eBay Pill Press AI Dragnet Permanently Suspends 20 Year Seller In Error
UPDATE 10-9-24
Great to see Cassie's store is back online! But again...it really shouldn't be this hard nor should it take a significant social presence and engagement just to get a human review on a situation like this.
For all the sellers who don't have access to this kind of network - eBay can and must do better.
Good news: Cassie received emails saying the appeal had been approved and the account had been restored.
Bad news: the account has not yet been restored and she received two more violation emails for the same ended listing.
Come on eBay....it shouldn't be this hard to just do the right thing.
A longtime eBay seller sent out an online cry for help today, after weeks of frustrating attempts trying to appeal an automated AI bot suspension for selling a 100+ year old item that tripped the wrong keyword triggers.
Cassie Labelle, who operated an account as CassieCeleste/Cassie's Collectibles on the platform for over 20 years, had built a 6 figure business selling vintage yard sale finds - like this antique cast iron "tablet machine" from the 1800s.
What Cassie didn't realize was that this type of item is on eBay's prohibited items list, and that eBay has ratcheted up detection and enforcement after agreeing to a historic $59 Million payout to settle allegations from the Drug Enforcement Agency regarding sales of pill presses, molds, and dies on the site earlier this year.
Liz Morton
Her thread on X went on to detail that as soon as she was notified by eBay that the item was prohibited, the listing was sold and she never attempted to reactive the listing or list another item like it - but eBay's automated systems kept flagging it as a repeated violation with escalating consequences.
The item in question is a piece of cast iron from the 1880s. It was used for patent medicine 140 years ago. I didn't think it could have any elicit use today because why would I? It's an antique shelf sitter. It doesn't even work. I didn't give listing it a second thought.
I listed it in July and it sold in August. A few days later, I got a message from eBay telling me that it wasn't okay to list and not to list it again because it violated their pill press and mold policy. I made a note never to buy or list anything like that again.
In late August, they suspended my account for 7 days for the same listing. Not a new listing. I never listed it again. I called up and was told I should have been punished the first time, and I could not appeal the suspension. So I sat it out for 7 days and then moved on.
Then, in September, they permanently banned my account for the same listing. Again, I had never listed it or anything like it again. It's a piece of broken cast iron from the 1880s. I spent the past three weeks in call center appeal hell, only to be told my appeal was denied.
I have tens of thousands of dollars of eBay inventory. Thousands of hours of work. 1,500 active listings. $900 in funds in my account. All gone.
A lifetime ban.
I've made so much money for them over the years. It's my hobby. It's my dream job. They stole it, forever.
To make matters even worse, Cassie is not just some unknown, anonymous seller to eBay - she actually writes articles for eBay-owned TCGPlayer about Magic: The Gathering, authoring almost 200 articles for the site since 2020 with the most recent published on September 27, 2024.
eBay acquired TCGPlayer in 2022, and has since been embroiled in labor relations battles with multiple National Labor Relations Board complaints lodged against them as unionized authentication workers rally for better wages and fight for their first contract since establishing eBay's first US union as TCGUnion-CWA.
Liz Morton
The ongoing labor issues and lingering questions about due diligence and compliance in the acquisition could result in increased regulatory scrutiny as the Responsible Online Commerce Coalition leads efforts urging the FTC and DOJ to investigate alleged deceptive and anticompetitive conduct.
Liz Morton
The ROCC has also recently expanded their efforts, in partnership with Communications Workers of America, seeking feedback from eBay sellers who have experienced unfair suspensions or excessive junk fees while selling on the site.
Liz Morton
Sadly, these types of suspensions are not uncommon, especially as eBay is increasingly using AI to handle critical support, trust and safety functionality that used to have a more human touch.
Liz Morton
Also sadly, it's not uncommon for users to have to resort to being very public, very squeaky wheels in order to get even the most basic level of actual support or help to appeal and reverse AI decisions - as I myself discovered in 2022 when the account I had only ever used for posting in the eBay forums was automatically flagged for "permanent suspension" for supposedly being "a risk to the community" with no explanation and no apparent path to appeal.
Liz Morton
After making enough noise online, I received an email from an assistant in eBay's executive office, directly admitting that suspensions like this are not normally eligible for appeal, but they had made an exception due to my "social presence."
As I said back then, that isn't nearly good enough and there has to be a better way.
If accounts are flagged, there should be a straightforward and, by all means, strict verification process to regain access, or in cases like Cassie's, a path to reinstatement when it's clear there is no intention to relist prohibited products, but permanent suspension should be the absolute last resort after all other efforts to resolve risk concerns have been unsuccessful.
And beyond that, as Cassie points out, eBay needs to work to proactively identify potentially problematic items during the listing process and warn sellers, which would prevent many issues and save a lot of customer service time and money as most sellers legitimately desire to play by the rules - they just need a little more help identifying where the boundaries of those rules are.
I hope that eBay makes things right for Cassie, but beyond that, their entire automated system needs to be scrapped ASAP and real changes need to be made to provide legitimate sellers access and avenues to appeal account bans.
