EBay account suspended. Help!

mossstitchmama wrote: »

Posting on behalf of my daughter who is at university. I don't know all the facts so please bear with me.

My daughter has just purchased a textbook for her university course, and then received this email from eBay;

Hello *****
Your eBay account was suspended because recent account activity has raised security concerns. We've taken this precaution to protect our members while we make sure that the activity doesn't cause harm - however unintentionally - to the eBay community.

You won't be able to use eBay in any way. This includes using another account or registering a new account.

Any outstanding selling fees are due immediately and any amounts that you haven't previously disputed will be charged to the billing method currently on file.

Regards

EBay customer service"

She's panicking as she only tried to buy a textbook for her uni course (psychology). I don't know exactly which book but I can ask if you think it's relevant.

Please can you help me to help her as she's hundreds of miles away and I'm not there to help.

Thank you very much.

It's going to be difficult to advise you without more info, as we can only guess what's happened and may be wildly inaccurate. There is also the possibility that even you won't know the actual truth - just in case something has been done in the past which daughter now regrets.

Firstly though, it might just be a co incidence that the purchase of a text book has triggered this, it just might be completely unrelated. It is almost unknown for a buyer only to be suspended, I can't think of any situation apart from shill building or buying from a linked account where a buyer can be perceived to be at fault.

some random thoughts that might need to be considered:

1) At some point in the past the account has been used for something against ebay rules, perhaps a 'pay day loan' type scam or a false INR/SNAD claim. Young people are often more lax with their passwords around friends than us older more paranoid people tend to be and maybe if it wasn't your daughter someone else used their account.

2) as above, someone in the past has used the account, either with or without your daughter's knowledge and a warning was received but overlooked and this has now resulted in a full ban.

3) the ISP has previously been used by a scammer, this is actually a more likely scenario when using university digs, it is not uncommon for students in certain areas to run small time scams, many years ago I got caught up in one from a uni near Bournemouth that was apparently rife among short term student placements.

4) another family member that has some shared info, maybe an ISP, address or something has been restricted and this is the knock on effect.

I would advise your daughter to phone ebay and keep phoning them- in case it is 3) or 4) above she needs to make it clear she has just moved into uni digs and it might be the ISP has triggered the ban that has nothing at all to do with her.

There was a similar scenario recently on another board, a small B and B owner who sold on ebay as a business was restricted as one of her guests, using the home wi fi was restricted and it linker her to their account, so it can happen.

19lottie82 wrote: »

Are you sure the email is actually from eBay? Did you DD read it in her ebay messaging system or was it through her email account?
Can she still log into her eBay account?
It could be a phishing scam?

I did consider that but the cut and paste message had no links - so it didn't seem an obvious phish.

Unfortunately I really don't think we have a lot to go on here until OP comes back with more information.

mossstitchmama wrote: »

Thanks for your replies so far. She's in a lecture atm. I've advised her to try eBay chat when she comes back to her flat and see if that can sort it out.

I think this is the first time she has bought from eBay since moving. I can see that using the uni WiFi may have led to some confusion if there had been a problem with a previous occupant.

I now have the book title, which might suggest the problem.

How children develop by Nancy Eisenberg, Robert Siegel.

Do you think this would have flagged up anything (abuse etc.)?

I think it is unlikely the book purchase is involved

tyllwyd wrote: »

If her ebay address is her home address, do you think it might be because she's asked for it to be delivered to her halls of residence instead?

As long as buyers add the new address to the PayPal payment it's fine, buyers can have as many addresses as they want registered.

custardy wrote: »

If its a shared IP, then she may be caught up being associated with a previously banned account on that IP.

That's my gut feeling on this.