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eBay are terrible
 

I am currently living in poverty due to my business been raped by eBay and Paypal, I have 13 pence to my name and owe £1000's, I dont even have the money to 'charge' up prepaid debit cards or open bank accounts with a £1 deposit. I am on anti-depressants from the doctors due to the stress and anxiety caused by dealing with eBay and watching my once profitable business go down the pan. I realise I am not alone after seeing the stuff on these forums. I just hope that I can get back on eBay as I have a lot of money tied up in stuff that is taking up space I have to pay rent on and if I dont start selling soon it will all be repossessed. All the stuff you have to go thorough to try and get back on eBay and paypal is very complicated and conflicting / out of date and I'm not even convinced that any of it works given that eBay keep bringing in new ID verification procedures /checks etc. I'm just hoping I can get something sorted out before xmas / nye otherwise I am looking at doing myself in cos I am really sick of it all.

No offense, but if you are dead broke after being booted from ebay so soon, I don't know how successful your business was in the first place. Anyway, it is not that hard or expensive to get back onto ebay or paypal. Use ccleaner to clear your cookies, change your ip address, get a VCC gift card form the internet, search around you can get them for around $5, alter your name and address and register. Finally, use one of the free phone services to get a disposable phone number to verify ebay so you can start selling again. Good luck.

Dear Johnnyleeds,

Its a sad fact that most full time ebay sellers need multiple accounts on ebay nowadays just to continue trading. Its too risky to have only one account or even three. The system is inadequate for the needs of serious businesses and hobby sellers alike.

I was in your position a few years ago, and it really hurts, I know. You can get through this and start selling again next week. The advice here does work, just read all the success stories and you'll see that its true.

I feel your pain man.Keep your head up.But in the future imagine eBay like your stock portfolio..would you invest all your money in one stock..?Once you get back on your feet open up a savings account and save a little each month for rainy days such as these.

Whatever doesn't kill you...can only make you stronger...best of luck to you.

Try to dump your whole load in one shot on craigslist until you can get back on again and then start new. At least you do not have to pay rent if you sell everything in one shot.

Hi Jonny,

Times are hard right now mate, ebay are tightening up their selling rules. It's not just you buddy, they're hitting everyone. They've limited 3 of my 4 accounts for 30 days. I'm down to my last 1 and frantically making new ones and building up the feedback.

The advice people give you here really works, just follow it to the T. Also, look at other ways of selling apart from fleabay. (craigslist, google, other auction sites). The best thing to do is make your own website, list all of your items on your own website and promote it like hell through as many auction sites/directories/blogs as you can. Nobody can limit you from your OWN website can then?

Making a website sounds daunting but it's really not that hard. There's loads of templates available and also loads of free software out there (so you don't even need to know how to use HTML code). If you PM me, i'd be more than happy to help out. We'll get you back up and running way before xmas mate.

johnnyleeds, be glad in the UK you get free healthcare. In the USA, you don't get that.

USA healthcare sucks. You pay for just seeing the doctor's face $200. Anyway, sorry for your current situation, hope it gets better soon. This is a hard lesson learned, you never put all your eggs in one basket. I suggest you list immediately on ebid, ioffer, or anther auction site. Good luck.

Sure we do, it's called medicaid.

To the OP -- sorry about your circumstances. Sending you warm wishes!!!!

Thanks for the advice folks, I have been suspended from eBay a couple of times - despite having had hundreds of good feedback comments, usually over someone with less than ten feedback launching a dispute over an item that sold for under a fiver that they claim never arrived and despite me refunding them and taking the loss I still was suspended.

I'm just getting very sick of it all, its sent me into depression and my head is buzzing with the amount of stuff you have to do to try and get a new paypal and ebay account. Ebay used to be a good earner and I used to take pride in the service I provided and the quality things I sold but for it all to be wiped out by eBay themselves just makes me feel sick.

I still have £1000's of pounds worth of stuff that I havent yet sold that I have invested money in and ironically I dont have the money to set up credit cards / bank accounts / landline phone numbers etc so I feel like I am in a catch 22 situation. I feel like I'm in a kind of eBay limbo at the moment and the situation with getting accounts seems to be getting harder and harder.

Anyway I'm going to try, but I even tried to open an account for a friend the other day with all legitimate details using his computer / landline phone / credit card etc and they rejected his credit card! If I cant get something sorted out soon I'm just going to have to sell the lot at the car boot sale and cut my losses.

Multiple accounts are the answer
 

The other poster was correct. You need to have multiple accounts. I got my one and only eBay account suspended over a month ago for reasons that only eBay knows. I have spent the last 6 weeks studying how to go "stealth" and I have set up 10 eBay accounts and each one has a confirmed PAYPAL account with no limits. Still, I think that I need more. Even though I followed Aspkin's and Modee's advise to the letter, I still feel vulnerable and think that they might find me out. The real answer is to set up your own website so that you don't have to worry about some lowly paid eBay employee in the T&S dept. -having a bad day - flipping the switch on your account. You probably don't want to hear this but eBay alone is risky no matter how many accounts you have.

Yes, its best to just start your only website. You have total control and you are selling with ebay as your CEO. I too sell on ebay with multiple accounts and paypal accounts for each, all confirmed and verified, just aging and waiting to start selling. However, i have my own website which I use profits from ebay to fund marketing my website. I have noticed sales beginning to pick up.

I still plan is to have 25 accounts by christmas, even through I have a website.

DO NOT rely on one account, rotate your accounts and let them "cool off" after you've had a lot of activity on an account. Constantly change your formats, etc. The key is to stay under the radar.

Johnny,

Can you think about gettin a temporary job so to get the money worries off your back? I know that after being your own ebay boss it sucks having to go back and work for someone else but it might help your situation a little. It will give you a bit of a breather from ebay for a while and might help you sum up your choices for future web-sales more rationally.

I take it your in Leeds - I used to live there and I know that this time of year all the shops are recruiting for part-time/temporary Christmas jobs (and the students don't take 'em as they all go home for Xmas).

What I'd do is get the chedder rolling in, make plans to get your own web-site set up, and in your spare time see if it's viable to sell your gear on Amazon/Play/Ebid.

Anythings possible in this world so you'll be able to get yourself back on Ebay somehow but the moral of the story should be not to 'have all your eggs in one basket'. I can hardly talk though as I'm currently only selling on ebay (and yes, I have been kicked off on loads of occasions and think I will be again soon).

Hope this has helped a little anyway.

Good luck!

Squee

Hi everyone!

Again, thanks for all the advice / sympathy! I'm feeling a lot more optimistic about things now and I am going to use the advice people have so kindly given and set up a few ebay / paypal accounts as well as setting up my own collectables website / online store. Does anyone else sell collectables?

I know in the beginning that eBay was all about selling and buying collectables and its disappointing that they are trying to encourage and look after sellers of inkjet printer refills / mobile phone covers more these days. Personally I would have thought that companies that sell stuff like this online wouldnt need eBay as an outlet as they can probably run their own independant online shop without all the fees / restrictions that eBay has.

It also means that eBay have pretty much turned their backs on the people who built eBay to be what it is and they have betrayed their roots as been a site for an eclectic range of collectables / antique items. I'm surprised that somebody hasnt invented some universal auction search engine that would enable buyers to bring up a list of items regardless of whether they were listed on eBay / Amazon / QXL etc which would destroy eBay's monopoly. At the moment searching eBay is a bit like searching the internet but only looking at pages supplied by AOL and disregarding anything else.

Anyhow I hope to get back on eBay soon as a stop gap to raise a bit of money to fund getting an online store, can anyone recommend any packages for creating an online shop? I have searched around and there is a bewildering array of options ranging from one-off payments of hundreds of pounds to cheaper, but monthly subscription options. Also any information on how anyone has done with their online stores would be helpful to hear.

Cheers folks!

Johnny

Hi Modee - if you read the seller central forum board on ebay, it is really frightening. They are suspending sellers for bad feedback, low dsr's, etc. If you are restricted for 30 days, get back on selling, then get restricted again for low seller dsr's or customer complaints/disputes, they are suspending you permanently. Everyone needs to have SEVERAL accounts lined up that they can switch over to. It's not just the seller of vero items getting the boot anymore.

re: What I sell
 

Hi Modee and everyone

I have been selling collectable items ranging from 1970' / 80's computers, games and equipment to retro toys and assorted collectables. All the items I was selling were individual items and I virtually never sold anything new, i.e, new stock that I had bought to sell multiple times. Due to the nature of selling used items some people would inevitably be unhappy with what they had bought even though it had been described to the best of my abilities with on average ten photographs and despite making efforts to refund any unhappy buyers I was still suspended - multiple times by eBay.

Its become ridiculous the amount of regulations and processes they have created that make selling on eBay - even when you do have a viable account, a veritable nightmare! Last time I was selling on eBay and I was forced to accept paypal they started withholding the paypal payment until the item was sent and good feedback received or 21 days elapsed! That meant if I has sold 25 item I had to suddenly find the money to pay for the postage up front and then wait weeks for any payments to be cleared - if they cleared at all!

All these regulations against the seller are a scamming buyers charter to rip off sellers. So much for the eBay community being based on trust!

Hi Johnny, welcome to the club!

It's now a good time for you to start over again, the right way. One very important thing as previous posters have mentioned is to be prepared! If you can start thinking in a way where you know you will be suspended eventually you will know what you should do. Open more accts, sell else where as well (amazon, ioffer, own website), and maybe a side job.

Everyone on the forum has been through this and more. Tough it up and move on.

There are tons of tips on how to get back but the best way is to get the ebay stealth from aspkin. You will feel a lot better once you have read it.