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Go check your sleeper accounts!
 

Just a friendly reminder for everyone to go check their sleepers now and then... log in and bump around for a minute, don't forget them....

I had 3 accounts I sold a LOT on for years (since 2011) with clever names and so on, that I didn't use because people I used to work with knew them and could see what I was selling, and so I "saved" them for one day when I had some full time business or something to use them for.

Well, imagine my surprise when last night I couldn't log in, and then I search for the user name and it's GONE! No such user found. Oh, the floor of my stomach dropped. I know I wasn't in a few of the accounts for over a year but thought that 700+ FB and everything in good standing would keep it in the system, but nope!

I don't know if there's a time limit for unused accounts or if they do housekeeping every so many years, but just make sure you log in them every so often. Even established accounts in good standing obviously have some kind of clock on them... :shocked:

Re: Go check your sleeper accounts!
 

A few months ago this happened with my Aunt's old account they used to sell t-shirts, pins, and model kits on from their website. It had over 9000 feedback and was from 2002, and hadn't been logged into for a good 3 or 4 years, and assumed it was still there. When I checked recently, I can't find it anywhere, no trace at all. My Aunt has yet to call eBay to ask what happened.

Re: Go check your sleeper accounts!
 

It's heartbreaking. And I bet it would be easier to set up something completely new rather than fight with them to reinstate the old ones. Oddly enough, my old suspended accounts seem to be floating around out there forever.

Re: Go check your sleeper accounts!
 

Here is what I SUSPECT that may be happening, although I have no proof of this:

Maybe the email that is registered on these dormant accounts that have been sitting for years is bouncing emails back to eBay, so they assume the account is no longer in use and "remove" it from their system?

The other thing is that my aunts account was tied to an old domain (along with email) and it long since had expired. Naturally if the domain is no longer registered, email is going to bounce. This might had something to do with it??

It would be interesting to hear what eBay says about these old accounts "missing". I simply thought that accounts that were closed simply show as "NARU" (Not A Registered User) but were still visible, forever. Doesn't seem to be the case here, does it?

Re: Go check your sleeper accounts!
 

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Re: Go check your sleeper accounts!
 

Accounts that aren't used for a specified amount of time gets deleted by eBay.
This has been going on for a while now. I forgot how long before it happens, but this is what they do now.

Re: Go check your sleeper accounts!
 

They usually send a warning email, but not always, as SaiJin says it's been that way for several years lately.