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I've had an eBay account for over 20 years. I stopped using it a few years ago, then sometime in 2022 I decided to sell something, so I logged in and posted my

I've had an eBay account for over 20 years. I stopped using it a few years ago, then sometime in 2022 I decided to sell something, so I logged in and posted my item. The next day, eBay sent me an email saying that my account was suspended. I tried to login, and sure enough, locked out. I just left it alone; I was pretty much already done with eBay anyway. I did nothing. Well, out of curiosity, a few months later, I tried to login to my eBay account again, and it worked fine. I was able to list items for sale again. The message telling me that my account was suspended was still in my eBay Inbox, but I never received any sort of explanation. The whole experience was pretty lame. My guess is that since the account was idle for a few years, then the account suddenly tried selling something, so the algorithms detected this as potential fraud. That sorta makes sense. My beef, really, is that the account was suspended with no explanation and no way to "unsuspend" it, but it "unsuspended" itself, like by magic. Weird.

dehrmann 4y ago
The bit I'll add about potential fraud is this is what a reused password from a password dump looks like.
aynyc 4y ago
Probably password dump and fraud attempt on eBay side. They aren’t going to explain that to hackers. I had the same thing and I managed to reactivate after I pinged support. It was rather painless than I was expecting. I don’t have a lot of love for eBay.
- amerkhalid 4y ago
  > They aren’t going to explain that to hackers. The idea of security through obscurity needs to die. I wish companies shared their logic behind these decisions. Sure bad people will take advantage of it in short-term. But, in long-term, most of the loopholes should be discovered and fixed.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Fraud is not a well-bounded problem like authentication. There is no cryptographic way to prevent fraud. Using behavioral analytics is about the best you can do from behind a keyboard, and if you share the way you're measuring it, people can change their behavior to work around it. One alternative is to put more onerous restrictions on users, so that it is hard or expensive for them to buy or sell on eBay, in which case people may just buy/sell elsewhere. The other alternative is to insert more humans into the process, at which point, you start to look less like an auction website and more like an auction house.
    - ipaddr 4y ago
      They prevent fraud through authentication. If authentication is unreliable then behavior matters. But behaviour is more easily gamed and abused and has more false negatives affecting customers.
      - kube-system 4y ago
        The process of transacting physical items has many opportunities for fraud that isn't addressed even by perfect authentication in any way. This is where eBay's tough problems arise.
- casenmgreen 4y ago
  I don't think it's that. I think they don't explain, anyway, at all, for anything, simply because they don't; there's no motive to do so - it's just more work.
- reustle 4y ago
  > Probably password dump and fraud attempt on eBay side. So then send a confirmation email when logging in after a while. If the email is also compromised, it's not eBay's problem.
webdoodle 4y ago
I had a similar experience when I changed my ISP. When I contacted Ebay they told me the only way to unsuspend my account was to click on the link they texted to me. I told them I don't own a cellphone and haven't for several years, so who did they text. I went through 6 different tech support people, and every single one told me to click on the link they texted, even though I started the conversation saying I don't own a cellphone. You might think the stupidity stops there, but after all this frustration, I told them to delete my entire account, all my purchase history and reviews. They told me to do so they'd have to send me a text with a verification link! After 12 different techs couldn't figure out how to do so without a text verification, I finally threw in the towel. Ironically, after a year I decided to try and log in again. Like magic, it just worked. What a shitshow...
- darkhorn 4y ago
  Modern landline phones can receive and send SMS. Your landline provider might have SMS support. Just buy an SMS capable telephone.
  - tmm 4y ago
    This is news to me. Do you have any example devices? Cursory internet search isn’t turning anything up. Verizon, the ILEC where I am, provides a text-to-voice service if you pay for it. Basically converts an SMS to voicemail. I guess IP phones can do SMS though.
    - darkhorn 4y ago
      https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/ekonomi/ev-telefonundan-da-sms-devri-basladi-5540540 https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/ekonomi/ev-telefonundan-da-sms-d... https://www.onedirect.de/gigaset-e720-eu-version https://www.onedirect.de/gigaset-e720-eu-version https://www.quora.com/Why-was-SMS-text-messaging-never-rolled-out-on-landline-phone-services https://www.quora.com/Why-was-SMS-text-messaging-never-rolle... The news says that TurkTelekom (home landline) now (2006) has SMS capabilities. Back then the company was only landline. There was no wireless landline. I think there is still no wireless landline. (Only few years ago Avea has merged with TurkTelekom and now TurkTelekom refers to both landline phones and one of 3 mobile service providers in Turkey) Aroud 2006-2010 I was sending SMS from my mobile phone to my coisin's landline (yes, connected with a cord to the street) and because his phone didn't had SMS support a computerazied female voice would read the SMS for free. I think it is still valid. I think you can search for dect phone with SMS support. I was thinking to buy one few years ago but they were a bit expensive.
duxup 4y ago
My age old eBay account randomly got renamed, still worked, then later I found it was banned. No notice that I ever saw , but like you I really didn’t care/ was done with eBay.
- deepsun 4y ago
  If you've been reusing that password, someone might have stolen it from other dumps. They might also redirect notifications.
  - duxup 4y ago
    I assumed the same too, but there didn't seem to be any activity on the account and the password was just a randomly generated password. It never showed up on Have I Been Pwned. Granted, still absolutely could have been a breach, but not like i can find out.
sacnoradhq 4y ago
Similar story not with eBay but with Facebook. I've had eBay for around 25 years. Never a problem buying or selling. I signed-in to enable 2FA, review privacy settings, change the password, and review whatever content was left. Instalocked as soon as I reached the 2FA page. Someone through channels unlocked it for me. Tried to review the account again. Again, same thing. Instaban. Ban and unban processes are generally fully automated. The issue is with the signals used to reduce false positives and false negatives, and the ambiguousness of certain situations make judgement difficult-to-impossible without the critical thinking skills of humans. In general, the scaling of human review isn't economically-achievable. Maybe platforms should encourage review volunteers in some manner or seek scaling of human review by additional means. Plot twist: I work for Meta. Linking the personal Facebook account with work was a required step. IG, nothing much changed, except it received a private "internal" badge.

dehrmann 4y ago

The bit I'll add about potential fraud is this is what a reused password from a password dump looks like.

aynyc 4y ago

Probably password dump and fraud attempt on eBay side. They aren’t going to explain that to hackers. I had the same thing and I managed to reactivate after I pinged support. It was rather painless than I was expecting. I don’t have a lot of love for eBay.

amerkhalid 4y ago
> They aren’t going to explain that to hackers. The idea of security through obscurity needs to die. I wish companies shared their logic behind these decisions. Sure bad people will take advantage of it in short-term. But, in long-term, most of the loopholes should be discovered and fixed.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Fraud is not a well-bounded problem like authentication. There is no cryptographic way to prevent fraud. Using behavioral analytics is about the best you can do from behind a keyboard, and if you share the way you're measuring it, people can change their behavior to work around it. One alternative is to put more onerous restrictions on users, so that it is hard or expensive for them to buy or sell on eBay, in which case people may just buy/sell elsewhere. The other alternative is to insert more humans into the process, at which point, you start to look less like an auction website and more like an auction house.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    They prevent fraud through authentication. If authentication is unreliable then behavior matters. But behaviour is more easily gamed and abused and has more false negatives affecting customers.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      The process of transacting physical items has many opportunities for fraud that isn't addressed even by perfect authentication in any way. This is where eBay's tough problems arise.
casenmgreen 4y ago
I don't think it's that. I think they don't explain, anyway, at all, for anything, simply because they don't; there's no motive to do so - it's just more work.
reustle 4y ago
> Probably password dump and fraud attempt on eBay side. So then send a confirmation email when logging in after a while. If the email is also compromised, it's not eBay's problem.

webdoodle 4y ago

I had a similar experience when I changed my ISP. When I contacted Ebay they told me the only way to unsuspend my account was to click on the link they texted to me. I told them I don't own a cellphone and haven't for several years, so who did they text. I went through 6 different tech support people, and every single one told me to click on the link they texted, even though I started the conversation saying I don't own a cellphone. You might think the stupidity stops there, but after all this frustration, I told them to delete my entire account, all my purchase history and reviews. They told me to do so they'd have to send me a text with a verification link! After 12 different techs couldn't figure out how to do so without a text verification, I finally threw in the towel. Ironically, after a year I decided to try and log in again. Like magic, it just worked. What a shitshow...

darkhorn 4y ago
Modern landline phones can receive and send SMS. Your landline provider might have SMS support. Just buy an SMS capable telephone.
- tmm 4y ago
  This is news to me. Do you have any example devices? Cursory internet search isn’t turning anything up. Verizon, the ILEC where I am, provides a text-to-voice service if you pay for it. Basically converts an SMS to voicemail. I guess IP phones can do SMS though.
  - darkhorn 4y ago
    https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/ekonomi/ev-telefonundan-da-sms-devri-basladi-5540540 https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/ekonomi/ev-telefonundan-da-sms-d... https://www.onedirect.de/gigaset-e720-eu-version https://www.onedirect.de/gigaset-e720-eu-version https://www.quora.com/Why-was-SMS-text-messaging-never-rolled-out-on-landline-phone-services https://www.quora.com/Why-was-SMS-text-messaging-never-rolle... The news says that TurkTelekom (home landline) now (2006) has SMS capabilities. Back then the company was only landline. There was no wireless landline. I think there is still no wireless landline. (Only few years ago Avea has merged with TurkTelekom and now TurkTelekom refers to both landline phones and one of 3 mobile service providers in Turkey) Aroud 2006-2010 I was sending SMS from my mobile phone to my coisin's landline (yes, connected with a cord to the street) and because his phone didn't had SMS support a computerazied female voice would read the SMS for free. I think it is still valid. I think you can search for dect phone with SMS support. I was thinking to buy one few years ago but they were a bit expensive.

duxup 4y ago

My age old eBay account randomly got renamed, still worked, then later I found it was banned. No notice that I ever saw , but like you I really didn’t care/ was done with eBay.

deepsun 4y ago
If you've been reusing that password, someone might have stolen it from other dumps. They might also redirect notifications.
- duxup 4y ago
  I assumed the same too, but there didn't seem to be any activity on the account and the password was just a randomly generated password. It never showed up on Have I Been Pwned. Granted, still absolutely could have been a breach, but not like i can find out.

sacnoradhq 4y ago

Similar story not with eBay but with Facebook. I've had eBay for around 25 years. Never a problem buying or selling. I signed-in to enable 2FA, review privacy settings, change the password, and review whatever content was left. Instalocked as soon as I reached the 2FA page. Someone through channels unlocked it for me. Tried to review the account again. Again, same thing. Instaban. Ban and unban processes are generally fully automated. The issue is with the signals used to reduce false positives and false negatives, and the ambiguousness of certain situations make judgement difficult-to-impossible without the critical thinking skills of humans. In general, the scaling of human review isn't economically-achievable. Maybe platforms should encourage review volunteers in some manner or seek scaling of human review by additional means. Plot twist: I work for Meta. Linking the personal Facebook account with work was a required step. IG, nothing much changed, except it received a private "internal" badge.