Fudging Ebay!!!

[Seraph]

Long backstory to this one:

About three years ago, we were absolutely DIRT broke, and I was doing anything I could to keep us afloat. One day I got an offer from someone to sell his stuff on Ebay, I checked with an ebay rep and was told this was fine, I needed to make a disclaimer, yadda yadda....

So I did all of that, put a disclaimer on EVERY auction in big bold letters that I was selling on behalf of someone else because, frankly, we needed the money.

It went fine for two months, then of course as every shiny bubble does...it popped. He didn't ship out his items, and I was appalled to see people contacting me in regards, threatening me, etc etc. I assisted each person in getting their money back, not one person went without a refund. I even contacted ebay personally, to notify them of what was going on, and assisted in tracking him down.

At one point, I attempted to cancel the rest of his auctions, but Ebay limited my account, not allowing me to do so. I called them up, explained the situation, and begged them to cancel the auctions. They flat out refused, and informed me I would have to just let the buyer know about it after they won the auction.

The sad part was that in the end, I had to pay the fees...which put us way in the hole. The jerk sent me a horrific email, mocking my stupidity, and how easy it was for him to pull this after he did two months of actually paying up.

Even worse, PayPal froze my account, since I'd received a payment from him.

Two years later, after calling once a month, I finally got everything straightened out with Paypal. I'd had to provide scads of paperwork, and email them all sorts of documents regarding the scammer...even sent them a copy of the email he sent me in the end.

Ebay, I managed to get my account unsuspended about two months ago. Took a week of phone calls and a buttload of paperwork as well, but they promised my account would be reopened, and the nasty feedback some people felt they needed to leave...would be removed. Thank god, two years of fighting....finally done, right?

Wrong. I logged in today to see about selling some of my extra computer parts, and I get the nice red box on my screen of "Your account has been limited due to suspicious activity. PayPal has also been notified, etc"

WTF

I hadn't even used it since I got it unsuspended, what the flying squirrel is THIS all about?

I'm trying desperately to reach customer service, but there's no phone, email support just gets me a macro response, and in live chat I've got someone who obviously has no clue what to do. Plus....his english is absolutely horrific. I've explained all of this to him, told him to look up the case....and his response was "here is how to reset your password".

I JUST DID THAT!!! I asked why I've been limited again, and why nothing that I was promised was taken care of!!

Anyone have any advice on what to do? I'm at my wits end here, and wondering if this is even freaking worth it.

[Aethian]

Wrong. I logged in today to see about selling some of my extra computer parts, and I get the nice red box on my screen of "Your account has been limited due to suspicious activity. PayPal has also been notified, etc"

Was this from a e-mail or on the site itself?

[Seraph]

Site itself.

I'm leery about this, but the ebay rep from Safety Harbor I finally got ahold of just told me to go and make a new account. I'll have to start from scratch...but...better than what situation I'm in right now, I suppose.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

And this is why you never sell on ebay on behalf of somebody else. If the somebody else flakes out and doesn't ship or sells the item some other way, you wind up with complaints and disputes and getting booted off ebay.

Not that I wish to lecture you further, but I've seen people get burned trying to sell things they don't actually have but somebody else does. Methinks this guy was pulling some kind of scam, and your poverty made you an easy mark.

If you really want to sell these computer parts of yours, just create a new account anyway, since your old one is no good anyway (You'll need a different e-mail account than the one your old ebay account has). But frankly I'd suggest selling those computer parts elsewhere, since you'll have no feedback on the new account and thus the only people who show interest in your computer parts will be scammers.

[Whiskey]

But frankly I'd suggest selling those computer parts elsewhere, since you'll have no feedback on the new account and thus the only people who show interest in your computer parts will be scammers.

So how do you get feedback if you have a new account and are selling stuff. And what are your parts seraph?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

So how do you get feedback if you have a new account and are selling stuff. And what are your parts seraph?

Either:

1. Start out by buying stuff, or

2. Start out by selling cheap items that aren't likely to be targets for fraud--books, for instance. Depending on what kind of parts they are, legitimate buyers could be scared off just because they don't know if the seller can be trusted.

[Mytical]

Unfortunately if something sounds to good to be true, it usually is. . Yes, you will have to start from scratch, but at least now you know not to do something like this in the future. I am sorry this happened to you, people sometimes just have no class.