Account resticted but linked accounts left alone?

[DaveS]

Hi guys,

Quick intro, I've had an eBay business for 10 years in the UK. It pays my wages and that of my employees. We have a big warehouse tc and probably made a million sales over the years. About 50% of our business is through eBay and without it I think we would go bust.

Never had to worry about stealth accounts until today (never even heard of them in fact). But I just had one of our accounts restricted with the following message.

You can no longer sell items on eBay
Hello Dave,

We want to let you know that you haven’t met the minimum requirements to sell on eBay and your seller level is Below Standard in the UK programme. As such, you won't be able to list and sell items on eBay anymore.

Selling standards are in place to ensure that sellers deliver a great customer experience to their buyers. They measure whether buyers were satisfied with your items and your customer service.

When you don’t meet the minimum requirements for selling, you're creating experiences that erode confidence and drive buyers away.

If you had any active listings, they've now been ended and any selling fees paid for those items will be credited to you.

If you've recently sold items that you still need to fulfill or post, please do so promptly. You'll still be able to see any recently sold items in My eBay, send and receive messages, and of course, buy items on eBay.

To see more details on why your seller level is Below Standard, go to your Seller Dashboard.

As a result, an employees account was also restricted (he must have logged in at work) and my brothers account was too (not sure how they linked his but it must have been YEARS ago when the link was made)

So I have to assume that our other main 3 selling accounts are linked too.

I can let this account go., and I'll be buying Stealth and setting up back ups right away. But... the big question is "Why didn't they touch my big accounts?" and "Should I expect my big accounts to get restricted in the next few days too?"


Any help much appreciated. I fear my company is going down here....

Thanks,
Dave

[JamesNorth101]

They will be linked, although if they are very large accounts then they may well not go down. Is hard to know really

Larger accounts do get a lot more leeway, I would be careful with them though and plan for the worst just incase.

[dallis]

They'll get to them eventually, in all likelihood.

I've seen it take 6 months to a year, but they know. Keep your nose especially clean, pray if you think that'll help, and build stealth backups.

At this point the take-down was likely done by a bot... if a human ever has a reason to look at the situation they'll probably take them all down.

[DaveS]

Thanks guys!

Any idea why they took some down and not others? Just because of the size of the accounts that they didn't touch?

It would have made more sense if the bot had taken down the main accounts as we log in and out of them on the same PCs all day long and they all share payment, address, Paypal details etc

[JamesNorth101]

Only eBay really knows that I am afraid!

[rsot]

Originally Posted by DaveS

It would have made more sense

You are beginning to understand that not everything done makes sense to YOU but it makes sense to the system...

[DaveS]

Haha, fair enough. I'll just have to hope it makes sense to them to leave my other accounts alone.

But... I've just noticed another problem. I have another smallish account which is below standard on the global level (but fine elsewhere)

I'm worried that this account will go down next and take others with it, should I close the account? Or is that not going to help?

Couple of screenshots:

Current seller level - 2016-04-15_1800 - DaveSk's library
Projected seller level - 2016-04-15_1801 - DaveSk's library

They are going to evaluate in 5 days. Is this likely to result in another (permanent) restriction

You can't close an account that is below standard.

Your best bet looking at your account would be to quickly get yourself evaluated on a 3 month cycle.

You need to sell 400 items in a 3 month period to be evaluated over 3 months rather than a year.

That's assuming atleast one if your closed cases without seller resolution is older than 3 months. That way your % will drop below the 30% threshold.

If it's viable you should try and do it now. Before you are evaluated in 5 days.

[DaveS]

Thanks Just Smile - that would have worked as there was nothing in the last 3 months that was a problem. Sadly we don't make anywhere near enough sales on this account to get it up to 400 in time.

Is there a specific point where this being below standard will trigger a ban or similar? If it isn't suspended in 2 days I think we will be OK next month as one of the defects was from May 2015


Also, as the "below standard" is just on the global level, does this mean an account wide ban? eBay help pages suggest it will only restrict international sales

Thanks again,
Dave