Account suspension

dysynni

By IP address, am I right in thinking that means someone's private Wi-Fi?
If we disregard the 'table' event from last year as being the possible trigger, there is absolutely no other explanation that we can think of. I don't think anyone could have a 'cleaner' eBay record than we have. We hardly ever sell anything but post promptly when we do, normally only buy a few small bits and bobs each month (the table was a rare exception), always pay immediately the auction finishes, pay any seller fees by direct debit. 17 year 100% positive history. 
We have found out that 3 of our adult children now have a permanent suspension on their account too and the reason given is that their accounts are linked to ours.

noitsnotme

GabbaGabbaHey said:

A_Lert said:

If eBay are banning people purely on the basis of having once used the same IP address as a miscreant, that's an absolute load of bull.

I can't imagine that it's as simple as IP address. Most people's IP addresses change when they disconnect/reconnect to their ISP (unless they have requested a static IP address), and it would not be at all unusual for a user to access eBay from a number of different IP addresses (home, work, hotels, friends' houses, etc) over time.

They absolutely can and do link accounts by same IP addresses.  EBay and Amazon have been doing this for years.  Amazon even more so as they do not allow more than one selling account.  Bookmakers also do it all the time and ban duplicate accounts where the same IP address is recorded.

Even without it being static, your IP address can remain the same for a long time.  Many people never reset their routers for starters.

I would never use my eBay account when connected to anyone else’s Wi-fi and as I said above, if any friends or family connect to my home Wi-fi they’re not allowed to use their eBay accounts.  I’ve been protecting my business by doing this for 12 years.

noitsnotme

dysynni said:

By IP address, am I right in thinking that means someone's private Wi-Fi?
If we disregard the 'table' event from last year as being the possible trigger, there is absolutely no other explanation that we can think of. I don't think anyone could have a 'cleaner' eBay record than we have. We hardly ever sell anything but post promptly when we do, normally only buy a few small bits and bobs each month (the table was a rare exception), always pay immediately the auction finishes, pay any seller fees by direct debit. 17 year 100% positive history. 
We have found out that 3 of our adult children now have a permanent suspension on their account too and the reason given is that their accounts are linked to ours.

How are all your adult children linked to you in respect of eBay?  Did they all at some point live at your address when they were using eBay (would the home address they once gave eBay have been your current address)?

Do you absolutely 100% know that all your adult children have flawless histories with their eBay accounts?

dysynni

Yes to both of your questions, noitsnotme. They probably were still living at home when they first opened an eBay account, though I can't be certain as a couple are well into their 30s and that's a long time ago now. Yes I am 100% sure they wouldn't have triggered this. They haven't used eBay for ages - probably years. And the notification of suspension clearly gave the reason being their association with our account. Curiously, the eBay account of one of our children hasn't been affected.

GabbaGabbaHey

dysynni said:

By IP address, am I right in thinking that means someone's private Wi-Fi?

Not quite. Every router will have an IP address, which is how it is known to the internet. The IP address which your ISP assigns to your router at home will normally change every time you reboot the router, but everybody in your house will share that one (external) IP address while it is current. In the same way, everybody accessing the internet in a Starbucks (or wherever) will share the IP address of that coffee shop.
If you access eBay from your phone when you are not connected to your home network, then you will use a different IP address, this time one provided by your telco.
I've accessed eBay from tens, if not hundreds, of different IP addresses (mostly hotel rooms) over the years and I personally have never had a problem.
If eBay do use shared IP addresses as an anti-fraud measure, they would only do so in conjunction with additional common factors between accounts; it would not be a sufficiently reliable indicator to use on its own.

noitsnotme

GabbaGabbaHey said:

dysynni said:

By IP address, am I right in thinking that means someone's private Wi-Fi?

If eBay do use shared IP addresses as an anti-fraud measure, they would only do so in conjunction with additional common factors between accounts; it would not be a sufficiently reliable indicator to use on its own.

I do agree with this and perhaps me refusing to use publicly accessible wifi networks is overkill.  I've just seen and heard of too many supposedly innocent people over the years losing eBay and Amazon accounts where the linking of IP addresses was a distinct possibility.

In the OPs case they said they had family using their house in August while they were away.  If one of those people was accessing their eBay account regularly on the same IP address the OP uses, that could potentially be the culprit.

@dysynni - were the family you mention staying at your house some of your adult children or was it someone else?

dysynni

No, not one of our children - it was more distant family members. We have no financial connection with them at all.

noitsnotme

dysynni said:

No, not one of our children - it was more distant family members. We have no financial connection with them at all.

Have you asked them if they used eBay on your wifi connection?  If they used your wifi to connect to their eBay account several times, that could certainly lead to eBay linking their account to yours.

Having no financial connection to them is irrelevant.

dysynni

Do you think it's just the possible access of their eBay account while staying here that might have triggered this? (I haven't raised this with them yet.) Or could logging into their PayPal also have done it? 

noitsnotme

dysynni said:

Do you think it's just the possible access of their eBay account while staying here that might have triggered this? (I haven't raised this with them yet.) Or could logging into their PayPal also have done it? 

I would have thought they would have to had something dodgy/negative going on with their account.  I don’t think just logging on to multiple healthy accounts would be a problem. I have 4 eBay accounts all accessed through the same IP addresses.