eBay Suspends Some Seller Accounts by Mistake – Only Offers Lukewarm Apology
Just about every week eBay users post on social media that their account was suspended for no apparent reason by the company.
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The reality is that most account suspensions are for good reason, usually involving some questionable activity like shill bidding, repeat or egregious violations of a brand’s intellectual property rights, or violating the company’s prohibition to sell products on the platform that are then shipped from another retailer like Amazon or Walmart.
However, on Friday, eBay did actually suspend some accounts by mistake and issued the following apology:
“Earlier today, a number of eBay accounts were inadvertently suspended. The issue should be resolved in the next few hours and any sellers who need to take action will be contacted. We regret any concern this may have caused.”
eBay Statement
eBay Offers No Details
Unfortunately, as has often been the case with eBay when it comes to platform glitches, the company doesn’t give much of an explanation, leaving users wondering and frustrated.
In addition, several users whose account was suspended claimed eBay didn’t even offer a token compensation for the lost sales or the time it will take to relist the erroneously ended listings. Instead, they apparently just received the standard eBay reinstatement email, showing no remorse for the problems they caused.
When eBay suspends an account, all active listings are ended from that account so that buyers cannot make a purchase from a seller that is no longer registered on the platform.
Once reinstated, sellers will have to relist all their ended listings either from their third-party listing tool or within the eBay Seller Hub. Either way, it takes time to relist these ended listings and some sellers may even need to reconfirm stock status if they sell on multiple platforms.
All of this takes time and a lot of effort in the middle of the busiest shopping season.
When a seller violates an eBay policy, there certainly is no obligation for eBay to accommodate a seller.
However, in this particular case, where the situation was caused by eBay, the company should at least offer some compensation to impacted sellers for the inconvenience and sales lost.
Sadly, it appears eBay is offering nothing but a lukewarm apology, “We regret any concern this may have caused.”
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Richard Meldner
Richard is co-founder of eSeller365. He has over 17 years of experience on eBay which includes tens of thousands of sales to buyers in over 100 countries and even has experience with eBay’s VeRO program enforcing intellectual property rights for a former employer. And for about two years Richard sold products on Amazon using Amazon FBA in the US.
To “relax” from the daily business grind, for a few weekends a year, he also works for IMSA as a professional race official.