I opened my original e-bay account around 2004 – found it quite enjoyable getting rid of odds and sods and a few snaps culled from LFI’s (my photo agency) vast archive.
However, selling didn’t intensify until I started the dreaded divorce proceedings and the selling of possessions and memorabilia became a bit of a necessity rather than just a hobby – ‘head above water’ etc.
This eventually settled and I quickly continued the practice as a hobby having found a niche market amongst collectors for old advertising ashtrays and other pub/bar odds and sods – ‘Tobacciana’ and ‘Breweriana’ as they are known.
Problems arose, not insurmountable but annoying – most of my items were ceramic and quite fragile so, unless carefully packed, could arrive broken – so packing became a skilled job but there was bugger all I could do about careless postmen – I gave firm undertakings to buyers that I wouldn’t quibble about damaged deliveries and would refund not only what they had paid for the items but also the postage – the only quid-pro-quo was that they had to send me photographs as proof that the items had been broken. But I could do nothing about items that were ‘lost in the post’ – just take the buyer’s word for it and give ’em back their money (I suspected several fiddles here but could do nothing).
Then in one week, I had a sudden spate of damaged deliveries and ‘no shows’ – one or two of the buyers complained, somewhat prematurely, to e-bay (the rule is that they should contact me initially to sort out problems) and, suddenly, out of the blue, e-bay terminated my account – their computer system had flagged me up as a villain!
Then started a long chain of correspondence, e-mails and telephone calls (many to Bangalore) and letters to their UK and USA CEOs (neither of whom gave me the courtesy of any responses) – all I got, summed up, was ‘the computer says you’re dishonest and what the computer says has to be obeyed – with profuse use of the word ‘sorry’.
I gave up and started up my own site which has been moderately successful but never as good as E-Bay was so I was quite surprised and pleased, in March this year, when E-Bay seemed to allow me to open up a fresh account.
——and it all went swimmingly until 5 PM today when I was working on uploading stuff and the account was suddenly suspended because (after 6 months) they had correlated an ‘association’ with my original account – I made the call – lots of ‘sorry’s’ again – couldn’t understand what was being said half the time – accent was so pronounced – but the computer says I am a ‘villain’ again – by simple association with the previous account – I have appealed it but I don’t hold out much hope.
Ironic thing is that I received three messages from them at the same time – two related to the suspension – the other was a survey requesting details of my transactions, was I happy with e-bay?, would I recommend it to others? &c – silly sods – my comments in the survey can’t be repeated here.
I read, the other day, that E-Bay’s roster of sellers and buyers is on a fairly steep downward decline – this could be a reason!
F–k ‘Em!
griptypethynne 