Negative Feedbacks & Account Suspension

NONE!

My Powerseller account since 1998 was "limited" (not suspended) last November. I was told that for 30 days I was only permitted to list 75% of my average weekly sales volume. I had basically taken the months of September and October off, so my average weekly volume was VERY low (like $500 gross sales). I ebay for a living and I make close to 50% of my annual income during the months of November and December...I work my tail off for those two months, since customers like to overpay during the holiday season. Then I take it easy the rest of the year and spend lots of time with my kids doing family things.

At the time my account was limited, I had ONE negative feedback within the past 6 months. However, I had only 4.3 stars in the s/h section of the "detailed feedback" section. ebay limited my account because more than 5% of my customers were not satisfied with my s/h charges. Ummmmm...even when they are reasonable, many buyers only give 3-4 stars in that section!

I argued with ebay over this limitation and got nowhere. Two different representatives from ebay told me that I needed to start from scratch with a new account. I sold almost nothing in November and very little in December. I couldn't risk anything happening to make those star ratings go down. It has been a HUGE hit financially (I'm a single parent and ebay is my only source of income). After 30 days my account was re-evaluated and it was determined that it would stay limited. At the end of December, my star ratings stayed the same instead of improving; therefore, ebay denied restoring my account to full selling privileges. Well how are the ratings supposed to improve if I can't sell much of anything? I haven't received an email yet about my January re-assessment.

Right after this "limiting" happened, I researched what other sellers did in the situation. Some sellers were limited with NO negative feedback at all. It was based solely on the star ratings. I found posts from two sellers who had decent feedback, but poor ("poor" being like 4 out of 5) star ratings. They continued to sell during the limitation and their star ratings stayed the same or dropped. After three months, they were suspended, despite the fact that their feedback was very good overall. They were both powersellers with long, established histories with ebay.

If anyone has seen my other ebay posts, now it might be a little clearer why I'm soooooo negative on ebay right now. I'm caught between a rock and a hard place, since I *need* ebay for my business, yet I'm disgusted with their policies and favoritism toward buyers (rather than sellers). It's the sellers who keep ebay afloat, yet ebay supports the buyers. Why? The answer is simple...the buyers will stop buying off of ebay if they feel they've been wronged. The sellers are stuck even if they are treated like crap, because ebay attracts about 10,000x more potential customers than other websites.

My personal situation is under control now. In late December I took over my sister's account (buyer-only with 28 feedback) and I started from scratch. I will hopefully go back to my Powerseller account soon, since ebay should restore it within the next month or two, but by then I probably won't even be a Powerseller anymore and I'll have to earn that back.

I know that's a long answer to your question, but the short answer is that you can be suspended for no good reason even if you have 100% positive feedback...it all comes down to those ridiclous star ratings.

eBay's priorities are very messed up in my opinion. They put huge efforts into establishing unnecessary grading systems and limiting the accounts of GOOD sellers.

On the other hand, they ignore the abuse being conducted by blatant scams. There are tons of sellers out there who create a new account, buy 100 free recipes just to get a feedback history, then they'll sell 1,000 $20 items for $1.50 each. Their net profit per item (after fees) is about $.50-$.75. They never deliver the item to the customer and the customers don't bother to file Paypal claims over an item that only cost them $1.50. By the end of the first week or two, the seller unregisters his email account and starts over with the next account.

ebay doesn't target sellers like this though...they go after the good sellers with 4 stars in s/h.

As a seller, your options are unfortunately very limited. ebay will almost never support you or make any changes to anything. They treat regular sellers and powersellers the same. Powersellers never get any kind of special treatment.

If your problem is just some bad feedback, but your overall rating is still like 95% or better, continue with the account as usual and you'll likely see no difference in your sale prices. You may lose business from established buyers and get more bids from newbies, but your items will still sell.

If your feedback is REALLY bad or if you did something else that making you a target for suspension, try to work your way out of the situation before the suspension happens. Abandon the problem account until the problems are worked out and start from scratch. Use a new account or take over the account of a friend or family member. This is NOT a violation of ebay policy as long as your other account was not suspended. I was ENCOURAGED by two ebay staff members to use another account until my "limited" account was retored. You're better off starting from scratch than risking something bad happening that could earn you a suspension.

Once your account is suspended, ebay will target your IP, making it hard for you to have another account. If you think they are going to suspend you, close the account on your own before they do it.

The things I'm saying and recommending here are things I saw posted by other sellers when I was researching my "limitation." You might want to do your own research just to be sure it's correct. I've never had any personal experience with suspensions, so I only know what I've heard second-hand.

Just an update...this seller just received yet another negative feedback since I first started this thread today. I am REALLY worried now if I will ever get my cd...

I will give a little more time but then I will file a claim, leave a negative feedback, then I will generously get a retalitory negative feedback. I know this has no bearing on my account but I was curious if this seller will get the axe for all the negative feedbacks being all at once. I will say, if this seller had all these negs when I first bid I would not have bid at all. But the seller didn't get all these negatives until after I purchased the item.

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How can you get a 4.8 out of 5.0 for S&H when seller doesn't charge S&H fee? The only thing I could come up with is that the seller didn't package things well and get a few low scores for poor packaging.

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For the same reason that buyers give sellers Negatives when the USPS takes longer than they want them to, even though the seller shipped within 24 hours. They don't have a clue. They want instant gratification. My only two poor experiences with selling on ebay both involved buyers who got ticked when their coins weren't in-hand within 48 hours - they both emailed me on Wednesday after winning on Sunday, asking why they didn't have their coins yet.

And ebay is making it impossible to call attention to buyers like this any more.

File the claim with Paypal now. You don't have to wait and it's clear you aren't going to get your item.

I opened a dispute with PayPal today. I feel I gave the seller plnety of time to comply. I'm in a tough spot though about leaving negative feedback. This seller has left EVERYONE a negative feedback that left him one.