Software defect yielding permanent suspension: account linked to itself

Two recent reports describe a seller who was permanently suspended due to some rogue bot which determined that the account was linked to itself, beginning a downward death spiral in the computer algorithm.

Hello truenliving7,
Based on your account information and activity, it looks like user ID truenliving7 is associated with your account. This usually indicates that both accounts belong to the same person.

Because the other account is restricted or otherwise not meeting minimum seller standards, we've changed the amount you can list on eBay.

This would be bad enough,  However, the bot is not done there. Since the account is being punished, the linked account must be further punished, and is given a permanent suspension.

One example in the wave of wrongful MC999 permanent suspensions

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Seller-Protection/Account-Suspension-MC999-Please-Help/td-p/18635451

I received an email last night that looked like a phishing email, I forwared to spoof@ebay.com and was confirmed it was not from ebay. The email said my account had been suspended. All of my listings have now been removed.

I called ebay and she couldnt find anything wrong with my account so forwarded me to the account security team. I was told that my account was indeed suspended indefinately for these three reasons.

Since 2008, 43 cusotmers claimed item not received (some have claimed this when DC does show delivered)
Since 2008, 38 customers claimed item not as described. I edit listings to be more accurate but not all buyers read the entire listing.
Since 2008, ? customers have claimed I am selling counterfeit items.

Ebay will not disclose what items customers say are not as described or what items are being reported as counterfeit so that I can provide receipts showing they are not and I am defensless because of ebay not providing me information...they say the decision has been made and there is nothing I can do.

My dashboard says "above standard" my 3 month DSR's are 4.95, 4.97, 4.97, 4.99 and 12 month are 4.95,4.97,4.98,4.98

When I call ebay, before this...they always praise me with how great I'm doing so I'm very confused. I alwasy respond immeditately and to my knowledge there have not been any cases closed against me...I always just issue a simple refund if the customer is not happy. In addition, ebays new message system allows customers to open cases without their knowledge by selecting message topic "I havent received my item yet". I have accidently opened cases agains sellers this way. They always say that cases that are closed in my favor will not be counted against me, there have been 0 cases without seller resolution and I never allow cases to be esculated...

I ship orders out the same day or next day...I get instant email notifications so respond very quickly to customers. I have great feedback, of the 7467 feedback in the past 12 months, 26 are less than positive (less than 1% of my customers)

I can not see any of my pending orders (Over 100 from before my account was suspended) customers are messaging me very concerned becaues they received an email from ebay saying my listings were removed. Customers are concerned wether or not they will receive their items, I can not see what items have been paid because ebay removed them. When I asked what I should do for these cusotmers...ebay said I should do nothing and wait for the cusotmer to file a case against me to be refunded since it wont hurt my account any more than it already is. I would NEVER do this to a customer....but I dont know how to refund or ship the orders because I cant SEE them in my account. I'm so furious that ebay would do this to THEIR customers...regardless of what is happening to me and my account, they want me to just leave them hanging not knowing what is going on with their orders at Christmas time. Ebays best advise is for me to do nothing, completely aginst everything I stand for.

This business is my blood sweat and tears! I feel completely violated, like I have been fired from my job (been doing this full time since 2008) and ebay provides me no evedence to support these claims.

I am so confused, I can not defend myself without more information. Ebay says the decision has already been made, there is nothing I can do. Ebay customer support -Spoof said the email was a phishing email but action was taken against my account. Am I missing something?

Then, Later:
 

Hi Guys, yes I was reinstated. I didnt find that out until Sunday morning when I called to get answers and was pleasantly surprised to learn my account was reinstated on the 13th.

I wasnt told very much about what caused this to happen wether system glitch or agent error?...still figuring things out and I will continue to work with ebay to get to the bottom of this. My listings were not posted back on my behalf, I am having to go through my entire warehouse to do inventory counts and relist each one separately. I'm at a little over 200 listings that are up now out of about 2000 that I had before this happened. I have boxes and boxes of new inventory that were delivered and that should have been listed but I dont have time for that so everything is piled up. I'm trying to be strategic and getting best sellers listed first. 

I've hired help to go through everything but it is a lot slower than I thought it would be getting everything back up. Ebay did refund me by "ebay inc." for all those orders that were refunded by default....not sure about those final value fees yet because the cases were closed in the buyers favor and I was not credited those fees. They are refunding my new listing fees.

Obviously my sales are extremely slow just starting out because the majority of my listings are not up yet. We are working as fast as we can to get listings back up but I've already lost an average of $7,996.56 in sales over just these last 7 days and sales will continue to be slow because I cant get my inventory up fast enough. My projected damages and loss is 15,000-20,000 when all is said and done with employee expenses, the damage to my reputation my corporation because of the notice that ebay sent my customers, the duress my self, my customers, my employees and my family has been under because of this, especially at Christmas time.

***************ATTENTION EBAY: If you are reading this, I'm requesting monthly credits against my selling fees until I am made whole. I do not expect anything above and beyond my loss but I am requesting this as a proposed resolution, what do you suggest?

Accepting new user agreement automatically opts seller into Global Shipping Program GSP

If you are not currently opted in to this program and you do not accept the electronic click-through, you will not be able to take advantage of the Global Shipping Program, but you will still be bound by all other provisions of this User Agreement.
By accepting, you will also be acknowledging that you have read and agree to the Global Shipping Program Seller Terms and Conditions. Those terms will apply to your participation as a seller in the Global Shipping Program and to all of your eligible new and existing listings following acceptance

Clicking 'accept' will automatically opt seller in, including currently listed items.

All items will have the bid block cleared of 'buyer has a primary shipping address in countries I do not ship to'.

The mess can be cleaned up, but not for 24 hours. 

Ebay Software Defect results in accidental MC999 indefinite seller suspensions

Several cases reported during the past week, all reversed when some actual person looked the case over.

These all share a common element: cases which should not have counted.

In particular,

1.  Buyer protection cases which were either won by seller or successfully resolved by seller.
2.  VeRO cases which were responded to properly and did not involve any actual VeRO infringement.

In all the reported cases, calls to Customer Service were not useful in getting the situation resolved. Postings to discussion forums, in particular the Seller Protection board  http://community.ebay.com/t5/Seller-Protection/bd-p/25200000028, have been useful.

Apparently Ebay software has been counting almost anything as being an unresolved case, and shutting sellers down quick and hard.

Here's a comment posted by Ebay, emphasis mine:

in reply to bluepaulywalley

‎12-02-2013 01:53 PM

@bluepaulywalley

Great News!  So glad our team was able to help you resolve this issue.  We are aware of the MC999 issue and our team is proactively investigating the matter.  If there are others on the board with a similar issue please send me a private message.
  
Lamont
-eBay Seller Protection team

To learn more about what eBay is doing to protect Sellers in the marketplace:

http://www.ebay.com/sellerprotection