Anyone ever been banned from Ebay? For no reason?

[csdude55]

I'm at an absolute loss on what's going on here.

I went to Ebay today, for the first time in a LONG time. I use Google Accounts on my browser, and it suggested that I log in through that so I did. Ebay created a username for me at 5:34pm.

From there I looked up 3 or 4 things (refrigerator parts and old tools), and specifically filtered by "sold" to see if there was a demand for what I had and how much they sold for. I emailed those links to my girlfriend and left the site.

At 5:55pm (21 minutes after registering), I received another email from Ebay, this time saying:

After reviewing your eBay account, recent activity has raised serious security concerns. As a result, we've taken the following action on your account:
- Your eBay account has been suspended indefinitely.
- Item listings have been removed. A list of removed items is available further down in this email.

You won't be able to use eBay in any way. This includes using another existing 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. Please note this decision cannot be appealed.

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.

We appreciate your understanding.

Whaaa?

I came back to the site and was still logged in to the Ebay account that was automatically created at 5:30 (apparently it still recognizes me?), and after digging around for some sort of contact information I found this same message in the Message Center. So it's not a spoof email, it's real.

I'm completely lost on this one! I didn't list anything, I didn't message anyone through the site, I didn't report anything, I didn't do anything at all! I looked at a handful of categories, one or two listings, and that's it.

I'm located in the US, and I double checked that my router is using a US IP (no VPN or anything). I have no viruses or spyware on my computer, and even though my profile page says "No longer a registered user", there are no items under "Items for sale > See all items", and nothing under "Purchase History". In the Message Center, there are no messages to or from anyone other than the 2 that I received from Ebay.

The ONLY thing I can think of is that I signed up with a new internet provider a few weeks ago, and whatismyip.com shows my IP on 6 blacklists:

nsZones.com Dyn
nsZones.com SBL+Dyn
SORBS Aggregate zone
Spamhaus SBL Spamhaus Block List
SpamRATS! all
SpamRATS! NoPtr

If that's the issue then I can request they remove my IP from their lists, but then how do I get Ebay to reconsider? I haven't been able to find any contact information, everything just leads me to their forum. But when I try to log in or submit a post, I get an API error:

{"error_id":"invalid_request","error_description":"Input request parameters are invalid.","http_status_code":400}

So, any suggestions on what to do? My girlfriend was planning to use the information I found to sell some of her dad's belongings (he passed away a few weeks ago) and help her mom out financially, but now we're afraid for her to even log in to the account she set up 20+ years ago for fear that she'll be immediately suspended!

[not2easy]

I got a warning to validate my account and reset my password after I logged in there yesterday to order a deck belt for my mower. I am thinking that any fresh activity is likely to trigger this problem, since all I did yesterday was a quick search that had 5 results, selected one and spent under $20 and was forced to reset my password due to "Suspicious Activity". I would look through your spam folder to see if you might have missed a previous notification maybe. They have updated their user agreement twice this year and also changed their privacy policy. If those notifications have been ignored they may get antsy. A lot of old users' computers may be the hands of grand-kids over the summer.

I don't go there every day and did not appreciate the way they did a forced reset on the password without even requiring the old password.

If the account information that you used to log in there does not match with what you had in your eBay account I would think that the automatic "creation" of a new account username would be the cause of this issue. I never log in with cross-credentials anywhere, so I don't know what sharing takes place. Maybe deleting your cookies and trying your old login might help?

[csdude55]

Nothing in the spam folder :-( Their Message Center should be a dupe of the emails they sent, too, and all that's there are those 2: the first one welcoming me, and the second (21 minutes later) saying that I'm permanently banned.

I haven't used Ebay in yeeeears, either, but since my girlfriend's mom has a lot of used things she wants to sell (old parts, tools, machines, etc that she'll never use) I thought I'd try there first. This is a new computer (bought it from Dell in... December, I think) so there shouldn't be any previous data on here that would cause a problem. That makes me hesitant to even try to access the original account, it's old but it has a 100% rating so it would be a MUCH better account from which to sell!

The biggest issue is that I can't find a way to resolve it :-(

[not2easy]

If you previously had an account you should not have been 'welcomed' with a new account. As I recall, they don't permit multiple accounts per individual. I would guess that is why they permanently closed it. Have you tried logging in to your old account? They may force a password update, but if this was a 'new' account due to logging in with a Google Account that was not set up with your eBay information, that might have caused the ban on the new account.

[csdude55]

No, I've avoided logging in to my old account because I don't know why this one was banned, and don't want them to be connected in any way. I figure that, worst case scenario, she could take her tablet to her mom's and log in from there.

The whole thing was just weird... I was just looking around and Google popped up with the option to log in using Google Accounts. I clicked the OK button, and that was it. If that caused a problem then Ebay reeeeally needs to look at how they're interacting with Google! I fancy myself a bit of a techy and was lost, so I can only imagine that your average layman would have just been SOL.

[csdude55]

Good news for future readers!

I found this link, with a "Chat Assistant":

[ebay.com...]

I'm not sure if that ID# is unique to my account or if it's relevant for the link; I removed it, then changed it to "1234", and both gave me an error.

But I was able to chat with an agent, and they un-blocked my account. They asked a few "verification" questions that didn't actually verify anything (what kinds of things will you be selling, how long will it take you to ship, etc), so I kinda get the feeling that they know they're blocking people for no reason and so they're unblocking them upon request.

Either way, it took about 10 minutes once I found the link!