explanation, rather they just read me a scripted response (all three customer service representatives responded to my request with the same lines). Although I was disappointed to find out that I can no longer sell on eBay, I was more disappointed with the way eBay customer service handled the situation.  Rules are rules, but it does seem like an extreme response to a simple misunderstanding. Now even my relatives are also restricted from selling all because of my mistake, which I believe is completely unfair to them

[dhbookds]

Restrictions have nothing to do with negs.........what exactly did the letter say?  What does your dashboard say?  What was the "scripted answer"?

[mr.emk]

Seems like the one negative really hurt your seller  status and rating.    I read the negative feedback and it sounds positive to me.   Also, your reply was very professional.    Best of luck.

[buyselljack2016]

Unless this all happened years ago a negative feedback should not have caused "below standard".

[fern*wood]

Did you cancel any transactions or have any disputes?

[iart]

The sad thing is that you could have easily had that negative removed by (almost) ANY customer service rep. The comment has to match the rating - eBay rule.

It looks like eBay is deleting a lot of accounts from casual sellers, like yourself. Overall, it's probably a good idea though it does seem to be trapping some decent people as well.

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

@camar_19 

This is bizarre,  that positive neg did not get banned. ( I do agree your response was very good)

What is in the last part of your post about " relatives" ? Are they using your account, please explain.

[camar_19]

The scripted response was "Unfortunately, due to your seller performance being consistently below our standards, eBay has decided to part ways with this account permanently. We wish you the best"  Quite literally every customer service representative used that as their reasoning for my restriction. There was never any effort to even consider my explanation. 

The following text is directly from the email I received notifying me of my account restriction:

Hello camar_19,

We’ve placed a selling restriction on your account because your seller level consistently continues to be Below Standard and doesn’t meet the guidelines in eBay’s User Agreement or seller performance policy.

This restriction means the following:
- You can’t sell on eBay anymore.
- We’ve ended your active listings, and will credit any selling fees paid for those items. We've also cancelled any existing selling subscriptions.
- If you recently sold items that you still need to fulfil or ship, please do so as soon as possible.
- You’ll still be able to see any recently sold items in My eBay, send and receive messages, and buy items on eBay.

As far as my seller dashboard, I am unable to view it due to the restriction. If my account was banned due to my seller performance as the email claims, the least they could do would be to conduct a review of my seller history or even reach out to members I've done business with. Oh well.

[camar_19]

No, there are no cancellations or disputes. I've conducted every transaction honestly. I would think permanent bans would be reserved for accounts with very severe violations, unfortunately that isn't the case..

[fashunu4eeuh]

This is perplexing . I haven't been aware that eBay was restricting accounts for being below standard without some serious accompanying infractions that your account doesn't seem to have committed. Even more perplexing that some of your relatives have been caught in the same net. It is not unusual for linked accounts to get banned when a related account goes bad, but again, you don’t seem to have done anything to warrant such an action. Did you have any defects on your account? Were the linked accounts using your ISP or your computer, or live at the same address?

[camar_19]

Thankfully I only used the account to raise some extra cash so I'm not too dependent on it for income. However, I've read posts from numerous sellers (many who have been active for years and depend on eBay sales for a large portion of their income) who have experienced the same permanent ban under similar circumstances. While it doesn't have a devastating effect on me, the same can't be said about others. Perhaps the review process needs an update to prevent situations like this from happening. 

[firesteel_surplus]

@camar_19 

I'm guessing that neg knocking you down to 83.3% and then STAYING THERE for months on end is what did you in. That really bites but the reality is today ebay really does not care about sellers anymore. I can tell you I sell a LOT more than you do and if my feedback dropped that low for some innocent mishap, ebay would steamroll me too and not look back.

But as long as I play nice and follow the rules, I get to play with at least some of the big boys here.

Mike

Firesteel Surplus

[dhbookds]

No way the neg % got him kicked off.......

@camar_19   do you or any of those relative owe ebay money?

[camar_19]

Yes my younger brother (21) has an account and we live in the same house.  He got a notification today that his account was restricted because he was associated with my account (even though he has never listed an item for sale) I assume because of the same IP address (he sometimes logs on to his account using my laptop) or the same street address. It seems that eBay is using every possible avenue to prevent me from committing any more egregious acts like selling a few of my old jackets and electronics.. lol

[camar_19]

Yep, seems like my break from selling (to complete my final semester of college) was a deal breaker for them. 

But best of luck to you and your business, Mike. I'm glad to see honest sellers like you still hanging strong. I'll be rooting for your continued success. Meanwhile I'm off to Facebook Market place to try and make an honest buck.. lol