ebay wave of suspensions

[kittylove]

Originally Posted by Freestyle2384

sucks to hear! This happened to me a little over a month ago. I lost 7 accounts within a 3 minute period. Like you, I did all the stealth things also. Just curious did it say "due to security concerns"?

this is what makes me scared to try. did you ever figure out what happened?

[muzzie]

I personally think the ebay is so overwhelmed by TONS of TONS of VeRO claims, so they sometimes just do something like "Holy Fire" operation - atomatically ban everything that is risky and there are no speciall selling allowances attached to the seller. Like:
- sold 10 vero: + 10 points of "bad"
- has received 2 feedbacks: -2 points of "bad"
- never has any balance in PP: +10 points of "bad"

And baaaammm, suspended. As it is usual behavior for scammers. It is a regular policy of big companies - in case of any issues, ban without thinking, as it is easier to lose 5% of customers, than getting 95% of all problems from them.

[Freestyle2384]

Yeah I was thinking they randomly do checks on an item and do waves of bans. I am just wondering if it is all bot operated or an employee manually reviewing all accounts under a list banning as the employee pleases.

Originally Posted by muzzie

I personally think the ebay is so overwhelmed by TONS of TONS of VeRO claims, so they sometimes just do something like "Holy Fire" operation - atomatically ban everything that is risky and there are no speciall selling allowances attached to the seller. Like:
- sold 10 vero: + 10 points of "bad"
- has received 2 feedbacks: -2 points of "bad"
- never has any balance in PP: +10 points of "bad"

And baaaammm, suspended. As it is usual behavior for scammers. It is a regular policy of big companies - in case of any issues, ban without thinking, as it is easier to lose 5% of customers, than getting 95% of all problems from them.

[Haidukken]

99% of what eBay does is based on algorithms based on certain patterns that have been recorded during certain times, either during last 5 years or since the beginning.
I'm sure there is truth to certain "flags" like what's your withdrawl pattern, have you added funds to your account from sources other than sales etc etc.
BUT, it's all guess work at the moment and nobody really knows what it's based on.
Clearly we all "know" what suspicious behaiviour is and how it kinds looks like so if you avoid it and add few more "creative" things to your account like adding random funds and setting up a profile photo, I'm sure somewhere in the algorithm it gets logged.
Does it mean you can fool the system? I doubt it. Can you buy more time before the suspension or limits? I'm sure you can.

If you get the basics right, I think you are 75% safe and that 25% will forever linger over your account because it's a stealth account- Doesn't matter how good you want it all to look, it's never going to be like the account that we first lost, the original "real account"

The safest thing to do? get the basics right and spread the risk.

[Freestyle2384]

I am definitely trying to break the pattern in how I start selling my first few items on my new accounts. My last 7 that I lost I sold used disney dvds on all 7 whether I sold just 2 or up to 5. I am thinking that is how they linked all my accounts because of the obvious fact that Disney is Vero and highly watched. So now on my new accounts I am avoiding Disney all together.
Another pattern that I am thinking could be noticeable is when I go from account to account quickly maybe within 10 minutes of each other at let's say 2,3,4 am. I stay up late all the time and now I do this full time so I have been logging into these accounts at those times posting new items and withdrawing that I am thinking that could be linkable. So now I am trying to post the listings more often during regular times and not go from account to account and withdrawal at 3 am back to back to back. Definitely a guessing game but yes going to basics and correcting 1 mistake at a time and seeing what happens is what I'm doing.
I am also thinking they are doing waves of bans with the way accounts were created like via a certain VCC or the phone #. I am just curious why some of these accounts last 2,3,4 months before finally coming down if the bots are top of it. It's like trying to solve a murder case with the way Ebay works sometimes.

Originally Posted by haidukk

99% of what eBay does is based on algorithms based on certain patterns that have been recorded during certain times, either during last 5 years or since the beginning.
I'm sure there is truth to certain "flags" like what's your withdrawl pattern, have you added funds to your account from sources other than sales etc etc.
BUT, it's all guess work at the moment and nobody really knows what it's based on.
Clearly we all "know" what suspicious behaiviour is and how it kinds looks like so if you avoid it and add few more "creative" things to your account like adding random funds and setting up a profile photo, I'm sure somewhere in the algorithm it gets logged.
Does it mean you can fool the system? I doubt it. Can you buy more time before the suspension or limits? I'm sure you can.

If you get the basics right, I think you are 75% safe and that 25% will forever linger over your account because it's a stealth account- Doesn't matter how good you want it all to look, it's never going to be like the account that we first lost, the original "real account"

The safest thing to do? get the basics right and spread the risk.

[burke]

just had more accounts linked closed at exact sametime they where new and I used a exif cleaner really weird I am a experienced stealth account user for over 2 years now Im switching jet packs and using different computer we will see what happins

[muzzie]

They definitely use some kind of automated self-learning evaluation systems, that uses score system to judge user activity. It is physically not possible to monitor their "157 millions" of active accounts - they would have to hire half of EU to do that by hand. I suppose the guys that are answering to user claims, are actually not investigating anything really by heart, they just strictly follow some internal instructions and dont care if it is not "logical", as they are just not allowed to decide on logics of the guys who created these instructions, they are only allowed to follow the procedure.

[rsot]

Originally Posted by Freestyle2384

Yeah I was thinking they randomly do checks on an item and do waves of bans. I am just wondering if it is all bot operated or an employee manually reviewing all accounts under a list banning as the employee pleases.

More of a bot approach

[ricardosway8]

I think they are developing there tracking techniques.

[muzzie]

Originally Posted by ricardosway8

I think they are developing there tracking techniques.

Just have each account 10000% separate, all different things, descriptions, and linkage will never happen. For me, it is VERY unlikely that working from the same PC but fro different user accounts is 100% safe. Maybe it is, but mostly people here use non-static ips, and it is not so good, and let me explain me why. For example, there is Vodafone internet, which gives you new IP every time you connect and disconnect. You have to keep track which IP were used for accessing each of your accounts and it can be easily messed up. Secondly, there are lots of people in UK, who use the same operator, thus the same IPs, as these dynamic IPs are often used by stealth guys. So it is possible that your "never-ever-used" IP is actually abused by another stealth guys, as UK is very big. And these dynamic IP pools are actually not so big, they can have even 8k different IPs for ALL customers of Vodafone. For example, all TELE2 users across the Europe share a tiny 8192 IP pool of addresses, so it is a bit overcrowded and same address can be easily used by another ebayer. So I personally use only static IPs.

P.S. Sorry for such a word blanket

[newjerseymax]

Selling same items on multiple accounts is risky as they could have done a "sweap" that night and just banned most people selling that item... I know Disney is VERY high risk so now as season slows for some markets they are having more time to clean house.

I always watch how many other sellers there are selling same thing and if I see a sudden drop I take precautions.

Did they possibly link you by shipping location? If you sold same items and they ship from same zip code this could draw a flag during manual review. I would find this suspect!

Are the descriptions copy and paste the same?

[muzzie]

I wonder if a same zipcode is a big issue for stealths? In New York, hundreds of thousands of people have the same ZIP.

[Freestyle2384]

Just lost 4 accounts again yesterday after using them since end of January. All 4 got taken down within minutes of each other. Was very careful with Ips, listings etc. 1 account I got 2 negative feedback saying the items were bootlegs. Few days later suspended account, which I can understand for that 1 account but not how they linked the other 3 to go with it.

[octurf]

A few days ago, w/o any warning, 3 of the PayPal accounts were connected & limited, then the eBay accounts attached to these PP accounts were permanently suspended. The account I’ve had for a year was not affected & I’m not sure why. I’m following all the stealth procedures correctly and can’t figure out how my IP addresses were connected. And I don’t understand why the one account was spared. I need to note that this same thing happened about a year ago, where 3 of my stealth IP addresses were connected & accounts suspended but the same one account (the oldest one) was spared. I am using a 24VC as my VPN service & have 4 different IP addresses for my stealth accounts. I’ve been selling on 3 of them for several months & one of them for over a year w/o any problems. All the accounts were in good standing with 30+ positive feedback.

[two3aight1]

Avoid all this and get you a cheap smartphone to run each stealth. Computers in your pocket run your whole show on the go

[dealagreeproceed]

Originally Posted by pennslmmer

put out 5 minutes and take new photos for every user

exactly so much safer

[octurf]

Originally Posted by Bunneh

Did you have any FLASH type programs installed on any of the user accounts?

Were they all administrator accounts?

I had 3 eBay accounts get suspended & 3 paypal accounts limited all at once. I use a VPN service and I have separate users for each account with administrative privileges. Is having all users as administrators linking my accounts?

[slokor]

No. Theres no way that's the reason for the suspension.
A far more likely reason is the IP solution youre using. There could be other factors that would lead to a linking of your accounts but its hard to say without more information from you.