The eBay Gulag

It's a vast, murky prison system of which the outside world knows practically nothing. Inmates can find themselves exiled to its depths without warning or trial, without clear charges or the right to defend themselves, and without knowing if and when they - and perhaps their families and associates as well - will ever be released. Guantanamo? Secret CIA jails? No, we're talking about eBay's account suspension pr

It's a vast, murky prison system of which the outside world knows practically nothing. Inmates can find themselves exiled to its depths without warning or trial, without clear charges or the right to defend themselves, and without knowing if and when they - and perhaps their families and associates as well - will ever be released. Guantanamo? Secret CIA jails? No, we're talking about eBay's account suspension procedures.

A reader who has just encountered it provides a small window into this dark world. "I've been selling things on eBay for a bunch of years," the reader wrote. "One of my accounts was created in 2000. I've helped a bunch of friends, family and neighbors sell and buy on eBay. There's three accounts that we've been using for over five years now, all with 99 percent or better ratings and no negative ratings in more than a year. So I was very surprised to get an e-mail saying all three accounts were suspended last week because of a supposed link to another account (created in 2004) that appears to be someone else's."

The original notice from eBay told the reader only that the action had been taken for unspecified violations of eBay's User Agreement and that he was indefinitely suspended from using the accounts or registering any new ones. At first he wondered if the notice might just be a spammer spoof, but his accounts really were frozen and his appeals to eBay customer service yielded form responses only reiterating he was suspended because of his alleged association with the 2004 account.

Since the reader has helped a number of his family and neighbors get started on eBay, many of them on the same broadband network as he, the reader isn't sure what evidence eBay may have seen that linked him to the suspect account. But what really bewildered him was that, while his three accounts were suspended, the 2004 account still seemed to be up and running. "The account eBay says we are linked to is for a currently active seller with a name that clearly isn't me. I don't know why they linked my accounts to that one, but why isn't that one suspended also?"

In frustration over his inability to get anyone to listen to his pleas, the reader finally called the office of the eBay division president. This resulted in an e-mail from that office stating that the matter had been reviewed and he had been judged guilty: