| carnagearms | 12-14-2017 08:00 PM |
eBay Frustration
My story is an interesting one. I've been an eBay seller for nearly 20 years. My main account is still in perfect condition with unlimited selling. A few months back, however, I began offering something that eBay considered a violation of one of its policies, so they cancelled the auction. I relisted it.
Subsequently, they pulled the product and gave me a 3-day suspension. I consequently called eBay, argued with them, and got them to agree that as long as I described the product a certain way, it was fine. The suspension was lifted and I sold hundreds upon hundreds of this item. I even started other auctions with variants of the same product, selling hundreds more.
About a month ago, they pulled the product again. I assumed it was a mistake and continued to sell.
A few weeks later, they cancelled two of the auctions and suspended me for 3 days. I called them and argued again. It seemed everything was fine, and I listed the product again.
Several days later they cancelled all of the auctions and handed me a 30-day suspension.
Once again, I argued with their support people. But this time I got nowhere. I was so tenacious, however, they agreed to end my suspension as a "one-time" goodwill gesture if I agreed that I understood their "policy." (Whatever that means.) I agreed and they reinstated fully my account.
Of course, many people continue to sell the same product on eBay, but I no longer feel safe trying it again. I've therefore decided to go stealth with several accounts and continue to sell this extremely popular item -- at least until I can bring my inventory down and decide whether or not to continue with this product and the required approach to sell it.
While studying stealth methodologies, I've learned a lot. I even created a first stealth account that has no selling privileges (unless I call eBay - it's less than 30 days old). But I know I did a few things wrong while creating it, so I'm going to try my hand at creating a few more based on what I've learned after building that account, plus buying the Stealth Guide earlier today.
I've already learned an enormous amount while reading this forum for the past month. But I'm most impressed by what appear to be the ethics of the people here. Although this is certainly a somewhat controversial approach to selling on Amazon and eBay, it allows honest businesses like mine to avoid the inconsistent, arbitrary, and capricious things eBay can do to its sellers. | 
