I have a wholesale video game business and sell mostly pre-owned console and handheld games and systems. I have been in that business for almost 30 years . Around 6-7 years ago I was selling close to $30,000 in gaming products a month on Ebay. I had a 99.8% rating on Ebay and I was paying between $5000 -$6000 a month in commissions and fees to Ebay/Paypal. A competitor on Ebay decided one day to purchase 6 items from my Ebay store on 2 separate accounts that he had . He purchased about $30 in items; most likely finding the least expensive things that I was offering . Once the items were delivered, he gave me 6 negative reviews (3 on each account) all within 20 minutes of one another. I informed Ebay about this and was assured that my account would be fine when it was evaluated at the end of the month as all accounts were evaluated. Less than a month later my account was banned from Ebay, and I was told " You are not Ebay material". I was permanently banned for life and had no ability what so ever to change the decision made by Ebay. I had over 3000 listings on Ebay and each and every one was immediately shut down because some jerk did not care to think that selling on Ebay could possibly be how someone fed his family. Fortunately for me, I was able to move the product over to Amazon, and although it did take some time to build up the store ; I was able to do it in a relatively short amount of time . To this day I can not believe how little value Ebay has for its Sellers. I guess this is a story of how not to put all of your eggs in one basket..... I was lucky that I also had retail stores at the time, and that selling on Ebay was not my only revenue stream... It is also terrible that someone can hurt another persons livelihood so easily and carelessly...
This makes me want to call Ebay and try to get my account activated again lol.