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Your eBay account has been suspended

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Your eBay account has been suspended

#1

Post by quisquous »

Got an email from eBay this morning:

" Hello brokeninfinity, 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. We understand that this must be frustrating, but this decision was not made lightly and it’s important that we keep our marketplace safe for everyone. Learn more about how and why accounts can be suspended... "

I'm a long time, infrequent eBay user, mostly buy stuff, 331 stars, 100% feedback rating. Haven't used eBay recently, no idea what just happened. Maybe someone was trying to hack my account? The suspension email has no reply address. I tried contact eBay through their web chat, and they say 'Sorry Scott, live support's currently unavailable.'

I guess I'll stop using eBay now. The summary execution with no explanation and no escalation path and no appeal is not endearing. Count me added to the chorus of folks calling for regulations that will eliminate this sort of abusive behavior against consumers. We need some sort of 'due process' required of companies that operate above a certain scale. I mean, I shudder to think of the position I would be in right now if I depended on eBay for anything important. Thank goodness for me that I do not, but not everyone can say the same.

What do you think?

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#2

Post by PaulHoule »

My wife got kicked out of PayPal for no good reason 15 years ago. I think she could have reinstated it if she sent a fax but she wasn't about to send a fax.

If you want to know why people aren't adopting 2FA, it's because we know it's just a matter of time until the hole that attaches your Yubikey to your keyring wears away, your Yubikey disappears, and with customer service that amounts to "talk to the hand" at many sites, it's a digital death sentence.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#3

Post by quisquous »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

My wife got kicked out of PayPal for no good reason 15 years ago. I think she could have reinstated it if she sent a fax but she wasn't about to send a fax. If you want to know why people aren't adopting 2FA, it's because we know it's just a matter of time until the hole that attaches your Yubikey to your keyring wears away, your Yubikey disappears, and with customer service that amounts to "talk to the hand" at many…

Yah, that sucks...losing access to PayPal can be really bad depending on your situation.

My brother got kicked off Facebook a couple weeks ago because his account was hacked and they couldn't decide who was legit and who wasn't, so they just threw up their hands and shut down his account. It hurt because he used Facebook a lot.

I agree that 2FA doesn't solve the problem of companies deciding not to invest in good, considerate, human, security conscious, customer support. More technology isn't always the right answer, especially when it comes to questions of companies harming and then dehumanizing their customers because it's cheaper than doing than the right thing.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#4

Post by robalfonso »

PaulHoule wrote: post #2

My wife got kicked out of PayPal for no good reason 15 years ago. I think she could have reinstated it if she sent a fax but she wasn't about to send a fax. If you want to know why people aren't adopting 2FA, it's because we know it's just a matter of time until the hole that attaches your Yubikey to your keyring wears away, your Yubikey disappears, and with customer service that amounts to "talk to the hand" at many…

Because of this, I make a point of having 3 2fa keys. A daily driver, a backup key on a key ring and the final one in a fireproof safe. Like you I would be afraid what would happen if I lacked my key.

Companies need to at least clarify “what happens if I don’t have my key” also one time codes are a thing that need to be saved and can help mitigate a hardware failure.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#5

Post by tluyben2 »

Because my accounts are so old and I have so many of them, I get a message regularly saying that my account for service xyz has been suspended. When I contact them there a) never is a good reason for why it was done (hint; it is usually because they started using or recently updated some AI fraud detection service) b) small companies easily restore your account; with big ones it is usually game over. Ebay (and Paypal) are rather notorious for this: PayPal has actually gotten more robust but now I actually cannot close my account. They don't know why but computer says no; it is an ancient account, so, as a software engineer, I can take a few guesses. The most annoying is the level of support: even if the support is polite and responsive and human to begin with, which is not often at big companies (note I do not live in the US so I get routed to my country support for that bigcorp; I do not know if support is better over there), they often have no clue what they are talking about and only have canned responses. You used to be able to escalate to another level but that seems to have been removed (too expensive of course).

So when I can I stick with small companies; when they get funded or taken over, I find an alternative. I manage small SaaS products myself and I definitely will never leave anyone hanging, not even for a few hours; many small companies have the same feeling.

Of course, often you cannot do anything else but take the large ones. Luckily with banking this changed over the past years, but plenty things are still utterly broken support (and because you need support, also software wise probably) wise.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#7

Post by opwieurposiu »

Somebody probably hacked your account and listed a bunch of macbooks for sale. If you list a bunch of expensive stuff with little history of selling eBay will ban you. It also depends on the items "you" list, for some reason apple products turn the fraud score up to 11.

Re: Your eBay account has been suspended

#10

Post by Normille »

I posted this in another thread on the same subject:

Not exactly related but: a couple of weeks ago I suddenly had my account 'restricted' on eBay and told I could no longer sell or receive payment for anything I'd sold until I uploaded a load of personal ID documents [passport / driving licence, etc] to confirm my identity. This, after I'd been buying and selling on eBay for 19+ years. Browsing their 'community' forum, it became clear that eBay have done this to loads of people recently, including many who had been members even longer than me. What disgusted me even more than this obnoxious privacy invasion was the number of people on the forum who'd actually sent eBay all the required documentation instead of telling them to go fuck themselves.

Luckily I had no uncleared payments in my account. So I've just stopped using eBay. It's just a pity there's no viable alternative. Nothing like a bit of healthy competition to help rein in the jaw-dropping arrogance of these mega-corporations.

EDIT:

  > The summary execution with no explanation and no escalation path and no appeal is not endearing
Agreed. I've had this happen to me before with Twitter as well. Got 3 accounts suddenly suspended for no reason. Boring long story but, after about 6 months they re-instated them with nothing more than a "Whoops! We made a mistake".

What makes these 'summary executions' [I like that description!] infinitely more annoying is that there's no way to enter into any kind of a dialogue about it. If you receive an email from eBay, telling you you've been suspended, it'll come from a no-reply address and good luck actually finding any way to contact them through their website. It just sends you round and round in circles before eventually dumping you onto their 'Community' forum, which is basically just a load of other pissed off users, shouting into the void.

I know the old argument goes "Their playground. Their rules" and, in general, I agree with that. But, with these huge corporations which have a virtual monopoly on certain arenas of internet activity, there ought to be some safeguards in place to protect users against arbitrary [and often unfounded] account suspensions. This kind of thing could literally bankrupt someone's business, if they relied heavily on eBay sales.

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