Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Your eBay account has been suspended

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 154 posts

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#141

Post by zbrozek »

fsckboy wrote: post #48
zbrozek wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paypal doesn't, however. I wanted to switch bank accounts associated with PayPal and just... couldn't. That account is now dead, and I've switched to carrying a checkbook with me to settle up dinner with friends.

paypal also answers the phone for me; you need to set the phone call up from the web. the only time I call them is when I'm having a problem with ebay. So happy that I can use ebay without paypal now.

I tried that and got such a runaround that I gave up. They don't provide a sufficiently valuable service to be worth the effort.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#142

Post by scrollaway »

nikkwong wrote: post #76
yyyk wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've been wanting to take them to court over it; but most lawyers have quoted me at the process costing ~$8-9k; which, I'm terrified to be on the hook for if I lose. You could try to crowdfund a lawsuit (promise to donate the crowdfunding to a charity if you win and get costs). I suspect more than a few Sellers would like to get back at Amazon.

That's an interesting idea. However, I am terrified that if I do show up in court and do lose for whatever reason, then I will forever lose my chance at recuperating the funds. Maybe someday, they will realize that banning me was an error or the laws will change, and the decision will be reversed and the funds will be disbursed to me. I don't want to do something dumb and lose that opportunity. I've actually had a su…

Did you do the "cheap" first step? Which is to say: pay a lawyer $300 to write a threatening letter, asking for the ban to be undone and immediate return of the funds.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#143

Post by Normille »

serf wrote: post #133
patio11 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An aside for HNers, which I write as someone who had his first job in customer service: please remember, when interacting with customer service agents (and the various ops folks at companies that hire from very similar talent pools), that you (very likely, if you are on HN) are in a ridiculously fortunate position in life relative to the customer service agent, and that they did not write the state machine that made…

>please remember, when interacting with customer service agents (and the various ops folks at companies that hire from very similar talent pools), that you (very likely, if you are on HN) are in a ridiculously fortunate position in life relative to the customer service agent I agree with the sentiment that 'you attract more flies with honey than vinegar' with regards to customer service folks, but disagree with the t…

It's not so much that the customer service people are advantaged/disadvantaged or helpful/unhelpful that, in my opinion, makes it a compete waste of time ringing them. It's the fact that they have no real ability to solve any of your problems which are not down to error on your part.

The turnover of staff in call centres is continual and few people last long in the job. So the person you speak to is doubtless barely trained, knows nothing much about how the company works and, when speaking to you, is working from a script along the lines of _"Customer has problem A -- Suggest solution B"_. So is highly unlikely to be able to do anything to help you, if your problem is not on their script --and they have no authority to make any decisions beyond the most standard basic procedures, anyway.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#144

Post by Normille »

mdmglr wrote: post #77

> We wanted to let you know that your eBay account has been permanently suspended because of activity that we believe was putting the eBay community at risk. My eyes cannot physically roll any further. I recently bought an SD card from eBay. It was 256 GB and when I plug it in to my computer it reported more space. Some odd multiple like 261 GB. I ran f3 [1] and found sure enough the card did not have the storage it…

I bought some heat-shrink off Amazon once, for an electrical project. I ordered "1cm diameter". When it came, it was 2cm in diameter. I kept it as it was too cheap an item to bother returning and it would probably come in handy some time anyway.

As per your 'warning to others' notion I wrote a review that simply said "Be aware that this heat-shrink is actually 2cm diameter. Looks like someone at Amazon doesn't know the difference between diameter and radius"

Pretty light-hearted, I thought. But I got an email off Amazon saying my review had not been published as it was 'offensive' and 'blah... blah... T&C... blah... blah... no personal attacks'. Sometimes, the hyper-sensitivity of these companies is breath-taking.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#145

Post by Normille »

charles-m-knox wrote: post #71

I recently had to sell a MacBook Pro. Decided to open an eBay account because I never use eBay, and pretty much immediately had it banned. I stripped the EXIF data from the laptop’s photos for fear of eBay not removing them for me - I didn’t want my GPS info exposed. I also accessed the website without a VPN and a fresh Firefox profile with only uBlock Origin. I own a clean email domain and used it for the account. I…

To be fair, I doubt you'd have got any offers for the laptop anyway. Even if eBay hadn't blocked your account. I certainly wouldn't buy a laptop from a new account with zero feedback.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#146

Post by Normille »

bdcravens wrote: post #13
guilhas wrote: post #11

I would really like to find a good alternative Endless captchas, randomly asking to login again, holding payments, asking for more and more user data, now demands ID card picture and social security number for selling, dropping PayPal... After 10 years without problems, getting really tired the past 6 months

Mercari is a good platform (though it doesn't solve the Paypal issue - pretty every platform is moving to their own payment platform)

Unfortunately [UK member here] Mercari is US only. The only direct eBay alternative I'm aware of is eBid[0]. From time to time I check it out, when eBay is pissing me off more than usual. But it has always seemed like a ghost town.

Also, their financial model puts me off. They have no seller fees, but you have to buy seller membership [per week / month /year etc] to sell. Given the apparent lack of activity on the site and the chance that I'd get no buyer interest at all, that seems like a bit too much of a gamble to me.

[0] https://www.ebid.net/uk/

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#147

Post by ViViDboarder »

nikkwong wrote: post #70

Agreed with your sentiment that there needs to be some due process for these companies. Amazon has been holding $24,000 of my seller accounts proceeds for a year now stating that I "violated their TOS" by using the same IP address as my girlfriend uses (who was also an Amazon Seller). Both my and her accounts had perfect selling histories; weren't selling anything against tos, etc. I've been wanting to take them to c…

What is the TOS that you’re violating? Are you responsible for someone else using the same internet connection somehow?

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#148

Post by Normille »

howdydoo wrote: post #69

I'll add to the chorus. Something like this happened to me recently. I bought a heating element for my dishwasher on eBay. I received a non-genuine part, took photos, and requested a return. Next thing I know my 15-year-old account is banned. Maybe the seller reported me in retaliation? eBay's "support" AI sure isn't interested in telling me what happened. I hate this world we've created, where you can get banned fro…

  >It almost makes me want to start a meme Twitter account and build up a big follower count. That's apparently the only way to reach a human in customer support at a big tech company these days...
Until your Twitter account gets randomly banned for no good reason.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#149

Post by wombat-man »

nikkwong wrote: post #70

Agreed with your sentiment that there needs to be some due process for these companies. Amazon has been holding $24,000 of my seller accounts proceeds for a year now stating that I "violated their TOS" by using the same IP address as my girlfriend uses (who was also an Amazon Seller). Both my and her accounts had perfect selling histories; weren't selling anything against tos, etc. I've been wanting to take them to c…

You're not going to go from 0 to $8k in legal expenses that quickly.

See if you can find a lawyer that you can trust, ideally one who has experience with this kinda thing to give you an opinion.

A good lawyer will be frank about whether or not the cost to engage is worth it. Others are probably correct in saying there is probably an arbitration clause involved.

You might just find that a letter from a lawyer might lead Amazon to reconsider their decision to hold your funds.

Also I'd be wary of lawyers quoting you a flat fee like 8k to "take care of it". I had to deal with a completely different legal issue several years ago. Some lawyers gave an up front figure of like $5k-$9k or something. Ended up consulting with an attorney at an agreed hourly rate of ~$300/hr or something. Ended up using less than an hour of his actual time to consider the situation and give me legal advice. Ended up only paying a few hundred for the whole thing.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#150

Post by mercerbell »

reginold wrote: post #55
mercerbell wrote: post #49

I have had the exact same thing today. I got an email informing me my account has been permanently suspended. I haven't done anything wrong. I've managed to contact them a few times via email but get the exact same email reply each time. It sucks. If I'd done something wrong I'd understand, but nope. Unless buying a new phone case is a violation? I was looking for a solution and it brought me here. I hope you sort it…

Contact the Better Business Bureau. They will go to work for you on this maybe. eBay is a despicable company.

Ah I used them when my Activision account was hacked and I was banned. It worked.
Post reply on HN