What happens if you don't pay your eBay fees and ditch the account?

What happens if you don't pay your eBay fees and ditch the account?

What happens if you don't pay your eBay fees? This is a question a reader recently sent us in. I'll post his question below and we'll touch on why this is a poor idea.

Not Paying Your eBay Fees? eBay Will Suspend You... FOR LIFE!

My girlfriend did this so I'm just wondering what the ramifications are. The fee's are over $50, but under $100.

First off this is a very bad idea, just pay the balance. Here's why. First of all only scumbags don't pay their debts. If you owe somebody money you pay them. That's integrity first and foremost. If someone owed you money you'd want them to pay so why wouldn't you pay when you owe someone money?

Secondly and more importantly however since integrity seems to be something many people don't care about these days is this. If you don't pay your eBay fees not only will eBay turn you over to collections, eBay will ban your account. For those of you who aren't aware an eBay ban is a ban for life, you will never get back on eBay.

While today your girlfriend may not care about eBay and may not have anything to sell or may not have a business which she would like to use eBay to sell her wares on, eventually some day whether she start a business or whether she just have an item laying around the house she would like to sell she will want to use eBay again. A $50 eBay bill is hardly worth losing an eBay account in life in my opinion. Your eBay account over the rest of your life is worth much more than $50 even as a casual user.

Lastly however and this is most important as it impacts others. She is putting anyone who uses the same IP address as her, anyone who lives at the same address as her, and anyone who has used her computer is now at risk of losing their eBay account. Many people don't realize just how sophisticated eBay is at tracking data about you from bank accounts you use, Paypal accounts you use, addresses and phone numbers associated with your account, phone numbers you've called customer support from and even the computer you've logged in on and the flash cookies and bios, eBay tracks it all and matches it to you as well as any other eBay accounts which have used that data.

If you've ever heard of people refer to stealth accounts it's people referring to essentially having to change all of this information so eBay doesn't match your new account up to any past accounts which have been suspended.

It just seems silly to walk away from such a small debt and throw away her ability to sell on eBay for the rest of her life as well as putting you or others eBay accounts at risk. If you have an eBay account, if you sell on eBay or if you plan on selling on eBay in the future I would highly recommend you just pay the debt for her to protect your own account.

Is it possible to get Unbanned as an eBay Seller

How to get eBay Seller Account Unbanned?

eBay's offical stance on this issue is that an eBay ban is an eBay ban for life, assuming it's not just a week or month long suspension. Is this really true? Can you really be banned from eBay for life for one mistake?

Sadly yes. There's really only one reason for a ban which is fairly easy to overcome and that is not paying eBay seller fees. If you don't pay eBay seller fees for a substantial period of time eBay will eventually ban your account. In some instances eBay will agree to let you back on once your seller fees are paid. Outside of that it's difficult if not impossible to get an eBay account reinstated.

We should learn a couple lessons from this. First off guard your eBay account with your life. I'm shocked by how many people nonchalantly sell counterfeit Minecraft or Star Wars toys and then cry when they get suspended. That is probably one of the most aggregious violations of eBay policy there is selling counterfeit merchandise. Not only are you cheating buyers, your also stealing from larger brands.

Guard your eBay account with your life. It's always worth losing a couple bucks over your eBay account. I see so many eBay sellers stubbornly stick to their guns on issues which whether they are right or wrong are goign to be decided in favor of a buyer yet they stubbornly refuse to cave, wind up losing cases, get bad feedback, bad DSR scores and in some instances have their accounts suspended.

Losing a couple bucks on a transaction is much better than losing eBay income for life.

As far as getting unbanned there's really only one way this can happen and even then it's a far shot but at least it's considered. You'll need to find the e-mail address of the CEO of eBay as well as the executive offices. Email them, kiss their butt and tell them what a huge fan of eBay and the eBay community that you are. Tell them you made a mistake, and also have a remedy in place for how you will prevent that mistake from happening again in the future. It would also be wise to have a business plan of what you plan to sell and how you plan to run your business as this is also something they will typically ask for.

If you provide all this someone will at least look at your account and seriously look at the reason for your suspension and the possibility of being allowed back on. Don't even bother calling eBay customer support as they won't even consider it and don't have the power to do anything about it.

This is really the only way to get your eBay account unsuspended and even then it's a long shot.