Totally agree they are meant to work together, but there they seemed to have worked against my friend to basically do him over. His perfomance in Ebay is excellent. All his ratings in there system are of High Standard and the Policy Compliance is also High. (all 4.5 stars in the ratings indexes). So Ebay have no reason to do the ban, and to substantiate this, they never reported his standard falling low (as it never did). When he spoke to them today they said they purely suspended his account, because Paypal has done so (which Paypal has done without any reason, and when asked they outright refuse to provide a reason). In fact Paypal were borderline rude to tmy frined today on the phone, and can only guess they are trying to intimidate him and make him feel like he has no hope. They asked him for the tracking references from ebay, which he provided and they even verified them. Yet still they suspended his account, and refuse to discuss it with him. I got him to speak to the Financial Ombudsman today, who having heard the fully story were also not exactly happy with Paypal conduct. But then they did gvie the impression that this is happening a lot with Paypal, and they recieve a very large number of complaints. Yet Paypal still carries on *sigh*

My friend has an ebay account with excellent feedback and very resepectable sales figures per month. Recently a buyer bought a PC graphics card and subsequently tried to deny reciept. When prooved via the courier company it was delivered, they changed there story to saying it is not as described. When again this was disproved (have serial number and invoice of item), they ran of to there bank and tried to claim there card has been used fraudulently. Paypal started to investigate this, which basically resulted in my friend being given the third degree, by his accoutn being put on limitation and having to go through full verification again. He submits all this info, but before it gets processed, ebay decides to de-register him as a user. Which auto cancels all his 70 + listings and the items he has recently sold and sent out. Causing a panic with the buyers as they get sent an email telling them of this. Teh only answer we can get is that paypal say they dont have tracking numbers for the items sold. Even though they have all been entered in Ebay, they say the Databases are not synchronized. If this is so, then why are they at all in Ebay in the first place, as that directly mis leads the sellers into thinking that is where they should be entered. Secondly, why do does the system auto trigger such wide reaching and damaging effects such as bannign a user, based on aspects which are a short coming of there own systems i.e. they cant do a simple thing and synchronize one piece of data. My friend is in real distress over this, as he put a lot of money into starting this business and Ebay and Paypal have without a blink of an eye lid shot him down and cut his lively hood. It only makes it worse when he is in fact the one being the run around by a scrupilous buyer. Can anything be done about this? He is in a right state over this, so I promissed to try and help him out and seek advise.

Hi I sold a Graphics Card about a month ago or more, and as it turned out it was a slightly older model (same internals but different external design and fan housing). Buyer was insistent they wanted the new look one. So I asked them to provide the EAN and SN from the box before I issued a returns (so I could concretely establish exatly which wrong variation has been sent out). They didnt reply and instead raised a case with Amazon. Amazon automatically went ahead and refunded them. Now It has been two weeks since the redund and I dont have the money or the card. I contacted the buyer several times and got no response. Only today they finally responded when I told them I have raised a case with Amazon. However they are not telling me how they sent the item or giving me any tracking means (which I did ask them to send by in the first place). I contacted Amazon several times via the messaging system, and only today got an answer. Which was a standard answer along the lines of ... "we are a platform for buyers and sellers and do not intervene ... please discuss and work it out". How can this be right, when Amazon is the one who auto refunded them without even asking for the item to be sent back with proof ?

Your so right, and in fact when I spoke to Ebay CS about resolving difficult cusomter issues. They would turn round and say to me "well if you were the buyer and purchasing online what would you expect from the seller". And also insisting that I provide complete and comprehensive support for my sales, just liek an online store. But the fact is your not! And make matters worse when I raised these issues on the forums, I always got jumped on sellers trying to tell me I deserve it because I am not a business and why should Ebay take me seriously. Even had some say I have to comply withbusiness like trading rules or denying peoples rights. Thing is Ebay can become a business seller only place if it wants, but its monopolising the space and thus not allowed anything else that caters for the alternative. I wouldnt be suprised if many of the [problematic] / cheats on Ebay are actually disgruntled sellers.

Hi there =) Thank you for the reply. Its interesting to see how they even manage to muck things up like that. Its a good thing you are a good honest buyer. I am sure many would have taken the money, leaving the poor seller none the wiser to worse still unable to get Ebay to listen. I realised too laye that my problem is I have been selling high value goods, which also carry a fair risk of users tampering/corrupting or simply mis understanding how to use them. I foolishly/niavley thought Ebay would treat cases with due concern and attention. Little did I realise they side with the buyer 9 / 10 as its easier and simpler to do. Or worse still (as your case) mess things up. For example if I sell a fully set up system and the user manages to corrupt the Operating System and then blames me for 'goods not as described'. Ebay just turn around and say 'we recommend you refund the buyer'. Iv always been hoenst in every walk of life, and that includs selling. I tried to go above and beyond call of duty, but that surely has to have its limits. There has to be some sort of balance. I wish there was good decent alternatives to Ebay, but they have monopolised that market and that probably explains there arrogant / buuly approach to treating sellers. As they count on you not being able to go elsewhere.

I have been a memebr on Ebay and Paypal for years and have been buying and selling fine with good praise. Recently I had a few buyers being difficult, one even trying to extort thigns out of me or threatening to get a refund. Now my seller rights have been withdrawn due to the DSR system, and naturally I was shocked. As I was actually the one being bullied here and suffering lost time, returned damaged goods expenses as well as money being held by Paypal whenever one of these buyers decided to open a case. A lady in Top Customer Support (hmm) explained it is because 4 low scores on deliveries. I explained it was during the bad weather period and also MyHermes was the courier I was using, who ended up having internal problems and tons of people suffered delays. And I can substantiate this via MyHermes. But she said she wasn’t interested as I chose the courier and its my responsibility no matter what. The real biter is that I had to refund on two items in exactly the same way you have said. they told me to refund and then later appeal. I did and weeks later I have had no reply. Just before they closed my selling ability, they held an item to the sum of £930 from my paypal account for weeks ! Even though it was past the 45 day period of a buyers submitting a claim. Even though the buyer contradicted them self and back tacked. Eventually after hours on the phone with Ebay I got the case ruled in my favour. But even then they told me it is held against me, as the case was opened in the first place is a negative on my ratings. Now the last PC system I sold, which was throughly tested and safely packed, is receiving a complaint form the buyer, who has already twice changed there story about what the problem is and also has not followed my advice and on top of that has lied in the resolution response saying I am not responding to them. Even though I have proof of sending them replies as well as personal emails. I even sent them a pre-paid return postage label. Which they have not bothered to use. Yet again £240 is deducted from my paypal, I am left wandering what is going on and if they will once again just side with the buyer and demand I refund them at my expense. If they bother to take into account my feedback which is full of praise from good buyers, including for systems. And even recently where the courier damaged the system I sent out a new replacement system. In fact even the buyer who tried it on for £930 later retracted there negative feedback and put in feedback full of praise, and apologized over the matter. Yet Ebay say they don’t care, and they wont budge an inch or even look at my case. Iv even had to refund where the buyer has had a laptop I sent opened and looked at by someone else. Even though I specifically asked to send it back to me. Thats cost me over a hundred pounds alone, as they have damaged it internally. But Ebay are not doing anything about it. I even had a buyer open a case where I sent them the wrogn spec of the laptop. Thing was it was a high spec of the same model. But they still won it and I had to refund them ! How on earth are sellers meant to be protected ? Where is the equality in this ? You can see it where ‘Buyer Protection’ is plastered everywhere but no such thing is there for Sellers, other than promises that never seem to be fulfilled. Am so disappointed and feel victimised by Ebay right now. Is there any hope, or can that nothing can be done about this, and Ebay can get away with it ? Iv done thousands of pounds of successful sales and earned Ebay a nice tidy sum. Are sellers that cheap in Ebays eyes ?