ebay account suspended indefinitely. Need advice.

[Dillmount]

Hi all,

I’m a new member here and I hope someone could give me some advice on what I should do regarding my eBay problems.
First a bit of backstory (if you don’t want to read the backstory, read from the fifth paragraph onwards):

I had been using eBay since around 1999 when I made my first account that I have used exclusively for buying. I have bought 100+ items using that account without any problems and have a 100% feedback there.

This year I decided I wanted to sell some stuff and created a new account registered in Europe for that. I first bought several small items to get at least a 10+ 100% feedback rating, but when I tried to list an item for sale I quickly noticed that I was not allowed to sell it on the main ebay.com site like I had planned, but only on the regional site, which has a lot less traffic. To sell on the international eBay site you have to sell at least 10+ items on the regional site and wait at least 90 days since your first sale.

I thought that would take too long, so I decided to create a third account using my family’s address in the US. I might have been a bit too impatient, because I didn’t try to build up this account with positive feedback ratings like I did my other accounts and tried to list the same item that was not allowed to be listed on eBay.com with my second account. It worked without problems this time, but I scheduled it for three weeks ahead so the actual listing had not happened yet. I immediately noticed that on this account I was limited to 5 items per month. Although my first item was listed for less than $40, I thought it would be better to try some $0.99 cent listing first and delete the other item I had scheduled.


So I created one listing for some used stamps (that I never listed on any other account) and when I tried to list them I got a warning message stating are you sure these are genuine stamps and other guideline links. I read through these guidelines and I was pretty sure I did everything according to the rules, so I listed this item for sale (about 3 weeks after the account was created). The next day I get an e-mail that my account is suspended indefinitely. Since I got that message immediately after I listed this item and no other listings were active, I assume it has something to do with the stamps. These are used stamps with cancellation markings which are 100% authentic and exactly the same stamps are listed on eBay.com right now by other sellers.

This is the e-mail I got:

“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.

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.”

If it's not the stamps, I'm not sure what else could have caused the suspension.
Currently only my third account is suspended, so what do I need to do so my other accounts won’t be suspended as well?
Also I think my third account got unfairly suspended. Is there anything I could do to appeal the situation and get reinstated?

I haven’t opened any of my eBay accounts since the suspension, but I did use the same IP address for all 3 accounts, since I figured if I did everything according to the rules, there should be no problems. That was probably a mistake and other things that will probably not help is that they are all linked to the same Paypal account, even though different e-mail addresses were used. Also the shipping address on the third account is the same as the registration address on the first two accounts.

What can I do to salvage the first two accounts and/or get my third account reinstated? Any help would be really appreciated.

[muzzie]

Welcome to the forum. Were these 3 accounts accessed recently from the same IP and the same system user? If yes, then you can forget about them, any activity inside them will probably cause suspension. So it seems that you need to build up a new stealth account, with new everything.

[RosieTosie]

Yes you typed all this Dillmount and the sentence that's tells us all we really need to know is that you used the same IP address for all 3 accounts!, all of them are now linked, as soon as you log into the other 2 they will be permanently suspended as well. You cannot have the same details across accounts. Your shipping address on one of your accounts is the same as registration address on other two accounts. Forget those accounts, learn stealth by reading on here and you will be much wiser and hopefully able to maintain your new accounts going forward.

[slokor]

Forget those accounts and move on. The way you handled them was wrong and if you had the stealth guide you would have known that.
Get the stealth guide. Study it. Implement the techniques in it when you start over fresh.

[Dillmount]

Thanks for all the replies.

Originally Posted by muzzie

Were these 3 accounts accessed recently from the same IP and the same system user? If yes, then you can forget about them, any activity inside them will probably cause suspension.

I haven’t accessed any of the accounts since the suspension, but two of the accounts were recently accessed from the same IP, however with different computers, different browsers and also not the same system user.

Originally Posted by RosieTosie

...the sentence that's tells us all we really need to know is that you used the same IP address for all 3 accounts!, all of them are now linked, as soon as you log into the other 2 they will be permanently suspended as well. You cannot have the same details across accounts.

Actually (something I just thought about) very recently my IP was changed, because a new router was installed and I think I have not accessed my first account since that IP change, but I am not 100% sure if I did not accidentally reopen some browsers where I was still logged in.

If I change my IP address again, would it still be possible to salvage my other ebay accounts?

Originally Posted by slokor

Forget those accounts...The way you handled them was wrong

I now know that I made some kind of mistake, but I am still not exactly sure what I did wrong to immediately get suspended indefinitely like that. Does anybody have an idea what the probable cause of suspension would be in my case?

According to the eBay site multiple accounts are allowed, so I don’t see how that could be the reason.
I also successfully bought items with all three accounts and prior to the suspension all three were “above standard”.
So it seems like eBay had no problems with me at all when I was just using my accounts for buying.

The suspension only came immediately after listing one item for sale on the third account (I previously successfully listed an item on my second account without problems), so I can only assume it must have something to do with that.
I did not think that stamps would be high risk items, so if it’s really the authenticity of the stamps that’s the problem, it would be good to know if that was the main reason, so that if I would want to sell stamps or anything else again, I could avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

I’ve read that some other people that got one account suspended, were still able to use their other linked account for just buying. So if hopefully a suspension for my remaining accounts could be avoided, I was thinking of using them exclusively for buying from now on and if I would want to sell again make a stealth account for that. Are there any disadvantages to using these linked accounts again for just buying if they manage to avoid suspension?

Sorry for all the long texts, I guess I’m a bit “wordy”.

[muzzie]

You were linked for using the same IP and probably same registration data. Can't tell about your items, as never seen them. Just remember that if you want separate accounts at ebay for doing things, every account should be 10000% different. Any small similarity can destroy everything.