Suspended by Ebay

I don't do much at ebay, but I have bought and sold a few coins. Basioally, I bought Morgan dollars, and when they were not what I hoped (or told) I sold them off and took the loss.

Of course, one high bidder did not pay, and would not answer emails. I figure he got caught up in the last minute sniping and had second thoughts, which was not a problem had he just told me so.

So I leave this yard-bird truthful, negative feedback, and of course he does the same for me. No big deal.

Then he enlists the aid of a mediator to get the negative feedback retracted; I decline. Especially since there was no payment or communication.

After I ended the mediation with a refusal to withdraw the feedback, I got an email from ebay telling me I must resolve my complaints of face suspension. Understand, I never acted on a non-paying buyer. It was just $28.

So then I get an email saying that perhaps someone has taken over my account (and listing a few other possibilites as to why I was suspended) and listing unauthorized auctions on my account, and even listed what was sold.

My question: is this normal for ebay? Will I be suspended for giving someone truthful negative feedback, and not retracting it? Is this typically the way ebay handles disputes?

It doesn't really bother me, especially in light of their recent stance against the Second Amendment. But I resent being suspended, especially when I really haven't done anything wrong. And, I would like to be able to buy some coins from time to time.

Should I file a complaint against the non-paying buyer?

Can anyone shed some light on this situation? Of course, information is hard to get from ebay.

 

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You can't get into any trouble for posting a negative feedback if it's true. And you should definately file a complaint. It's ashamed that you get a negative feedback for retaliation when your in the right.

 

The part about unauthorized auctions raises two possibilities.
1) The email you got is a "phishing" email sent with a phony eBay return address. If it asked you to click on a link and input your ID and password, that's probably what it is, and if you responded you have compromised your password.
2) Someone has already stolen your identity and is running phony auctions or making purchases which he/she isn't paying for, in which case you should close out that ID and start over from a different email address.

There is a time limit for filing NPB reports, which you may have missed. They don't generally accomplish much anyway, except a refund of your final value fee, which wasn't very much on a $28 sale.

 

This sounds like phishing to me. Do you still have this e-mail or ones before it purportedly sent by eBay? Did it contain a link to a web site to enter your account information? If so, when you click it does it go to a site outside of the ebay.com domain? If so, you've been phished and your account has been compromised.

As a general word of caution to all, a lot of times the ultimate goal isn't to hack eBay accounts -- it's to get into PayPal accounts, which are often (mistakenly) set up with the same password as the eBay account. So if they cracked the eBay account, they'd have your PayPal account hijacked, too.

Anyway, if any of this applies to you, contact eBay immediately. This page has more details:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/isgw-account-theft-reporting.html

 

Thanks for the info.

I did get a strange email from what was labeled as ebay. It did have a link that the email directed me to click and log in to "resolve the complaint". The page it linked to looked identical to ebay, I don't remember if I fell for it or not. It would seem that perhaps I did.

Luckily, my paypal password is much more complicated with special characters, upper and lower case letters, and numbers. And it does not resemble my ebay password at all.

Ebay did include an item that was put up for sale by my account. It was a stereo or boombox and all I ever listed was coins. But when I logged on to 'myebay', there was nothing unusual under the 'selling' tab. Maybe ebay cleaned it out.

As for the non paying buyer; in his negative feedback, he said that I did not respond to his emails, which I never got any emails. In my auction, I requested payment within 3 days because I was going to be out of town for a week and wanted to resolve it before leaving. He never responded to the invoices in any way. I posted negative feedback on the 4th day,maybe I was wrong to do that. It may be that he missed the 3 day requirement, or wanted to wait until payday. Perhaps my impatience was more to blame than he was. That, I will never know.


Thanks for the heads up about the "phishing email", I would not have known of that, or realized what was happening. Good thing for me my passwords are different, because I use my checking account to be a "verified" member. Getting a lot of fraudulent charges to a Visa is a minor problem compared to getting your checking account drained. YIKES.

Thanks again for the info.

 

You're right there. My wife and I are very careful -- almost paranoid, but not quite -- about security, but stuff happens. Last Sunday morning we received a call from the bank that issued the Visa card we usually use (for the airline miles). Someone had charged a $1,400 online order to an auto parts place to our account. Let's see. Online...$1,400...shipped to some place other than the billing address...you think that raised some red flags with the bank?

The bottom line is, every time you use your card, there is at least SOME risk -- maybe very small, but not zero -- that someone will get the account information from it and scam you (or the bank). You can reduce your chances of becoming a victim, but as long as you have the account, you can never *eliminate* it.

Anyway, in our case the bank flagged this charge as disputed due to fraud, reversed the $1,400 charge, mailed new cards (with a new account number) that arrived today...if you have a debit card tied to your checking account, you don't have that protection. Since we can pay it off each month, I use the credit card for everything I can, mainly for that reason. If I have an option to use a credit card, I never use a debit card.

Glad to hear your PayPal account is different. I've heard horror stories from folks who used the same eBay and PayPal passwords. One of them was lucky -- they had a fraudulent $250 transaction -- and PayPal caught it and reversed it before they even knew what happened, and called them to make sure they changed their password to something different than any other password they had. Of course, if you're compromised and the worst that happened to you was a $250 hit, you're pretty lucky, too.

Anyway, if you ever receive e-mails from eBay, PayPal or anything like that, ASSUME IT'S FAKE until you can verify otherwise. And if a note allegedly from PayPal is addressed "Dear PayPal User," it's a phish -- delete it or send it to spoof@paypal.com. I got one of those "we lost your account information, please click here and send it again" e-mails a couple of days ago, and just for grins I clicked on the URL and it sent me to a domain outside the paypal.com domain. Run, don't walk, away from that!

 

I hate credit cards ( the borrower is slave to the lender) but I use credit cards for online and telephone purchases, just for the fraud protection. I pay it off at the end of the month. Unfortunately, I don't get miles, just a low rate.

I was at a customer account Thursday, and he just had a bad check written against his account. Somehow, the bank caught it and did not cash the $1,500 check. That shook him up as to how the criminal got the account number. Little do people know that the State of Tennessee (pronounced Tennersayee) uses convict labor at computer stations to process some type of personal information. I think they allow credit card companies to use the convict labor for certain tasks. There have been scandals where this has lead to problems.

Back to my original intended point: that customer told me of a scheme the crims are using where they steal mail from a private mail box around the first of the month hoping to catch bills going out. They take bills like phone and electric because it is obvious to them it is a payment, but not to the homeowner as to what happened.

The crims will put tape over the signature and wash the ink off the check, then dry the now blank check. They then remove the tape from the signature, fill out the check and go cash it. There is only one type of ink that will not wash out, and I forget what it is called.

I guess I would prefer they steal the check out of the mailbox, as compared to catching me at an ATM, which is a bad choice for them considering I carry a concealed weapon and have a LOT of training in personal defense.

Criminals are getting very clever in their methods. Identity theft is becoming a favorite of the local gangs.

 

But I would phrase it: urgently recommend that you immediately take your computer to a professional.

If "myebay" doesn't show it, that boombox auction never happened, except in the sick imagination of the phisherman stalking you.

 

So normal adaware is no sufficient?

 

I wouldn't trust it. This is a liability issue, and I would make sure it wasn't just my neck that was on the line.

If your machine is reviewed by a professional, you have some backup should nasty shenanigans start to occur.