Ebay restricted due to false 'out of stock' refund defects.

[rwm1962]

Hi - new here.

I've been a seller since 1999 & was rolling along nicely as a bronze Power-seller with 99.9% feedback & showing above standard on my dashboard until I was permanently restricted from selling last month.

My tale:
While I had lost a few points for speed of shipping (primarily to USA) a couple of issues tipped the balance against me.

I'd never dug into the detail on my dashboard & once I was restricted found there are scores for UK & Eire, Europe & ESA & rest of world (or similar - II no longer have access to check). I dropped below standard for USA.

All my items are low-cost BIN & to keep things running smoothly I require immediate payment. Items to USA are not free postage. Occasionally a buyer would buy multiple items & I would refund the excess postage paid. The way I would do it was to do a complete or partial refund of one or more of the items until the refund totalled the amount owed to the buyer. Ebay picked up on these refunds & automatically put them down as refunds due to item being out of stock. I had five of these. Because they were over 3 months old ebay told me they were now archived & could not be reversed, even though there was a note on the paypal refund telling the buyer the refund was for shipping. So customers happy, I was happy & I didn't even know it was going against me until it was too late. Initially their Ireland call centre gave me hope it could be resolved but when I was passed onto the required dept in the far east there was no discussion or deviation from the script & I was out. I rang Ireland again & they were surprised & made their own internal enquiry & came back & confirmed it was the end of the road. I'm sure the person on the phone was nearly in tears. They were as incredulous as I was. I was told I'd have been better not requiring immediate payment & doing manual invoices for multiple purchases. Too late now.

As recommended I appealed in writing but to no avail.

The other issue was a return I now know I handled incorrectly. A £2 item with £2.80 postage. The user admitted making a mistake & didn't want it. I agreed to the return request. Once I got the item back I went to refund via the resolution centre but was only allowed to refund the full amount paid inc postage. As it was not my fault I went to Paypal & manually refunded the item cost & not the postage. I was unable to remove the case from my resolution centre & escalated it to ebay. I was told & accept now, that as a business seller I have to refund the full cost inc post even for buyers remorse. My fault - I had not known that. I authorised ebay refund the full amount manually - even the item cost again if it would resolve the issue. This they did but my false 'out of stock' defects would still stand.

I then made the mistake in my anger of trying to set up a 2nd selling account at my parents address & using my middle name. I had refreshed my IP. I got caught & the account immediately suspended as I couldn't disprove the link. I wasn't too clever in how I did it from what I've read since -which is what has lead me here.

Given the fact I've won cases against ebay sellers for counterfeit goods & they are still selling I did feel hard done to.

Fortunately I have an off-ebay online store & some customers have found me there. As a result sales are up on the store but nowhere near enough to compensate for losing ebay.

That's my retirement plans screwed up unless I can get back on. I also work full time & was planning on running my store once I retire to supplement what is likely to be a poor pension.

[g24ary]

Just buy a new account and take heed of what the seller tells you, up and running in no time

[slokor]

Sounds like youve come to the right place then.
Get the stealth guide and learn how to do things properly and start fresh with a new account. The I would advise opening a few more accounts and spreading your sales across multiple accounts to be on the safe side so if any single account is taken down youre still running.
Good luck.

[Play]

Sorry to hear of your dismay! I would suggest first getting the stealth guide, and only then considering purchasing an account to avoid making mistakes.

Your account was created in the 20th century, and things have changed a lot since, with accounts now, you would get a lot of restrictions in terms of selling to start off with, so you would want to scale up your business slowly. One way to speed that up would be to buy/make multiple stealth accounts, so you wont feel such restrictions.

After reading the guide you'll probably have tonnes of questions, and that's where this forum comes in handy. I always refer to the stealth guide as being the skeleton and the forum as its flesh, you really need both to fully grasp the concept of stealth.

P.S. Your thinking all is doom and gloom, but believe me when I say this, stealth opens up a lot more doors than you could imagine, your business is only just about to begin, retirement can wait. Good luck!

[thomegome0]

get the stealth guide mate its the best way possible. some other advice keep just keep things simple. its when you complicate things thats when problems happen

[ragerat]

Booted off ebay about 7 years ago ("for the good of the ebay community" I reported a win7 bootlegger to ebay I got booted but he kept on selling), took a few months to find this site, bought the Stealth Guide and a new ebay/paypal setup (very little selling, some buying, still going strong). Found my Stealth Guide up on a shelf (yes, I printed it out) and figured was time to start playing again so back to buy a paypal VCC to set up a new set. This place ROCKS.