I would like to share with you the really bad experience I had with Paypal and eBay recently.
At the beginning of June, I have sold two items on eBay (a Fujica GL690 and a Fujinon F:5.6 65mm lens). Both items went to great buyers (cheers to them!), who paid immediately through Paypal. As agreed, I sent the items fully insured through EMS, a very reliable express mail service.
Then I received an email from Paypal stating that Paypal had detected some "illegal activity" on my account and therefore had to suspend my account. I inquired about this "illegal activity" and I received no reply, only a stock e-mail stating that I had to fax over an impressive amount of personal documents in order to restore my account.
Immediately after that, I received the two following notifications from eBay:
"We're sorry to tell you that your eBay account was suspended because recent account activity has raised serious security concerns."
"The following listings have been removed from eBay due to concerns we have for the safety of the eBay Community: 280231362466 - Fujinon F/5.6 65mm Lens for Fuji G690/GL690 NO RESERVE and 280231417183 - Fuji GL690 Rangefinder Medium Format Camera NO RESERVE."
Needless to say I also received worried emails from my buyers, who had no yet received the items they had pay for, and were informed by eBay that these items had been removed "due to concerns for the safety of the eBay Community." They were also advised to lodge a complaint against me. Great!
Fortunately, the buyers accepted to trust my word against eBay's and both items reached their destination soon after. But the story didn't end there. I had faxed all the documents over to Paypal, but the company sent me an email stating that the documents were fine but my account couldn't be restored until both buyers of my items had left a positive feedback on my eBay account, which was of course not possible, my account having been suspended and the items deleted by eBay! On the other hand, eBay was not willing to restore my account until the so called "Paypal Abuse" had been cleared.
After more than two weeks, Paypal accepted to restore my account but eBay was still refusing to do so:
"Additional proof of ownership is required. Please submit a photograph of you with the items. Your User ID must be clearly displayed in the image."
Of course it was not possible to take a photograph of me with items that had been sent to the buyers more than two weeks before!
It took another week to eBay to finally restore my account, after almost one month of suspension. But eBay had decided that the items sold should not appear on my account:
"After further review, it has been decided that your account qualifies for reinstatement. Please note that, although your account is now active, any listings or bids that were cancelled by your account suspension will not be reinstated."
I would like to stress the fact that neither Paypal nor eBay has provided any explanation about the "abuse" I was suspected of. When my account was restored, neither company did also offer an apology or any form of compensation for the pretium doloris suffered.
Cheers!
Sébastien