Anyone here with an "in" with eBay? | Hacker News Reader

Anyone here with an "in" with eBay?

21 pointsColinWright9 comments

I created an eBay account many years ago. I never did much with it, but I had it, it was there, and I think I used it to buy a few things.

Then a while ago I got an email saying I was permanently banned, without the possibility of review or appeal. I didn't think much about it, but more recently I've thought: Why?

What did I do? Why was my account permanently banned without any recourse?

So I've just had a "conversation" via online chat, firstly with a 'bot, subsequently apparently with a person, and they just said:

Nope. Permanently banned.

Now, I get that providing details to potential bad actors is a risk surface, so they simply don't provide reasons. I get that. But for me on the receiving end of this, si there anything I can do to get the case reviewed and the ban overturned?

Can I have my account reinstated?

Can anyone here help me?

You will probably need to just use another account. But that might not be possible.

I had my Amazon seller account banned for 15 years. I couldn't sign up for another one without it getting banned too. It was all because a scammer decided they wanted to give me negative feedback and keep the item I sold them (in addition to my refund).

No amount of talking or emailing ever got me to a person I could talk to. These companies should be fined/prosecuted for this. As a seller, there should be rules around getting banned and ways to appeal.

> These companies should be fined/prosecuted for this.

What exactly should they be fined or prosecuted for?

I mean... is it not obvious that in a he said she said scenario like this they have to simply side with the buyer? I struggle to understand your mentality, assuming that you have no way to prove (to Amazon or to a court or whatever) that their negative feedback was fraudulent.

Stories like this worry me- I've got a fair amount of stuff connected to Google and I'm afraid one day I'll sneeze in the wrong direction and end up disabled and no way to talk to anyone about it (I used to live in the SFBA and know a Googler but he's gone now).

Just sneeze in the right direction, bro.

Why do you care? Start from scratch. Feedbacks are not useful as they were before.

I tried creating a new account and it was denied. It clearly recognised that I was the same person.

So starting from scratch is ... tricky.

My guess is the account was taken over.

Probably with the help of some insider who told the criminals that the account existed. They figured you would never notice.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com