[HN Gopher] Your eBay account has been suspended
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Your eBay account has been suspended
Got an email from eBay this morning: " Hello brokeninfinity, We
wanted to let you know that your eBay account has been permanently
suspended because of activity that we believe was putting the eBay
community at risk. We understand that this must be frustrating, but
this decision was not made lightly and it's important that we keep
our marketplace safe for everyone. Learn more about how and why
accounts can be suspended... " I'm a long time, infrequent eBay
user, mostly buy stuff, 331 stars, 100% feedback rating. Haven't
used eBay recently, no idea what just happened. Maybe someone was
trying to hack my account? The suspension email has no reply
address. I tried contact eBay through their web chat, and they say
'Sorry Scott, live support's currently unavailable.' I guess I'll
stop using eBay now. The summary execution with no explanation and
no escalation path and no appeal is not endearing. Count me added
to the chorus of folks calling for regulations that will eliminate
this sort of abusive behavior against consumers. We need some sort
of 'due process' required of companies that operate above a certain
scale. I mean, I shudder to think of the position I would be in
right now if I depended on eBay for anything important. Thank
goodness for me that I do not, but not everyone can say the same.
What do you think?
Author : quisquous
Score : 55 points
Date : 2021-12-03 20:40 UTC (2 hours ago)
| guilhas wrote:
| I would really like to find a good alternative
|
| Endless captchas, randomly asking to login again, holding
| payments, asking for more and more user data, now demands ID card
| picture and social security number for selling, dropping
| PayPal... After 10 years without problems, getting really tired
| the past 6 months
| bdcravens wrote:
| Mercari is a good platform (though it doesn't solve the Paypal
| issue - pretty every platform is moving to their own payment
| platform)
| humaniania wrote:
| Etsy has been moving into this space.
| kgwxd wrote:
| My email client is also my RSS client. I just panicked a little
| bit.
| roneoo wrote:
| :D
| kkielhofner wrote:
| Same thing happened to me last year. Listed an item, it got
| pulled, almost identical message. Contacted support, account is
| banned from selling forever.
|
| I'd had it since 1998.
| atlanta90210 wrote:
| What was the item?
| chronogram wrote:
| If Ebay has 2FA you should write in your post if you've been
| using 2FA.
| quisquous wrote:
| I don't have 2FA enabled on my eBay account. I use a unique,
| complicated password though, and I don't see any suspicious
| activity on my account, though, apparently eBay saw something
| wrong. Unfortunately they won't tell me what's wrong, so I
| can't figure it out or help.
|
| AFAIK eBay doesn't support WebAuth. I got a set of 3 Yubikeys
| some months ago (1 for my laptop, 1 for my workstation, 1 for
| backup in my fire safe) and I wanted to protect my eBay account
| using them, but eBay only offers me options to add SMS or
| eBay's mobile app as 2nd factors.
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| Somebody probably hacked your account and listed a bunch of
| macbooks for sale. If you list a bunch of expensive stuff with
| little history of selling eBay will ban you. It also depends on
| the items "you" list, for some reason apple products turn the
| fraud score up to 11.
| quisquous wrote:
| Good idea. I just checked and I don't see anything for sale or
| recently for sale. And I rotated my password for good measure.
| I can still login, I just can't buy or sell anything.
|
| I got a flurry of what looked to me like phishing emails 'from
| eBay' right before my account was suspended...they claimed to
| cancel my bids on a bunch of old, long over auctions, with the
| call to action asking me to click on link with a URL
| referencing a local DLL.
|
| So yah, something fishy is going on, but I can't help eBay
| figure it out if they just disable my account and make
| themselves unreachable. Is this what ghosting feels like?
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Because my accounts are so old and I have so many of them, I get
| a message regularly saying that my account for service xyz has
| been suspended. When I contact them there a) never is a good
| reason for why it was done (hint; it is usually because they
| started using or recently updated some AI fraud detection
| service) b) small companies easily restore your account; with big
| ones it is usually game over. Ebay (and Paypal) are rather
| notorious for this: PayPal has actually gotten more robust but
| now I actually _cannot_ close my account. They don 't know why
| but computer says no; it is an ancient account, so, as a software
| engineer, I can take a few guesses. The most annoying is the
| level of support: even if the support is polite and responsive
| and _human_ to begin with, which is not often at big companies
| (note I do not live in the US so I get routed to my country
| support for that bigcorp; I do not know if support is better over
| there), they often have no clue what they are talking about and
| only have canned responses. You used to be able to escalate to
| another level but that seems to have been removed (too expensive
| of course).
|
| So when I can I stick with small companies; when they get funded
| or taken over, I find an alternative. I manage small SaaS
| products myself and I definitely will never leave anyone hanging,
| not even for a few hours; many small companies have the same
| feeling.
|
| Of course, often you cannot do anything else but take the large
| ones. Luckily with banking this changed over the past years, but
| plenty things are still utterly broken support (and because you
| need support, also software wise probably) wise.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| My wife got kicked out of PayPal for no good reason 15 years ago.
| I think she could have reinstated it if she sent a fax but she
| wasn't about to send a fax.
|
| If you want to know why people aren't adopting 2FA, it's because
| we know it's just a matter of time until the hole that attaches
| your Yubikey to your keyring wears away, your Yubikey disappears,
| and with customer service that amounts to "talk to the hand" at
| many sites, it's a digital death sentence.
| quisquous wrote:
| Yah, that sucks...losing access to PayPal can be really bad
| depending on your situation.
|
| My brother got kicked off Facebook a couple weeks ago because
| his account was hacked and they couldn't decide who was legit
| and who wasn't, so they just threw up their hands and shut down
| his account. It hurt because he used Facebook a lot.
|
| I agree that 2FA doesn't solve the problem of companies
| deciding not to invest in good, considerate, human, security
| conscious, customer support. More technology isn't always the
| right answer, especially when it comes to questions of
| companies harming and then dehumanizing their customers because
| it's cheaper than doing than the right thing.
| robalfonso wrote:
| Because of this, I make a point of having 3 2fa keys. A daily
| driver, a backup key on a key ring and the final one in a
| fireproof safe. Like you I would be afraid what would happen if
| I lacked my key.
|
| Companies need to at least clarify "what happens if I don't
| have my key" also one time codes are a thing that need to be
| saved and can help mitigate a hardware failure.
| thelittleone wrote:
| Amazing that in 2021 there are few better alternatives than
| have 3 x 2FA keys.
| Alupis wrote:
| What would be that alternative?
|
| The point of 2FA is "something you have"... if you lose it,
| you no longer have it. It's designed to lock you out if
| lost/stolen... otherwise, what would be the point?
|
| As an aside, 2FA keys are not what most people use... they
| use cell phone numbers, time-based rolling-code
| authentication apps, email addresses, etc. It's your choice
| to use a physical key, even if it might technically be the
| most secure of the options.
|
| Security is always a trade off with convenience.
|
| GP seems to not understand the point of 2FA. If you can
| simply call up customer support and maneuver you way back
| into a locked account, then so can the "bad guys". Any
| information they have about you can be found by a
| determined attacker... hence, the "something you have"
| approach.
| tmysl wrote:
| can report the same here. happening to tons and tons of people
| today, zero details in the email
| ponyous wrote:
| I got it today as well. No idea what's up yet, something to do
| with one of the orders I cancelled recently? I spoke with the
| seller and we resolved the issue completely without issues. I use
| unique password for ebay.
| simse wrote:
| I had my brand new account banned today as well. How does one
| sell an iPhone on Ebay without being suspicious?
| bdcravens wrote:
| Buying and/or selling other items to build up your feedback
| first (My current account is 12 years old, and I have sold
| several iPhones there, 2 recently, with little issues, though
| you don't have to watch out for scam attempts)
|
| Mercari is also a good platform to sell on.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| With a new account, you don't. Most buyers would run away from
| new accounts selling iPhones. Maybe eBay has institutionalized
| that running away.
| simse wrote:
| Yeah that's fair, I'm facing the same thing with credit,
| since I just moved to the UK.
| Normille wrote:
| I posted this in another thread on the same subject:
|
| Not exactly related but: a couple of weeks ago I suddenly had my
| account 'restricted' on eBay and told I could no longer sell or
| receive payment for anything I'd sold until I uploaded a load of
| personal ID documents [passport / driving licence, etc] to
| confirm my identity. This, after I'd been buying and selling on
| eBay for 19+ years. Browsing their 'community' forum, it became
| clear that eBay have done this to loads of people recently,
| including many who had been members even longer than me. What
| disgusted me even more than this obnoxious privacy invasion was
| the number of people on the forum who'd actually sent eBay all
| the required documentation instead of telling them to go fuck
| themselves.
|
| Luckily I had no uncleared payments in my account. So I've just
| stopped using eBay. It's just a pity there's no viable
| alternative. Nothing like a bit of healthy competition to help
| rein in the jaw-dropping arrogance of these mega-corporations.
|
| EDIT: > The summary execution with no explanation
| and no escalation path and no appeal is not endearing
|
| Agreed. I've had this happen to me before with Twitter as well.
| Got 3 accounts suddenly suspended for no reason. Boring long
| story but, after about 6 months they re-instated them with
| nothing more than a "Whoops! We made a mistake".
|
| What makes these 'summary executions' [I like that description!]
| infinitely more annoying is that there's no way to enter into any
| kind of a dialogue about it. If you receive an email from eBay,
| telling you you've been suspended, it'll come from a no-reply
| address and good luck actually finding any way to contact them
| through their website. It just sends you round and round in
| circles before eventually dumping you onto their 'Community'
| forum, which is basically just a load of other pissed off users,
| shouting into the void.
|
| I know the old argument goes "Their playground. Their rules" and,
| in general, I agree with that. But, with these huge corporations
| which have a virtual monopoly on certain arenas of internet
| activity, there ought to be some safeguards in place to protect
| users against arbitrary [and often unfounded] account
| suspensions. This kind of thing could literally bankrupt
| someone's business, if they relied heavily on eBay sales.
| bovermyer wrote:
| Yeah... my eBay account is very old (maybe 1998 vintage?), and
| I almost never use it anymore.
|
| But I have a fondness for out of print, obscure tabletop RPGs,
| and eBay is probably the only market I know of for that,
| outside of knowing a guy who knows a guy.
|
| Losing access to eBay would be annoying. Not world-ending,
| because perspective. But annoying.
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(page generated 2021-12-03 23:01 UTC)