Ebay suspended/Paypal limited....Feel violated

Glamorepuss · #1 08-22-2010

Hi Everyone,

Newbie here.....Driven here by recent events involving eBay and Paypal.
A very long story, but i'll try to keep it brief.

Opened my first ebay account in 2003 selling and buying the odd item and managed to build up a feedback of around 240 (100%)

Decided to go into business with my now ex in March of this year selling makeup, skincare etc. Set everything up with his ebay account and my paypal account. 100% feedback - business doing fine

Everything was going well until we split up at the end of june, and i decided to branch out with my son. Ex left owing me about £600.

I opened a new ebay account solely for business use and linked my sons paypal account to it as we were in business together didn't think this was a problem.

Ex-continued to use my paypal account for a couple of weeks whilst he was sorting things out, no problems with that initially. He started dragging his feet so i closed that account.

I opened another paypal account using the same email address as the one closed, and fround a number of transactions waiting. I contacted my ex to ask why he was still using the account, to which i had no response....to cut this part of the story short, my ex diverted several transactions from his ebay business to my paypal account. I though this was his way of paying back the money he owed me. This went on for a couple of weeks, then stopped. In total I received around £100 this way. Not a huge amount and no issues came out of this as the items sold were dispatched and everyone was happy.

In the meantime, i had set up my make up business with my new ebay account which was also going along nicely, 88 100% feedback in a week or so.

I then decided that maintaining two account was too much hassle so i ended the listings on the new account and reopened the shop on my old account.

Business shot up, sold around 250 items in 3 weeks, all posted and aside from the odd ' item not arrived' everything was fine

(******Taking a deep breath***********:D)

I think we sold too much too quickly, because about two weeks ago, my son got an email saying his paypal account has been limited due to the number of transactions etc, can he send ID etc.
We sent the things required, only to be told he was too young (he is 17) to have a paypal account. I didn't know this as it was all verified and everything (should have read the TOS - smile)....anyway no real issues there, i transfered the money out of that account into my other account and left about £25.00 to cover any refunds etc (didn't get any).

He then got an email back saying 'parting way and all that other cr$%, but he can withdraw his money. I suppose they cannot hold the money of someone not old enough to sign a contract???????

I then decided to open another paypal account solely for my business, and changed all of the listings to the new paypal account email.

Whilst this is all going on, i was keeping an eye on my ex's business (we sold some of the same things, so we were to a certain extent competitors. In the space of about 3 weeks he racked up about 25 negative/neutral feedback. Which was a bit of a shock as he had about 550 100% positive up till then. This must have been a red flag to Paypal

Things were going well for me though, i had 100% and some very happy customers, then last week, Bang out of the blue my new ebay account was suspended MC018 FIT (i think) and all listings removed. Even though there were no listings on this account

. I then got an email asking for ID, proof that ended listings were in my possession (duh, items all sold)..... and it's basically been down hill since then.

New paypal account now limited (for unusual/potentially high risk transactions - Yeah selling makeup: real high risk) , with my money £350 being held for 180 days, old ebay account of 7 years suspended. When i called ebay asking for an explanation, they told me that it was because of the issues i was having with paypal (what f^&%ing issues? Paypal won't tell me

)

eBay say that it is all down to Paypal, and that i should sort things out with Paypal first......BTW Paypal appeal denied!!!

Oh, i forgot to mention...My ex's account went down sometime before mine, so i have a sneaky suspicion that i have been linked to him and his recent spate of bad feedback, hence the reason why both of my 100% feedback accounts have gone down.

Sorry guys for the long rant, but i've been holding this all in for the last week

Glamorepuss · #2 08-22-2010

Forgot to mention.
I was going to take the majority of my business off ebay anyway as i find the fees too high and the whole selling experience extremely stressful, but i got lazy and enjoyed the rush of the sales i was getting on ebay. I've been setting up my website for the last four weeks, so it will be full steam ahead with that now.
Still wanted to keep my ebay account though to get rid of clearance and old stock, but looks like i'll be using ebid for that now.
Not the same volume of traffic, but a hell of a lot cheaper that ebay.

DogFacedBoy · #3 08-22-2010

Welcome to the forums...most of us here feel your frustration.
I think that the biggest frustration that I have is they (both Paypal and ebay) ever really explain why you were shut down. But methinks the reason for that is that is that if they tell us what we did wrong we'd avoid it the "next time"

jeffweico · #4 08-22-2010

Makeup CAN be considered high-risk by eBay/PayPal - IF it is a brand name.

Go to DHgate and search for what you are selling. If you find it on DHgate, it means that it is a highly counterfeited item, and therefore high-risk.

I am NOT saying that YOUR merchandise is counterfeit. Only that eBay/PayPal would view it as POTENTIALLY counterfeit.

Add in the fact that all of these accounts were linked, the problems your ex was having and that they found that you son, a minor, had an account.

Any one of the above scenarios could easily lose you an account. You had a TRIFECTA! If they didn't close the accounts I would be shocked.

Building you own website is very smart. But it will take a while to build your traffic and get sales. So you may want to go stealth on eBay/PayPal.

Read the Stealth Book. Three times! The lightbulbs will start turning on, I promise, and you can regain some lost sales. And, no I don't benefit in any way if you buy the book. I am just a very satisifed customer that was helped greatly by this. Especially in THIS economy!

Glamorepuss · #5 08-22-2010

"I think that the biggest frustration that I have is they (both Paypal and ebay) ever really explain why you were shut down. "

@dogfacedboy, Thanks for the welcome. LOL....that seems too much like common sense

"But methinks the reason for that is that is that if they tell us what we did wrong we'd avoid it the "next time"

I believe your right....and if we avoid it next time, then they wouldn't have anyone to limit or suspend, and they'll all be out of a job!!

Glamorepuss · #6 08-22-2010

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffweico

Makeup CAN be considered high-risk by eBay/PayPal - IF it is a brand name.

Go to DHgate and search for what you are selling. If you find it on DHgate, it means that it is a highly counterfeited item, and therefore high-risk.

I am NOT saying that YOUR merchandise is counterfeit. Only that eBay/PayPal would view it as POTENTIALLY counterfeit!

.

Your absolutely right, and having already been stung by the chinese market (in my naive days, i bought some MAC items from tootoomart. as soon as it arrived, i knew it was ⊗⊗⊗⊗. I ended up chucking the lot, about £60's worth in the bin), i avoid anything and everything that can be made/bought there like the plague.

I was determined to do everything right, so i made sure that i only dealt with other UK/US ebay sellers, usually top-rated, or from reputable UK cosmetics wholesalers, of which there are plenty.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffweico

Add in the fact that all of these accounts were linked, the problems your ex was having and that they found that you son, a minor, had an account.

Any one of the above scenarios could easily lose you an account. You had a TRIFECTA! If they didn't close the accounts I would be shocked!

.

TRIFECTA, LOL - like that word. When i spoke to paypal about my son, they admitted to me that they regularly close down accounts belonging to minors because they have no way of checking the age of the person during account registration. (a company this size and no measure in place to age verify!!!!!! go figure) and it's usually only when things start to go wrong that they find out. They also told me that they understand that a lot of people don't read their TOC's, so in certain circumstances, they will close the account with no fuss.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jeffweico

Building you own website is very smart. But it will take a while to build your traffic and get sales. So you may want to go stealth on eBay/PayPal.

Read the Stealth Book. Three times! The lightbulbs will start turning on, I promise, and you can regain some lost sales. And, no I don't benefit in any way if you buy the book. I am just a very satisifed customer that was helped greatly by this. Especially in THIS economy!

Willing to put in the work for my website, as i don't want anyone/thing to have the sort of control over my business the way ebay/paypal did.
I put so much time and effort, often working into the night perfecting my shop, descriptions, terms, pictures etc and ebay/paypal destroyed that in one fell swoop. They will never ever have the power to ever make me feel they way they have over the last two weeks. So i will put in the work for my website and do what i can to make it a success.

PS....Serious considering eBay Stealth just so i can put two fingers up to ebay/paypal and to also get rid of old/clearance stock, so watch this space.