RE: Ebay problem?
I'm sorry I didn't see this earlier given the number of folks who just can't possibly believe it's anything other than phishing. The fact of the matter is that this kind of thing happens all the time - I'm an on again off again powerseller which means I have on again off again access to the powerseller forum on eBay. Many of these guys have multiple selling accounts (because they sell more than one kind of thing) and they have constant problems with eBay - as an example they'll kill an account for shill bidding, and it will turn out that it's because somebody at their workplace bid on their item, and everybody at the same workplace has the same IP address. When the workplace is a major corporation this happens more often than you might think. There was one convoluted thread recently where somebody's ex-wife new boyfriend had some problems, but there was a chain of association where all of their accounts were deemed to be the same person by eBay. To divert to a later reply for a moment - I'm not at all surprised that the one person got suspended for Nazi stuff - it's illegal to sell in Germany and after various lawsuits eBay just banned them from the site entirely. Basically eBay rules are a combination of the least common denominator of what's legal in every country they operate in combined with some politics (they're incredibly anti-second amendment - Google if you're interested, no point in discussing that here). I actually had my account suspended for selling "mature items" even though they were clearly allowed by eBay rules. I challenged it and got basically the same form letter - we're reviewed it and you're out of luck. But before I even received the suspension I'd already challenged the items being removed which led to having enough points to be suspended. Well, *those guys* found that the pictures were clearly allowed, and the points were removed, and it automatically percolated through the system and the account came back. But there was only about a two hour window in which to do that - I couldn't have once the account was suspended. Note that even though eBay did put my account back, I had to recreate all 250 items in the store, and they'd sent a nasty note to everybody who was bidding on or who had recently won an item saying I'd been suspended. Some of them were regulars who never did come back. I couldn't even log in to see where I was supposed to send items that had already been paid for - luckily I had my own records. Oh, and I had a problem on another selling account because I tried to sell a packet of southwest airlines drink coupons. You can't sell alcohol on eBay unless it's in a collectable bottle, and you can't sell a coupon for anything that's forbidden. Therefore you can't sell drink coupons. But it never says you can't sell drink coupons, you just have to know how these two rules interact. In terms of calling them, you have to be a "silver Powerseller" or above to get phone support - I think that's $3K/month of sales. I've heard of some folks who had luck looking up their investor relation information and sending a letter to the CEO and other important folks in the company, but it's mixed, many people never hear back. Doug
|