Your eBay account has been suspended • Hacker News Board

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#71

Post by charles-m-knox » Sat, Dec 04, 2021, 1:17 AM UTC

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 also verified my bank accounts the next morning.

I was banned 20 minutes after posting my listing and received the same message as OP - live chat is not currently available, and their fraud support line redirects to their discontinued phone number. Even after verifying my bank details the next day, nothing changed.

I wasn’t trying to scam anyone. I just wanted to try and sell something I legitimately owned. eBay locked me out completely with no recourse or proper justification. Truly awful company. Shocked that it’s even functioning with this level of “support”.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#72

Post by mr_toad » Sat, Dec 04, 2021, 1:19 AM UTC

Are you sure the email actually came from eBay? I get lots of emails about “my”eBay account that I don’t have.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#73

Post by nikkwong » Sat, Dec 04, 2021, 1:19 AM UTC

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…

At least you hadn't shipped the MacBook out, to then get banned and lose the MacBook; which has certainly happened to a lot of people based on anecdotes I've read in the past.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#74

Post by charles-m-knox » Sat, Dec 04, 2021, 1:24 AM UTC

nikkwong wrote: post #73

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…

At least you hadn't shipped the MacBook out, to then get banned and lose the MacBook; which has certainly happened to a lot of people based on anecdotes I've read in the past.

That would have been horrifying.

I ended up selling the MacBook Pro locally via Facebook Marketplace, but only after rejecting 20+ people trying to get me to ship it across the country and paying me via PayPal.

I really do wonder often - at a certain point, does every company just simply become an anti-fraud service more than their original product? How much time and money do Google, eBay, Amazon, etc. spend fighting fraud? It’s unfortunate that businesses have to bake this kind of turmoil into their business model.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#75

Post by yyyk » Sat, Dec 04, 2021, 1:26 AM UTC

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…

>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.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#76

Post by nikkwong » Sat, Dec 04, 2021, 1:30 AM UTC

yyyk wrote: post #75

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…

>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 successful crowdfunding campaign in the past, but I do feel like raising money for something like this would just be shouting at a wall.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#77

Post by mdmglr » Sat, Dec 04, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

> 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 promised.

I asked eBay for a refund. They refunded me. I gave the seller a negative review in an effort to warn other prospective buyers. eBay refused to ban the seller. Further the seller sent me an eBay message threatening me for my negative review and eBay did nothing.

What is happening to you, if you genuinely did nothing wrong, is a symptom of some alpha-level ML/algorithm-based fraud detection that was made by some data scientist with poor data or no clue. And support is not trained to address this.

[1] https://fight-flash-fraud.readthedocs.io/en/latest/introduct...

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#78

Post by Retric » Sat, Dec 04, 2021, 1:46 AM UTC

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…

You are limited in how far back you can sue for damages. Running out of time is vastly more likely than Amazon to suddenly decide to hand you 24k.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#79

Post by yyyk » Sat, Dec 04, 2021, 1:49 AM UTC

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…

IMHO, even if the rules do change someday, it's not likely Amazon would return the money: it's an administrative burden going over old records of Sellers that might not even be alive anymore, and which boss which like to make his department look worse in the financial reports just to refund some Seller which must have forgot about their money?

It's much more likely Amazon will return the money if the ban is undone, after all, undoing it is basically admitting wrongdoing. However they haven't done it so far; Perhaps they feel they were right to ban you?

Well, it's easy for me to suggest action when I won't have to do the work. It's your money after all. I hope whatever you choose will work for you.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#80

Post by mingraffia » Sat, Dec 04, 2021, 1:49 AM UTC

I am a 22 year members 100% positive feedback on 442 purchased and don't see anything and I got the email today 12/3/21 @ 439 pm EST...with no instructions on why but the above generic message.