AuctionCut

Okay here is the rundown...

I was a top seller, I was approaching 1000 100% positive feedback. I had a family emergency that needed my full attention and my ebay fees were not paid on time. Because of the emergency, some of my buyers didn't get their items quickly and then they filed a dispute that went against me. So in a nut shell my account on ebay and paypal was suspended and blocked.

After the family emergency, it was all down hill from there. Since ebay was my main income after losing my job, I ended up losing my place to live. It took me almost 2 years to get my life back in order. When I did, I contacted ebay and paypal to see what I needed to do to get my accounts back. I was told that all I nedded to do was pay the balance on both accounts and I would be reinstated. I did that and I got my paypal back, however ebay absolutely refuses to give me my account back. I was not given a reason, just that they have decided to no longer do business with me. The only piece of info I got was that some of my family members who share some of my info on their accounts, like address and phone numbers, have their accounts suspended for various reasons ans my account is linked with theirs. I even asked before paying off the balances that there wouldn't be any surprises. I was always told no, just pay the balance and I would be good to go.

I depend on ebay. It makes up for alot of my income and now I have been kicked off for good because of other peopes actions. I can't start another account with a different name since my paypal will be linked to accept payments and I really don't want to go against the rules. I am trying to do things the right way. I even sent an e-mail begging for my account back to the main CEO of ebay, John Donahoe, to all three e-mail addresses I found for him. I also sent a letter in the mail. I have not heard anything back.

I am at a standstill right now and I don't know what else to do. If anyone else out there has any information that could help me, PLEASE tell me!

Your best thing to do is just start a new account, and make it top priority even in a family emergency.
If your account was your sole income, you should have done more to protect yourself, and or accessed a computer at the other locations you had to go to , or whatever.
In today's world, there is no reason that you couldn't gain access to a computer for an hour or two during the emergency to keep your business end active and your customers informed. You can always access a computer at a public library, an internet cafe, many hotel and motels have a public access computer, etc.
Even if you couldn't have sent the actual items out, you could have at least kept your customers informed on a daily basis and avoided the disputes and thus, avoided the loss of your account.

If you can't beg and plead ebay to give your account back, then opening a new account is your only choice, and if they totally revoked your account and told you not to join under another name, you will have to get a P.O. Box or use someone else's address and a credit card with a billing address the same as the address you are setting up.

As for the linked accounts, I too learned the hard way about allowing your account to be associated with other's accounts with a similar situation regarding my ebay account. Something other's did got me suspended right along with them. The way ebay linked the accounts was the credit card used to register the accounts was the same name on the card, not even a name that was on any of the ebay accounts but my Mother, my Nephew, and I used one of my Father's cards to register the ebay accounts. We were using dial up back then so we all had different IP addresses.

Hi desertcloud,

It's so unfortunate how things turned out for you. But at this point I really can't seem to find any way around your problem with eBay. From what you wrote something obviously big happened either on your account on a relative's account (whom you are linked to maybe you share the same IP address, home address or phone number) which made eBay block your account permanently.

Maybe its time for you to start selling elsewhere. There are other viable auction sites where others have started selling at and maybe you should too.

For a list of alternatives, check out the links below:

http://www.salehoo.com/blog/sick-of-eba ... es-to-sell
http://www.salehoo.com/blog/a-real-ebay ... mes-better
http://www.salehoo.com/blog/addoway-mix ... e-you-rich

Hope this helps.

Unfortunate for all of us sellers, ebay buyers are impatient, heartless, and vindictive plain and simple.

I am not being harsh or mean here now, but only stating the truth, you could have prevented this had you sent out emails to your customers that you had a family emergency and were going to be away for a short time.
Also, in today's world of connectivity, you could have went to a library, and internet cafe, or even borrowed someones computer and updated your customers with the news that you were called away with an emergency. Even if you couldn't actually ship out the items, notifying your customers would have put most of them on stand by and you would have avoided this whole incident.
In a case like this, I am sorry to point out, ebay and the buyers are not at fault. Of course the buyers all filed disputes if you just disappeared from business, what did you actually expect?

You only hope here is to open a new bank account and get a check card in a business name. You open the bank account as "DOING BUSINESS AS yourbusinessname" then you will need to get a new phone number, use Google Voice and then link the new number to your current phone number. So far there is no charge for these changes, but here is the one that may cost you and you will need to do this first so your new bank account will have this, a new address. You may have to open a P.O. Box unless you have a nearby family member that will allow you to use their address as a Registration address with ebay. You can still send from your home, but you will have to register under the new address and list is as your returns address as well.

It is a real boat load of poop when you get banned permanently from ebay and you actually need them. It should be illegal to be banned permanently, only suspended.