I have been an ebay member going on 9 years with over 3000 feedbacks, a 99.6% rating. My products consisted of custom decals. About 4 weeks ago I get this notice from ebay that my account is suspended due to using the name 'FORD' as one of my keywords and that they shut all my auctions down.

Well, those auctions that they claimed that they shut down had already expired 1 month prior to this. I may have had 1-3 auctions running at this time for some products not even associated with the products I had been selling. I guess you can't use the name 'FORD' as a keyword unless you are selling a product specifically for that manufactures equipment or something like that.

I email ebay and ask them why, after 4 weeks after the auctions have expired is my account shut down. I don't get an honest answer only that I need to send in some personal information after the 7 day suspension period and they will determine if my account will be re-instated or not.

What's frustrating about this is I know of another ebay member selling almost the identical products I use to and are getting by with using the word 'FORD' as one of their keywords, but they are a power seller so maybe that has something to do with it, I don't know. Anyway, I started turning this other members auctions into ebay thru the proper channels using eBay’s official complaint forms and I did get responses from ebay that they received my emails.

I later get emails back from ebay stating they (ebay) do not see anything improper with the other members auctions and they let them continue to sell to this day. I continued on a daily basis reporting these auctions to ebay and continue to get the same response from ebay.

In my opinion, this is total discrimination against me. Why is it I get my account shut down, with no warning, even after the auctions have expired 4 weeks prior, yet this other member continues to be allowed to sell on ebay using 'FORD' as a keyword.

The members products who is allowed to continue selling on ebay, are in no way associated with a 'FORD' manufactured product, they just use the word 'FORD' as a keyword to attract customers, basically the same thing I USE to do.

Is it just me or has the number of bid withdrawals or cancellations increased lately. In 1 month I have had 5 sellers screw me. How? Bid on items or buy it now and the sellers either cancel them or just don't answer my questions to get a correct invoice so I can pay. Have made official complaints to Ebay and they are allowing this. Two of the sellers re-listed the items with a higher price. Are you kidding me? I buy a lot and I mean a lot from Ebay but this is getting ridiculous. I am sick of this. Are there any other great auctions sites out there with great prices like Ebays? Good luck if you stay with them.

Horror story about a seller trying to blackmail me for positive feedback.

Auction-genie-inc is the mother of all EBay a**es. I bought 4 items from him. He knew he had provided me with a lousy service and that EBay was about to change the rules (seller will no longer be able to leave negs.) So, fearing that I would leave negatives and he would no longer be able to retaliate, he blackmailed me: either you leave 4 positives or I'll leave 4 negatives before they change the rules and then you'll be forced to go to mutual feedback removal. I'm not going to do that, I won't be blackmailed by this guy, but I'll spread this story as fast as I can. Obviously I have already reported him to EBay (the idiot blackmailed me using the EBay system) but I really don't expect them to do anything about it. Nobody should buy anything from auction-genie-inc of Little Falls NJ and no one should trust them to sell stuff on EBay. I'm going even further, no one should buy anything from EBay, period. I'm done with them, this is the last straw.

As I understand, I'm not the only buyer who had to suffer this.

And yes, I'm in favor of the new system. I hope it'll put sellers like Auction-genie-inc out of business.

Ebay/PayPal have a new scam now. We had an account with both and were actively selling for several months. We had a perfect 100% feedback rating. Suddenly and without warning eBay and PayPal suspended our accounts. eBay cancelled all of our auctions and had the nerve to demand payment for the fees too! Since the auction info is wiped out we have no idea what the correct fees should even be. They claimed the suspension was due to "issues" with our Paypal account and we needed to resolve them first. We went to our PayPal account and it said that there had been "suspicous activity". ????? No explaination. It asked for three things. A. verify our phone number, which we did. Fine. B. Verify that we had shipped a particular customers item. We researched the item and the customer had only paid for it twelve minutes before Ebay suspended our account! How fast do they expect us to be! And this on a Sunday too! C. Now the last one is a real doosey. They want my SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER ! What are they nuts! There is NO reason in the world they need that! They claim it's to verify my identity. What? The only way they could verify that is to take my number and do a credit check, and I never authorized them to do that nor will I. I will be filing suit in small claims court today. It will cost them at least for an attorney to come to court and defend them. I will also let everyone I know what they are trying to do to decent working people. It's wrong and the only way to stop them is to expose them. So pass the word, tell all your friends what Ebay and PayPal are all about.

eBay is about to start penalizing all Sellers... and making you a 2nd class citizen...

How? Allowing ONLY Buyers to leave a Negative feedback... for anything at all their little heart desires... eBay has been dredging for new Buyers to boost their stock prices, and they don't give a tinker's *** about Sellers at all anymore...

Bad check? Seller can't complain - gets screwed... Late pay? Seller's screwed... Wrong form of payment? Seller is screwed... Delays? You're screwed... ANYTHING a Buyer wants to *** about - Seller has NO ammunition anymore... The Seller can NOT leave Negative feedbacks!!

NO MATTER WHAT the Buyer does, ONLY the Buyer is allowed to leave Negatives. And any Seller who gets a Negative? Has to beg the morons-that-be at eBay to pretty please take away the bad bad feedback...

To make things worse, it doesn't matter that eBay is FAILING THEIR SELLER / CUSTOMERS by failing to forward messages to their e-mails! The Msg system that's supposed to eliminate problems now CREATES them because reminders are disappearing into the ether somewhere... and eBay doesn't give a rat's ***...

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, eBay's PAYPAL affiliate is failing Sellers, too ! When you SHIP something, you put in the USPS tracking info for the Buyer to read, too. But guess what???

PayPal's link to USPS has NOT FUNCTIONED AT ALL for at least 2 months, and nothing has been done to correct it despite repeated reports...

So what does the Buyer see on PayPal when they click on the link to see where their item is? NO RECORD OF THIS ITEM (even though it has been shipped, scanned and may even already have been delivered!!)

And guess what else? Now they file a complaint, and then you get a NEGATIVE Feedback on eBay...

And then eBay restricts or closes your account ! WHO'S TO BLAME? eBay themselves...

But YOU - MR. SELLER - the same one who works to build eBay's system, pays extra to maintain Stores, takes 2ND BILLING on your items, who patiently deals with every lowlife buyer sucked in by eBay promotions - YOU get billed, YOU get slapped, Your Feedback is hammered - You're SCREWED...