eBay accidentally suspended a 'small number' of users

eBay inadvertently suspended an unspecified number of users on December 3. The platform has since acknowledged the issue, noting that users who were accidentally suspended have received a notification asking them to resolve the issue.

Users on social media began reporting that they have been suspended from eBay on Friday, despite intentionally breaking any rules on the platform. There's an entire Reddit thread on r/eBay devoted to the issue, and although the original post has since been deleted, dozens of other users have added their own experiences to the thread. One user describes the situation in his account, much of which is echoed by other comments:

Suspended without appeal tonight, had an online chat and the lady told me it wouldn't be discussed and then cut me off. Member since 1999, 100% positive, haven't sold anything over the years, no disputes, bought 5 small items in the last month with no problems.

Other users claim that eBay has canceled their bids on products they've already bought and received, some of which were "buy it now" items that users could buy directly. To justify these restrictions, users say they received an email from the company saying they "put the eBay community at risk." Some users allege that when they contacted eBay's customer service about it, their ban was upheld, and no further information was provided.

Outside of Reddit, users on Twitter also complained about the seemingly random suspension on the 3rd. The next day, eBay responded to some reports, noting that users can DM the @AskBay Twitter account with their information to resolve the issue.

“On December 3, a small number of eBay accounts were unintentionally suspended,” eBay spokeswoman Trina Somara said in a statement to The Verge. “The issue has been resolved and users who need to take action have been informed. We apologize for any concerns this may have caused."

Although eBay has acknowledged the issue, we still don't know how many users were accidentally suspended, as well as why this happened. However, we can speculate that the massive suspension may have been due to some sort of error with eBay's algorithms.