No eBay

Going_Digital

eBay seems to be one of those things that seem unavoidable, it seems great for finding things that you probably won't find easily elsewhere. All seems good until that is something goes wrong.

I have finally decided to close my eBay and PayPal account because I have had enough of the lack of interest eBay seems to have in ensuring that things are kept fair and safe for everyone.

Now the trouble is for people who have not yet had a problem with eBay or PayPal will likely see people who complain to be ranting and to a certain extent a lot of the complaints are from people ranting because they simply did not get their own way in a dispute. But actually a great deal of the complaints I have seen do seem to have a lot of merit, with obvious examples of sellers and buyers being scammed and eBay just ignoring it or eBay taking unwarranted action against people and not being given any opportunity to defend themselves.

I would consider myself a fairly savvy person, not easily drawn in by scams etc, but I have been caught out a couple of times, once with some memory I bought from seller fastmemoryman that was supposed to be in the UK that when it did not work I was expected to send it back tracked to America at my expense even though I deliberately chose a UK seller and the memory was sent from the UK, eBay insisted it must be sent to the address in America, thanks eBay ! Then later I bought a laptop battery that cost nearly £50 from Hong Kong, the battery failed after about 6 weeks so I had to return it, but a replacment never came, eBay/PayPay would do nothing as it was outside their 30day claim period.

Anyway I thought well sometimes you just get caught out and carried on using eBay and accepting that sometimes things go wrong. But the final straw came this weekend when my account was suspended for no apparent reason, I am supposedly one of their valued customers being given special treatment such as a dedicated customer support line number not given to most eBay users etc etc, but they still see fit to suspend my account without giving me an opportunity to give explain anything. So what deadly sin did I commit to warrant suspension ? I left negative feedback for two transactions with a seller that I had a bad experience with. Urrm isn't that the idea of feedback, if you have a bad experience you share that with others. I found the seller to be aggressive and uncooperative so I left 1 neutral and one negative feedback saying "Not happy with sellers attitude". Feedback was not rude or offensive in any way and completely factual.

So apparently the seller started a dispute and that means my account is suspended, eBay clearly have no idea what dispute means as there is no ability for me to respond to the dispute, eBay just took unilateral action against me, a so called valued buyer with several years of unblemished record with them.

So I have decided to close my account, but they won't let me because there is an outstanding dispute, how stupid can you get ?

I am very angry with eBay but I'm trying to be level headed and warn others about the kind of treatment you are likely to receive from eBay at some point in the future. It seems there are many people who are unhappy with eBay. I think to be honest I will be better off without eBay as I won't be tempted to bid for things I don't really need.

StaffsSW

Going_Digital wrote: »

So apparently the seller started a dispute and that means my account is suspended.

Did you pay for the item, or was it refunded after you left the feedback?

Going_Digital

Item was paid for and received, no refund was requested, the dispute was simply about the feedback. He objected to the negative feedback and eBay automatically suspended my account for 'Disruption'. The so called dispute had no opportunity for me to respond to the complaint.

StaffsSW

So what dispute was opened against you?

Going_Digital

Here is the message from ebay ...

"We regret to inform you that your eBay account has been suspended for Intent to Disrupt Your account will remain suspended for a minimum of 3 days. During your suspension you are prohibited from using eBay in any way, including registering new accounts. Doing so may result in your permanent suspension. We have ended any open listings. Please be advised that this suspension does not relieve you of your obligation to pay any fees that you may owe to eBay.

Here's what you can do now:

Thank you for your cooperation in this important matter."

Note the section 'here's what you can do now' is empty.

soolin

It sounds like malicious bidding then, ie bidding with an intent to leave non positive feedback.

Had you previously had any history with this seller and/or have you left many non positives?

StaffsSW

To me that either sounds like the seller is abusing the "report suspicious buyer activity" or "report feedback abuse" facilty. They must have said something about you that gave ebay reason to suspend, but leaving two non-positive feedback is not enough. Maybe they fabricated emails or suchlike.

If you still have the ebay customer support number, i'd give them a call - you will probably need your account reference number which you can find in My Ebay Summary > Seller Account > View Account Activity - the number is at the top and looks something like E1234567890GBP

TurkishDelight

Did you buy from a competitor? Did they maybe think you were auction wreaking? I've got to say that I am surprised that a powerseller is buying on the same account as selling. (not that it matters too much in this case, one gets suspended, they all do.)

Going_Digital

No the strange thing is all I did was buy two items from the seller over a period of a few days, The seller was not happy because one of his auctions went for less than he wanted so tried to fleece me on postage. When I complained about his attempt to increase the cost with the postage charge he got all shirty with me complaining about how he had already lost out. So I didn't like his attitude so I left neutral feedback on one item and negative on the second (the one that he tried bolstering the postage on).

It doesn't really matter much though, even if for some reason I had done something that warranted a complaint the main complaint is that ebay is very one sided, It seems that if a seller or buyer makes a complaint ebay just takes action against the other party regardless of wether there are genuine grounds to do so. They also call this a dispute but give no chance for the person having a complaint made against them to defend themselves. This is not a dispute it is a an infraction.

Going_Digital

stevew8975 wrote: »

If you still have the ebay customer support number, i'd give them a call - you will probably need your account reference number which you can find in My Ebay Summary > Seller Account > View Account Activity - the number is at the top and looks something like E1234567890GBP

Thanks for the suggestion, I did that but got nowhere. Customer support my bottom, nothing more than a human version of the on-line FAQ, they can do nothing, their supervisor even said they have no authority to do anything about suspensions. Really what the line is for is for people who like to listen to instructions being read to them instead of reading them on the web site.

Brooker_Dave

Going_Digital wrote: »

No the strange thing is all I did was buy two items from the seller over a period of a few days, The seller was not happy because one of his auctions went for less than he wanted so tried to fleece me on postage. When I complained about his attempt to increase the cost with the postage charge he got all shirty with me complaining about how he had already lost out. So I didn't like his attitude so I left neutral feedback on one item and negative on the second (the one that he tried bolstering the postage on).

Was seller a powerseller by any chance?