Has anyone ever received this kind of letter from ebay??(it's not spoof)

[forazzurri2axz]

-----Original Message-----
From: eBay Customer Support - rswebhelp
To: forazzurri1
Sent: Wed, Apr 4, 2012 8:20 pm
Subject: FR%OMM002 Information regarding your eBay account
(KMM54812649V85135L0KM)


Hello Bill (forazzurri2axz),

This message is to notify you that in order to assist you in building a
strong foundation for future transactions on eBay, we have placed a
selling limit for your listing activity. These limits are not in place
as a consequence, rather as a preventative measure to help our seller's
keep from becoming overwhelmed with large increases in account activity.


Many members already have limits placed on their account. Account limits
allow us to learn about your selling activity and make sure you're
adhering to our selling practices policy and performance standards.
Limits vary by seller and can change over time.

During this time, we want to confirm you are continuing your positive
history by ensuring you are keeping focused on creating great
transactions for your customers. Doing so will greatly increase the
chances of an ongoing successful eBay business and help to avoid any
future account issues that may arise. These limits will allow you to
continue selling while also allowing us to monitor your incoming
Feedback, Detailed Seller Ratings, and any customer complaints. Please
understand that the actions we have taken do not mean your account
performance is not good, but we do this to help all eBay sellers further
improve their selling history and account performance.

Because you are doing well at selling at these volumes, you should not
hit your selling limit unless you dramatically increase your sales.
However, if you do wish to grow your business, we will gradually
increase your limit as you show that you are able to successfully handle
the higher sales volume. The selling limit on your account is based on
the number and dollar amount of open (active) items and successfully
sold items per calendar month.

You can now sell up to 100 items monthly or up to $5,000.00 monthly.
(Keep in mind that this includes multiple quantity listings which can
greatly influence this number.)

If you do reach one of these amounts during the course of a month you
will be unable to list additional items or increase the price or
quantity of your active items until some of your items end without a
winning bidder or until the 1st of the next calendar month, (If you are
still exceeding the selling limit at the first of the next calendar
month your selling activity will continue to be blocked.)

We believe that your limit is flexible enough to allow you to sell any
current items and is in accordance with the volume you may have listed
in the past. If you do reach the selling limit on your account and want
to increase your sales, please work within the amount for at least 30
days. Once that time frame has expired on 5/3/2012, please reply to this
message and we will conduct a review to see if adjustments are
appropriate.

We hope that you will use this selling limit to your advantage and focus
on succeeding with your current sales. We value you as a seller and hope
to work with you in order to continue to establish a strong selling
history and successful business relationship. It is in our best interest
to help our sellers succeed so that we can have a positive trading
environment and eliminate bad buying experiences on the site.

Good luck with your future transactions!

Sincerely,
Tory

[Gradedcardman]

Haven't received anything like this yet. Of course I never received my note from paypal about getting close to the $20000 level either. I had hoped to avoid the 1099 but to no avail.

[irishdenny]

Just a Question and a thought?!
Are you Listing, Then canceling items(items no longer available) and then selling them(or maybe not) without using the ebay system?
I've heard that ebay is being mindful of this activity because they are losing funds.
I don't know really whats going on. It might a method ebay has thought of to reduce "window shopping/back ally sales" so to speak!?

[D. Bergin]

Just a venue!

[olrac44]

Maybe ebay should think about lowering their ridiculous fees. Seller does all the work and ebay wants %.

[drc]

As eBay is trying to transform into something more like Amazon, they have recently been placing volume limits on many sellers. Nothing abnormal about receiving that type of letter. As your letter indicates, the seller can 'earn' or apply higher for volume levels. eBay will soon by trying to get sellers to follow new uniform shipping/return/performance/etc rules to be like Amazon, and this is their way to get sellers to implement then. I believe the new rules start in May.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by drc

As eBay is trying to transform into something more like Amazon, they have recently been placing volume limits on many sellers. Nothing abnormal about receiving that type of letter. As your letter indicates, the seller can 'earn' or apply higher for volume levels. eBay will soon by trying to get sellers to follow new uniform shipping/return/performance/etc rules to be like Amazon, and this is their way to get sellers to implement then. I believe the new rules start in May.

David, it's funny that you compare them to Amazon - like Amazon, ebay is forcing rules on their customers (for Amazon, it's actually their suppliers) without asking for input, and without regard to what's fair.

If Bill is paying for one of the months store subscriptions, that purchase decision is made partly on volume savings. If ebay is limiting the volume he is allowed to sell, then I think what they are doing may be illegal. Any way you slice it, it's bullshit.

[forazzurri2axz]

Thanks for y'all's interest and responses. I emailed ebay a request to explain their letter to me, and while I RARELY have ever sold as much in a month as the "limit" they now require, it pissed me off to be limited in what I could sell and also seems ridiculous that a company would want to limit their monthly profit. SO HERE IS THEIR EXPLANATION

Hello Bill (forazzurri2axz),

Thank you for writing eBay. After reviewing your email, it is my
understanding that your concern is in regard to your selling limits.

My name is Mark, I do appreciate you taking the time to contact us,
and I would be more than happy to address your concerns today.

Bill, I attempted to call you today to discuss the selling limits but I
missed you.

The limits on your account are not placed as a punishment, rather set
due to a policy we are implementing on all eBay accounts. You have an
amazing account with a great history. We took that history, and the
sales into account when placing the limits. You have not shown a need
for higher limits over the last 12 months, except once in January.
Please keep in mind these limits do not affect things like automobiles,
real estate, and business & industrial categories. Below is an
explanation of how the limits work.

I know that the selling limits that we place on accounts can be
frustrating and confusing and I understand that this process may have
caused some exasperation for you. Please understand that we have a
responsibility to ensure eBay is a safe and secure place to trade. To
maintain a safe marketplace, we sometimes place these limits as a
preventative measure, even if you have excellent feedback and a great
record on eBay.

To assist you in successfully working within the limits on your account,
I would like to take this time to further explain how they work and how
they will affect your selling activity.

The selling limit on your account is based both on the number *and*
dollar amount of open (active) items and successfully sold items per
calendar month. This also includes multiple quantity listings which can
cause you to hit your threshold early.

As you know, if you do reach one of these limits during the course of a
month you will be unable to list additional items on the account or
increase the price or quantity of your active items. However, you will
still be able to respond to buyers, ship items, or end items already
listed on the account.

This selling limit will reset on the 1st of the each calendar month, but
keep in mind that if you are still exceeding the limit at the first of
the next calendar month, your selling activity will continue to be
blocked. A few ways to avoid waiting until the limit resets at the new
month are if some of your items end without a winning bidder, items are
manually ended, or the quantity available in multiple quantity listings
is reduced. Either of these options should place you below your limit
and allow you to continue listing.

Let me give you an example of exactly how these limits work on your
account. For example, if a member has the following selling limit placed
on their account:


--Listings: 10
--Sales: 200.00

In this example, the member could initially list all 10 items as long as
they do not exceed the amount of $200.00. As they sell their items, the
amount sold will contribute to the total limit on their account. This
means that if the member sells 5 of their items for $100, they will
still be over the allowed limit. Because the combination of active items
and sales and the sold items and sales is over the limits placed on
their account, they will be blocked from any new listings. If some of
the remaining 5 listings active on the site end without a winning
bidder, they will no longer be hitting their selling limit and will be
able to list more items. Also, when the calendar month is over, the 5
items that have sold will reset to 0 and at that time, more items can be
listed as well.

These selling limits are not only put in place to assist our sellers in
the growth of their eBay business, but give us the opportunity to
confirm sellers are performing well at their current level before
increasing to higher volumes. In addition, these limits will assist you
in growing your business at a sustainable level while ensuring continued
positive transactions.

I hope that the information I have provided regarding your selling limit
has been helpful and we look forward to working with you in establishing
a successful relationship.

Thank you for being a valued member of our community.

Sincerely,

Mark L.

eBay Customer Support

[D. Bergin]

What a piece of Willie Wonka double speak that is.

Either you are a good seller, or you are not.

When is Ebay going to start paying into my self-employment taxes?...........because everyday that goes by I'm starting to feel more like an employee, then somebody paying for the privilege to use, what used to be a fairly simple and straight forward auction listing platform.

I don't even see an endgame advantage for them. It's like they're the Titanic, looking for Icebergs to ram into, just to test how bulletproof they are.

[Exhibitman]

Unreal. You do a good job but they limit you because you some day might do a bad job but thieves list fake cards and forged autographs with no one at Ebay seeming to care.

[ctownboy]

The BS from eBay that honks my hooter (thank you John Cusack) is where they can charge a fee based on the shipping cost of an item sold.

They say I can get around this charge by offering Free Shipping. Well, to do that with some of my items, I would have to start the auction at a price that very few, if any, buyers would want to pay. The other option would be to sell for a low price and THEN get messed over with free shipping to someplace far away or overseas and have the shipping cost be more than what the item sold for to begin with.

As far as what the OP was talking about. I have been selling on eBay since 1999 and I have a limit of 50 free listings per month. Over that amount and I get charged listing fees.

David

[Wymers Auction]

I went to list a card not long ago and I was not allowed. I am already signed up for their paypal automatic fee payments, but now I need a credit card for them to be able to take money in case of a claim. I have 100% feedback and 1 claim in 12 years and they sided with the buyer over me even though I was being truthful and that person was lying. I seldom use ebay to sell on I get tired of them telling me how to handle my business.

[Theoldprofessor]

Hello Bill (forazzurri2axz),

This message is to notify you that in order to assist you in building a
strong foundation for future transactions on eBay, we have placed a
selling limit for your listing activity. These limits are not in place
as a consequence, rather as a preventative measure to help our seller's
keep from becoming overwhelmed with large increases in account activity.

Damn, Bill, what have you done now? By your thoughtless use of eBay in actually selling things (and presumably making money) you have caused them to force one of their junior interns to write, in what may be English, a long and meaningful note suggesting that future success will be punished. Another dumb move on your part. Now if you lost money on eBay, as I do, they'd leave you alone.

I'm especially impressed in the intern's use of the "To Serve You Better" ploy. You must get lots of these. Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, where I live, has recently closed or reduced hours in a number of smaller town libraries, in order to serve us better. Now we can all go to one giant regional library where all the books will be hidden. But there will be people there who will teach us to dance, or to play the ocarina, or how to pretend to be butterflies, all to serve us better.

Notice too, how the intern has added the common touch by using the phrase "to help our seller's." This confusion of possessive and plural forms has got to have everybody loving eBay. Hey, they're just as dumb as we are!!

How will you reply? Ah, I see below that you already have. The intern's name is Mark, presumably for Mark My Words. It has to be the same guy, because he writes the same junk at the same level. And he thinks that the more he says it, the truer it will become.

Surely you will want to print this letter and have it framed. It's a standard of success few of us willl ever attain. Then take a vow never to sell at a profit again. You will be happier, and eBay will be ecstatic.

[tbob]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

Unreal. You do a good job but they limit you because you some day might do a bad job but thieves list fake cards and forged autographs with no one at Ebay seeming to care.

+1. Exactly!

[forazzurri2axz]

Originally Posted by Theoldprofessor

Damn, Bill, what have you done now? By your thoughtless use of eBay in actually selling things (and presumably making money) you have caused them to force one of their junior interns to write, in what may be English, a long and meaningful note suggesting that future success will be punished. Another dumb move on your part. Now if you lost money on eBay, as I do, they'd leave you alone.

I'm especially impressed in the intern's use of the "To Serve You Better" ploy. You must get lots of these. Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, where I live, has recently closed or reduced hours in a number of smaller town libraries, in order to serve us better. Now we can all go to one giant regional library where all the books will be hidden. But there will be people there who will teach us to dance, or to play the ocarina, or how to pretend to be butterflies, all to serve us better.

Notice too, how the intern has added the common touch by using the phrase "to help our seller's." This confusion of possessive and plural forms has got to have everybody loving eBay. Hey, they're just as dumb as we are!!

How will you reply? Ah, I see below that you already have. The intern's name is Mark, presumably for Mark My Words. It has to be the same guy, because he writes the same junk at the same level. And he thinks that the more he says it, the truer it will become.

Surely you will want to print this letter and have it framed. It's a standard of success few of us willl ever attain. Then take a vow never to sell at a profit again. You will be happier, and eBay will be ecstatic.

oldprofessor---I hope you are well and it's good to hear from you..take care Bill

[Runscott]

I had another thought on this, as I anxiously scrambled to get items ready for listing, so I can look more important to ebay and thus not incur any penalties I might be incurring for not playing by rules I'm unaware of.

Well, my reaction described in the above paragraph might be part of why they are doing it. The other might be so that, in order for sellers to sell at the volume they need, the seller will use multiple i.d.'s, therefore incurring multiple ebay store monthly fees.

Ebay will squeeze blood out of a turnip until the turnip just shrivels up and dies. And then they'll sue the turnip for more.

[ctownboy]

As a seller, another thing you are going to have to watch out for is the new change in return policy. The old rules say you can have a 3 day or 7 day return policy or no returns at all on items. Starting in May, I think, the new return policy is going to be something like 30 days or no returns.

I couldn't figure out WHY eBay would do something like this until a couple of weeks ago. Then, I ALMOST, got nailed.

I sold a little figurine which was in really nice condition for all of $7 dollars. The "person" emailed me and gave me specific instructions on how they wanted the item packed and where to mail it to. I followed the instructions and mailed the item out. A few days later, I received another e Mail asking if the item had been shipped (I marked it as shipped on the eBay page) and again gave me the specific instructions on how and where to mail the piece.

A week later, I receive a message that the "buyer" wanted a full refund WITHOUT having to return the figurine because it was broken. I informed the "buyer" that A) they didn't pay for insurance, B) I have a 7 day return policy and that it was past that time frame and C) even if I were to give a full refund, I would have to have the piece returned to me (as stated in my return policy at the bottom of the page) and that pictures would not do.

A few days later, I received another E mail asking about the refund. I then Googled the "buyer" (since they had over 28,000 Feed Back and NO Negatives) and found out they were a PARTNER of eBay.

This company has over 20 different eBay names, all starting with "Flight2..." and what they do is take eBay listings and translate them into Japanese and put them on their Japanese website. When the Japanese buyers buy something, this company takes and adds a percentage to the total and then tacks on additional for the shipping. They then tell the sellers to send the item to a warehouse in California where the items are packed into shipping containers and sent to Japan.

I found out that there have been MANY complaints about this company breaking items and then asking for full refunds. By doing this (and being an eBay partner), they can get off scott free with No Negatives (as far as Feed Back goes) and with eBay still being able to keep all of the fees they have collected.

Once I found this out, I sent an e Mail back explaining that I knew what company they were, about all of the broken items people had complained about (and not gotten anything done from eBay) and that if they wanted the refund then were going to HAVE to mail the item back to me because I KNEW they were a partner of eBay and that, combined, I thought they could afford the small cost for postage.

I never heard back from them.

Now, I have ALL of these company names as restricted from bidding in my auctions. I also know WHY eBay is changing the length of time for return policies; so that third party "buyers" can make their purchases, send them overseas and, if something gets broken, they have the time to get a refund for their clients and eBay gets to keep theri fees while the seller gets shafted (unless there is insurance on an item).

David

[rjackson44]

Fee bay,,,

[slidekellyslide]

My account was limited last year...after 9 or 10 years on ebay with no negatives or any problems whatsoever...they limited me to listing 300 auctions per month or $2,000...I've since had that ceiling raised to 2,000 auctions or $20,000 per month. It's pretty easy to do...just call them and ask them to raise the limits..they'll ask you why (in my case I like to list 100s of postcards a day at low starting bids) and then in a few minutes your limits will be raised.

I do not like these new rules that will go in place in May though that all items sold will have to have tracking info uploaded within 24 hours of the item being sold in order to keep your top seller status. The rule about 14 day returns means nothing anyway as paypal has had a 30 day no questions asked return policy forever now.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by slidekellyslide

I do not like these new rules that will go in place in May though that all items sold will have to have tracking info uploaded within 24 hours of the item being sold in order to keep your top seller status. The rule about 14 day returns means nothing anyway as paypal has had a 30 day no questions asked return policy forever now.

You can keep your top seller status, but you will lose your discount.

I've already resigned myself to losing the discount. I'm not chasing that carrot anymore.

[drc]

"The BS from eBay that honks my hooter"

I prefer the phrase 'chaps my hide."

[kcohen]

It's as if Ebay has farmed its management out to some overreaching federal government regulatory commission.