Recently, I thought of expanding my choices of earning online, and one of my preferences is selling on Ebay. I do not have in mind on what to sell, so I login in Freelancer, a freelance job website, to search for some project requiring Ebay sellers. I know that it would not be easy for me to find a provider who will trust his product to someone like me who does not have seller profile however, I still try my luck. Fortunately, I found one invitation asking me to bid as Ebay seller. To cut the long story short, he agreed to let me post his items on my Ebay selling page and sent me the necessary documents, pictures, and instructions.
Upon receiving these, I immediately opened my Ebay page and posted the items. I was happy that it was not that hard at all since my items provider gave me all the necessary descriptions in html format, and I just copied it and pasted on the Ebay editor. After posting the items, I hurriedly emailed my provider of the item numbers so that he will be able to see them. And there they were… that was what I thought!
After an hour or so, I received three emails from Ebay. The first one was stating that they removed my listings.
The second one is notifying me that my account has been temporarily locked.
The third one is about temporarily disabling the automatic payment of selling fees. It is the one of the required part if you are selling. Your account must be linked to a checking account or credit/debit card, so that Ebay will have the means to automatically collect selling fees from your bank every time you list items to sell.
My first reaction upon reading these emails was doubt to my product provider. Did he try to hack my account? Was it just a scam? So, I immediately emailed him about my situation. I did not blame him or accused him of anything since I have not proved anything bad on him. After that, I made some researches on Ebay Scams and read some posts and forums related to Ebay account cancellation and closure. I have read so many same experiences as I have. I also found out that Ebay provides chat support which I immediately contacted.
The representative was good. She reviewed my case and asked me if I can receive call from my registered number, and since that number is with my mom, it is not possible to do verification through phone, she just sent me the verification code through email. This is the step where you have to prove your identity. I opened my email and put the code in the chat box. She also asked me if I was the one who posted the listings and I said it was me. That was all that she needed to restore my account and item lists. Afterwards she told me to login and change my password.
She explained to me that since April 2008, any irregularities in the activity of the Ebay account are being reviewed. The cookies and unique code of the computer being used by the account holder are saved in the database to determine whether it is really the owner of the account who is using it. This is to prevent cases of stealing Ebay accounts.
I lauded Ebay for doing this even though I panicked upon receiving those notifications. With the proliferation of scams and phishing, it is necessary that Ebay administration do something that will protect their buyers, bidders, and sellers from people who have bad intentions. So when you receive these kinds of mails from Ebay, all you need to do is contact their chat support. They are very much willing to help you. I have proven it.
