Ebay's unfair lifetime bans - who regulates ebay?

bris

mildred1978 wrote: »

It's nothing compared with the grief he'll get if he's been selling for profit and hasn't registered as self employed and paid the relevant taxes.

What a stupid comment, do you say the same thing to every ebay seller?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

noisla wrote: »

For example, one of the 4/5 stars my boyfriend had was a 10 day delivery to Switzerland

Star ratings from sales outside of the UK and Ireland are not counted towards seller performance.

soolin

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head wrote: »

Star ratings from sales outside of the UK and Ireland are not counted towards seller performance.

Good point, although frankly I find it incredibly confusing as to what is relevant where and what is not

marking_bad

What is 4/5 star?

noisla

Ah now I didn't want to get everyone caught up in debating stars and bans of a particular user account, I was just appalled at the principle, that they could target the little people, whether it's 2 lost stars or 3, 1% poor feedback or 2%. Thanks for all the feedback, I'll let you know if appealing to ebay with reason ever succeeds!

mildred1978

bris wrote: »

What a stupid comment, do you say the same thing to every ebay seller?

Only when they describe it as an income generator.

techspec

I had 12 low stars before i even realised the seller dashboard existed (why ebay dont tell you more about it, i don't know). I was not thrown off - so doubt a few low stars was the only reason.

Must be a combination of things.

I do agree though that Ebay are power mad and ruthless - and if they ever went bust i would dance in the street. A decent rival would be a start.

Contains_Mild_Peril

Whatever the exact cause of the ban might be, I don't think it's fair for people to assume that the seller must have been given adequate warnings and opportunities to rectify the situation: eBay doesn't always work like that.

I work as a volunteer in a charity shop one afternoon a week selling things on eBay. Since I basically run the eBay department by myself and I'm normally only there once a week (though I do sometimes log in from home to check for any problems), dispatch times are rarely speedy, but I've always ticked a realistic dispatch time in our listings. Nevertheless, we accumulated 4 low star ratings for dispatch time (out of about 140 transactions) in a period of a few months. When we reached 3, the maximum allowed (it's either 3 ratings or 2%, and you can exceed one but not both) we had no communication from eBay to let us know we were close to being in the red. After we got the 4th low rating, we got a message saying our account was "below standard" because of our recent increase in low ratings. The following month's message was the same, still referring to "recent" problems when we'd had nothing but good feedback since then; and the same the following month.

The "below standard" rating made it much more difficult to sell, since our listings were demoted in search results: however, we assumed that this would continue with no further penalties so long as we avoided any more bad ratings (which we did).

Then, at the start of August, we were informed that we had a selling limit of 15 items or £200 worth, whichever we reach first, per month. I tried asking for the limit to be raised or removed, explaining that the selling limit actually makes it mathematically impossible for us to bring our low DSR percentage within acceptable limits, and that our more recent ratings were much improved, but my request was refused.

Obviously this isn't nearly as bad as getting banned, but I was shocked that penalties can suddenly be imposed for perceived transgressions which occurred several months previously. It also scared me as a small eBay seller myself (and yes, I do declare my very modest eBay income to the taxman) that this sort of thing can happen out of the blue. If I had a selling limit like that on my personal account, I probably wouldn't be able to make any profit at all since I rent a lock-up for my stock and the money I'd be left with after stock outlay, eBay & Paypal fees, postage (usually more than eBay lets me charge for p&p) etc, might not even cover the rent.

I have now decided to diversify and use other sites like Gumtree, Etsy and even eBid (though I suspect its sellers outnumber buyers) because I'm increasingly aware of how risky it is to put all one's eggs in one basket - especially when the basket is rotten.

soolin

contains mild peril, your post explains the warnings though- exactly as I would expect. They don't warn on each low star, but once you get to below standard, and then each review date after that. The OP states they went straight to a ban- which is unlikely

It is worth having back up markets, even though sales are dire every where else it can't hurt to list if you have the time.

I know a few people using etsy now although some have been a little surprised at the cost. I am using facebook selling pages which are proving great for some of my items and dire for others- but worth a look. Obviously if you have books or other media then Amazon is a must.

RFW

soolin wrote: »

contains mild peril, your post explains the warnings though- exactly as I would expect. They don't warn on each low star, but once you get to below standard, and then each review date after that. The OP states they went straight to a ban- which is unlikely

I did/do have an account that went quite quickly below standard. It went from high use to low use quite quickly as I was building another account up. The warnings are usually too late to do anything about it. From being TRS using 3 months stats it went to below standard on 12 months from one month to the next.

There was only one low star tipping me into below standard and (ironically) I was told by a buyer that one was left in error but couldn't get it removed, despite the buyer also contacting them.

Having always been either above standard or TRS, I was shocked at how quick it changed. The account is back to above standard now, but for two months it was below and there was nothing I could do about it.