Do Sellers Have the Right to Know Why They Were Suspended?

by: Smallseller

About a year ago, a seller was permanently suspended. As usual, ebay would not tell her why and just stated the standard line of ''you are a risk to the community'' without any further explanation and no right to appeal. With much persistence, she finally got the answer. It turns out that she did not answer the phone when ebay called to verify some information. They did not leave a message, instead choosing to suspend her. Once she was able to answer some security questions, she was reinstated.

That is absolutely ridiculous and draconian.

Also, sellers seem to forget that there are alternatives. Ebay has an arbitration clause. Imagine what an arbitrator would say to ebay, when asked why they did not leave the seller a message to call them back.

Ebay is so distrusting of their sellers that they are afraid that if the sellers know the reason they are suspended, they might find a way around it.

There are many situations that a seller deserves to know why as sometimes unintentional things happen.

You could be suspended for using the WIFI of someone who was suspended and not know it. Or you could be a new seller and not realize that it is not a good idea to list an iphone as one of your first items. Or maybe you were away from ebay for many years and were not aware of the new managed payments. Not everyone is constantly on social media and in Facebook groups to learn all the dangers to new sellers. And ebay does not make it a point to communicate this information.

by: GetAGrip

Get suspended. Just do like everyone else. Open a new account. Easy peasy. Done it more than once.

by: pace306

Radical idea

If sellers are considered “workers “, then petition a union for a local they can join

Offer a Union a few million new members, then use them to threaten eBay - and watch them fold.

Sellers have no rights and that’s for all platforms and needs to change.

All these platforms treat sellers like trash and that needs to change immediately.

by: comments

Not only do I think that marketplaces should show sellers exactly what they were suspended for, and that it is their duty, but I also think that share holders should demand it. The law should also offer sellers a fair appeals process.

Over the years there have been hundreds of thousands of people if not millions who got their accounts suspended for reasons beyond their control. For example the 2008 mass ban for DSR's. At the time Feedback and DSR's went back through the life of the account. It was not possible to change a lifetime average in the 3 months allotted. Everyone was banned and ebay realized that they needed to go by a rolling average. If you were one of the unfortunates of the first round though, you lost your livelihood, ebay lost profit, and the shareholders were misinformed with spin as usual.

If a company can cause great personal harm, they should be accountable for the reason. That should only be the first step. Government intervention is badly needed to protect small businesses from the tyrannical rule of out of touch inexperienced idiots who have never owned a small business.

by: mjr55

I mean this shows you how ASS BACKWARDS Amazon has this stuff.

Like, how many threads are there on Seller Central where a seller gets suspended and Amazon gives them zero information about why and the seller literally has to play a guessing game with these people as to exactly what they are trying to get reinstated for. It's an absolute joke....sellers will sit here for months exchanging pointless emails instead of Amazon spelling out what the issue is so a buyer can intelligently and truthfully reply.

It's basically like being arrested and not being told why you were arrested at any point in time ever.

by: mjr55

@ comments.....

I do believe you can sue these marketplaces to find out this information and you would have a case if the suspension was based on false information.

I also agree 2008 was absolutely the most stressful time ever as a seller on Ebay.....and we've been there 22 years. That seller performance policy at that time was criminal.

by: pace306

This site (amongst others) lament the guy that was "caught" helping out sellers get back on Amazon using tips/tricks/info he had access to .... as he was some kind of criminal .... maybe - just maybe - he was a super hero?

While eBays customer service is abysmal, Amazon isnt far behind - unless you are a buyer, your concerns are worth zero - so how can you fix issues?

Bad things happen to good people and while Amazon & eBay have thousands of employees, most small business's do not. LIFE, real life sometimes gets int he way. Sometimes, people also make innocent mistakes.

Those issues, combined with the nastiness of the platforms - make the need to get info all the more important.

Sellers NEED to have some rights and a voice. They may not ever be able to directly influence company policy, but they should have a seat at the table or at least a separate CS dept that works to fix issues.

If you are a bad seller then you deserve what comes, but if you are a good seller that gets caught up in a web with BOTH platforms bad buyers - its unfair to be shoved out the door "without a hearing".

by: ScottLBrown

I'm still lost.  How does the US Government still allow such a large company to exist when they do not provide information to rectify a problem, any problem, within their network?

Amazon is already required to do so in the European Union, why not here?

Their only saving grace is that Arbitration is the only recourse in their contract and we've all signed it. Sadly.  For those of us with relatively few violations, it's just a thorn and thus an acceptable cost of doing business.  For smaller sellers, who don't have the resources to hire Ex Amazon VA's as someone mentioned above, and their business is completely shut down, that can be a life changing event with merchandise that can't be sold, won't be returned and cash-on-hand held by Amazon.

Why can't everything we do simply be "transparent"?  

The analogy is like how we treat and train employees who make mistakes.  We teach and explain what they did wrong and allow them to fix their process multiple times as necessary.  After the 3rd time, maybe some other level of re-training or change in responsibilities might happen. Without clear evidence of bad intentions or negligence, termination is not warranted.   Amazon has a lot to learn.  

I believe that Amazon's move to protect themselves from people saying "I know a guy", and compartmentalizing every department, especially Trust & Safety, has exacerbated this problem.

Can't wait to see how this court case may & should have an effect on the governments plans to force Amazon to fix these issues.   Due to the forced need, the sheer number of Amazon VA companies, and the revenue they generate is staggering.

by: Dea

Etsy is right in the thick of this also...I would like to add there needs to be some transparency when they withhold funds from sellers for up to 180 days.  Generally it is 45-90 with no reason why and they won't tell sellers, in fact they will just stop communicating with you if you push for the reason.  I am hoping that here in the US our FTC at some point puts a stop to these practices.  Long time sellers 5 years or more are seeing this happening frequently.  Venues should not be allowed to add this to their TOU's and just because it is in there doesn't make it legal, it is definitely unethical.  

by: Stone Cutter

*** And those TV commercials ***

And YES to the comment about Etsy….they are in the thick of it too.

Etsy has a commercial that shows this guy talking on the phone who tells his friend that he’s quitting his day job to start a business on Etsy. And how is this suppose to work for shop owners who are randomly shutdown without explanation?

What a joke.  

by: Rexford

There should be a law that  REQUIRES every marketplace to tell a seller why they have been suspended and the seller should be allowed to correct the situation if they have broken rules that they may not even have know about.

by: pace306

It’s like the movie Animal House … sellers are on “double secret probation “!!

by: GetAGrip

Everyone thinks Ebay really cares about you the seller. In fact you are noise and not very loud at that. They know you are there for a reason.

by: Opalie

When you're dealing with people's finances and livelihoods, super secret reason suspensions of accounts (and the holding of all current funds) should be illegal,

The much cited "risk to the community" reasons from ebay are beyond a joke.

by: shut1968

They should go one step further and be forced to pay interest on any funds being held during any suspension or appeals..  they are collecting it while it sits in their banks.. it doesn't belong to them.

by: Snapped

Overlooked in all these venue’s that spout their ‘justification’ for secrecy is the fact they are basically admitting, that for all their ‘diligence’ surrounding the reasons for such suspensions, there must still be many ‘holes’ in their grea

by: Snapped

Great Wall.  

by: iheartjacksparrow

Yes sellers have a right to know why they were suspended, otherwise, how can they rectify the issue? What if the seller made a simple spelling mistake? Or there was a word in a listing that the bots misinterpreted? I was never suspended from eBay, but they removed one of my items, a production photo from The Exorcist, because I indicated it was shot in Iraq, and apparently a bot thought I was selling something obtained from Iraq.  

by: pace306

"risk to the community" = risk to eBays pocket - or so they think

by: Rexford

I think that these marketplaces just don't want to deal with the due diligence that is involved with doing a deeper investigation to see if the seller really broke rules or laws so they just kick them to the curb. For them that is the easiest and most cost efficient way of just making whatever the problem is just  "go away".  It gets attorneys off their backs...for the time being.

One day however they will kick a true fighter (i.e., an Erin Brokovich) to the curb who will not let it go. He or she will hire a top notch cadre of attorneys, get the press involved, the story will go global and viral, and the site will pay the price either out of pocket or from a public relations standpoint.