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Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

Hi,

I'm hoping you can help us out with a situation.

I run an ecommerce business in the UK which currently runs without eBay. I have had ebay accounts in the past but to cut a long story short I sold counterfeit products (a naive mistake initially but kept going to reduce my losses) when I was younger, got caught and permanently banned. I have managed to get other accounts up and running for short periods of time but never permanently as they always end up getting closed so I need a more permanent and safer option.

The issue is that I now run a fully legit business with 2 members of staff and premises . Ebay would be a very helpful addition to this but they are simply not interested due to past offences on eBay which is frustrating but understandable to an extent.

My Paypal is working fine but I have the impression they share everything with eBay as they are effectively the same business. I also recently set up a completely new eBay and Paypal with absolutely everything different from bank accounts, IP’s and telephone numbers (just not address as could not change this) but they somehow still managed to detect the linked accounts. I would normally class myself as fairly smart as far as this stuff is concerned but I literally have no idea how to sort this out or how to avoid detection as they are just too good at detecting me.

I have considered asking an employee to open an account and allow the business to use it but I cannot do this as there is no way I can rely on an employee for such an important aspect of the business as the account would effectively leave with the employee. In addition, I am literally embarrassed to tell people the true reason we do not sell on eBay.

I need an account/accounts that will be a long term solution without having to constantly worry about as although our business is not reliant on it at the moment, if we began using it then more staff would be required to operate it therefore becoming reliant on it.

I need to know how reliable these stealth accounts are and what can be done for ebay accounts that require higher selling limits. We have a small Amazon account which does around 8000 transactions per year however we would use ebay much more and expect sales to be significantly higher. In terms of verification and seller limits, we need these to be as high as possible. Would future requests for higher selling limits cause any issues such as account reviews and possible suspension?

Many thanks in advance

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

Address also needs to be new. What did you do about cookies? What did you use for a card?

You are right in that you cannot use that PayPal with another eBay.

Stealth accounts can last many many years. They can be as long lasting as a real account, after all eBay does not know the difference.

You will need to build up your selling limit to get to that sort of level of selling. Another way to get high decent selling limits fast is to have lots of eBay accounts.

Have you read the stealth guide? If not, start there.

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

An ebay account is only as good as the seller operating it.

It does not matter if it has real info or stealth.

If the seller mishandles the account, then they take the consequences.

A stealth account correctly made ( and specific to the UK) can function fine.

The bottom line is the operator and the methods used.

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

Nothing is 100% with eB. You need to BUILD accountS to this level of action. Requests could go well OR could land you in problems. You have a lot of forum reading ahead for you - take the time :)

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

I agree not to allow an employee to get involved, not only for privacy reasons but for financial reasons.....

honestly, a stealth ebay business acc, is always going to be less robust than a real details one, not when things are going good, but if there are issues with them checking your details....

real details is a bit of an over-rated term as you can have business details instead and they are really yours as they belong to you........most of us are here because their real details are banned now.....

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

I made sure to clear all cookies and complete wipe all history, reset IP address etc. I literally opened up a new credit card to use.

I have now bought the stealth guide so I am going to have to spend some time reading this up.

Thanks for your comment

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

I appreciate your comments on this.

There seems to be conflicting views on this throughout the forum which is where the confusion is.

Some members say they are as good as a real account and others say they are good for a certain amount of time and building them too big is good as saying goodbye to your account as it will be looked into and found to be a stealth/⊗⊗⊗⊗ account.

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

I agree there is a lot of reading time ahead. I have now purchased the guide however the forum seems confusing at points when there seems to be logical answers that conflict with other answers.

If you ask a group of people and people with 'apparent' knowledge say yes and no with both answers being logical then how are you to know the difference?

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

Normally for business details they still require to be set up based on a personal account as it would be very easy to constantly set up new businesses if people kept getting banned accounts.

I would love to find a way to get through to the right person at Ebay who listens to situations and makes real decisions rather than these automated responses as certain aspects of your situation fall into a category of some sort.

I live in hope... :)

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

If the card is under your real details, that's a link.

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

That last para is full of misconceptions.

Dont be swayed by what I call urban myths.

Read what I wrote. Correctly used a stealth account is as viable as a real account.

The difference is it is made with stealth info but it is still an ebay account.

Keeping in mind we know the risks of going too big etc etc, why would a reasonable person consider that? They should not.

It is like I said, the seller is the one who has the responsibility to keep the account viable. from ebay stealth, from the forum, the means are available.

:mod:

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

I am in the US, but I have a stealth account that is almost 5 years old. Stealth accounts, PROPERLY MANAGED, can last forever. But when they say there are no guarantees with eBay, they are correct.

I recommend using multiple stealth accounts if at all possible. That way, you spread your risk. If you have 10 accounts and you lose one, you lost 10% of your eBay business, not 100% of your eBay business. Read the guide several times, let everything sink in and then ask questions if there is something you do not understand We have quite a few forum members doing business in the UK who are VERY knowledgeable about setting up UK accounts.

When people say stealth accounts only last for a certain period of time, I always question what they are selling and how they manage the accounts. If they are selling counterfeits, then YES, the account will last only so long. Same thing if you are selling legitimate items but get a lot of returns, complaints, etc. But if your items are legitimate and you provide good customer service, a stealth account could last forever.

Forget about finding an eBay employee who will listen to you and be understanding of what happened in the past. They may be sympathetic, but eBay has a ZERO TOLERANCE policy when it comes to sellers who have sold counterfeit items, even if it happened 10 years ago.

It would also be nearly impossible to open ONE business account and start selling 8,000 items per year from the start. Every new account is subject to limits. And when you start doing a significant amount of business on an account (the dollar amount is about $5k per month in the USA) PayPal might look at you more closely - ANY merchant account provider will - for risk management purposes. It is called underwriting.

BUT... If you can do 10 stealth accounts, then maybe 8,000 items per year is doable, although it DOES take some time in the beginning to get started. It does not happen from day one. But the rewards can be worth it.

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

Long term on all accounts is my goal.

I have a stealth account from 2003 still up and running. Never an issue.

100s of stealth accounts from 2007 until now.

Many from 2009 and still working with no limits etc.

Like GB stated, if you are in it for the long haul, run them correctly and they will last.

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

Run the stealth accounts correctly is the key.

Stealth always gives you another second chance but if your business process is flawed you will end up banned again and again.

I have been helping a friend get back on eBay twice already but he always ends up suspended because he gets overwhelmed with too many orders, poorly manage inventory, etc..

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

In a nutshell.

Use the chance of running stealth accounts to avoid the issues that might have given troubles the first time.


:mod:

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

Everything you say seems very logical. My only worry was that once a business account gets to a certain level of traffic that eBay/Paypal do a more in depth check on accounts to check for any potential issues as high volume accounts could cause as much problems for ebay as low volume accounts (if not more).

I suppose that's probably the benefit of using multiple stealth accounts.

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

Thanks for your input.

Yes having any change of eBay resolving an issue such as this in discretion seems massively unlikely regardless of the cirumstances.

My only worry throughout the full process of creating stealth accounts is of putting a lot of time and resources into something that will always end up collapsing anyway. This is not so much a worry when I am the only one being affected however to venture into this I will need at least 1-2 members of staff to cope with the increase in orders and I could not sit comfortably knowing that their jobs could be lost in a heartbeat due to a technicality of how an account was set up rather than how it was being used/run.

I suppose the next step is to give this a try and hope that I can learn enough to prevent detection. We are looking to run a legitimate account as well as we run our other accounts however it appears that due to my own past mistakes that this will have to be done in an illegitimate way due to eBays unwillingness to even consider such issues.

I still cannot believe that lifetime bans are able to be enforced. You commit a crime and the justice system penalises you with a certain amount of time but in eBays eyes you are guilty for the rest of your life. A very small minded way of looking at things but I suppose they have been built big enough to be able to pick and choose who they deal with as they are almost 'too big to fail'.

Thanks for your advice

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

Thank you.

Its good to see that there are long term accounts around.

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

Yes unfortunately these types of issues will get almost any account banned. I have been fortunate enought to be able to build a structured business with staff that ensure such things do not happen as orders not being delivered quickly or selling items not in stock are 2 huge ways of getting negative feedback and we all know feedback ratings are a huge factor in determining if you are allowed to have a seller account or not.

Re: Do stealth accounts work long term for businesses?
 

With some basic stealth knowledge an account is highly unlikely to go down with how it was set up.

Accounts nearly always go down due to how they are run.