The eBay Gulag

It’s a vast, murky prison system of which the outside world knows practically nothing. Inmates can find themselves exiled to its depths without warning or trial, without clear charges or the right to defend themselves, and without knowing if and when they – and perhaps their families and associates as well – will ever be released. Guantanamo? Secret CIA jails? No, we’re talking about eBay’s account suspension procedures.

A reader who has just encountered it provides a small window into this dark world. “I’ve been selling things on eBay for a bunch of years,” the reader wrote. “One of my accounts was created in 2000. I’ve helped a bunch of friends, family and neighbors sell and buy on eBay. There’s three accounts that we’ve been using for over five years now, all with 99 percent or better ratings and no negative ratings in more than a year. So I was very surprised to get an e-mail saying all three accounts were suspended last week because of a supposed link to another account (created in 2004) that appears to be someone else’s.”

The original notice from eBay told the reader only that the action had been taken for unspecified violations of eBay’s User Agreement and that he was indefinitely suspended from using the accounts or registering any new ones. At first he wondered if the notice might just be a spammer spoof, but his accounts really were frozen and his appeals to eBay customer service yielded form responses only reiterating he was suspended because of his alleged association with the 2004 account.

Since the reader has helped a number of his family and neighbors get started on eBay, many of them on the same broadband network as he, the reader isn’t sure what evidence eBay may have seen that linked him to the suspect account. But what really bewildered him was that, while his three accounts were suspended, the 2004 account still seemed to be up and running. “The account eBay says we are linked to is for a currently active seller with a name that clearly isn’t me. I don’t know why they linked my accounts to that one, but why isn’t that one suspended also?”

In frustration over his inability to get anyone to listen to his pleas, the reader finally called the office of the eBay division president. This resulted in an e-mail from that office stating that the matter had been reviewed and he had been judged guilty:

“At this time the matter has been fully reviewed, your account will remain suspended. While your account is suspended, you are prohibited from registering under a new account name or using eBay in any way. Please also keep in mind, eBay reserves the right to suspend accounts opened by anyone in the same household of a suspended member, or by any other associates of a suspended member. Although any future emails from you will be read, unless they contain additional information regarding this account suspension, we will be unable to respond.”

This struck the reader as being awfully heavy-handed on eBay’s part. “So I and my family and ‘associates’ are barred from eBay for life? My life, or even my family members lives, since, even after I die, they are still my family? The scarlet ‘A’ hangs over even them for how long? It seems ludicrous — even murderers and other felons know how long their sentences will be for. If I knew why I was suspended or given a chance to defend myself, it might be different. Keeping the online world safe is a noble cause, but it seems that eBay is going too far.”

And since he doesn’t know why eBay considers him an associate of the 2004 account, who else could be banned under this imperial rescript? “What constitutes an associate?” the reader wondered. ” We have DHCP cable service in this area. So if anyone in my neighborhood gets assigned an IP address eBay associates with me, will eBay close their accounts too? I am not going to be very popular in town. Can I bring things to a friend to sell for me? What about the storefronts — are they associates? I feel like Kevin Mitnick, like I’m not allowed to touch a computer. But at least he knew when his sentence would be over, and why he was arrested. I haven’t been arrested, but the eBay police have me locked up pretty effectively anyway.”

Of course, eBay is a private company and has the right to not do business with anyone it decides is a bad guy. If a company treats its customers unfairly, we are told, the marketplace will correct it. But what about when the company is the marketplace, as eBay is for so many online buyers and sellers. Is it fair they can be put in e-commerce jail by association and without any appeal except to their jailers? It would seem to me that to do its job, the open marketplace eBay aspires to be has to be a lot more open than it is.

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