Tell HN: eBay doesn't allow changing country

7 points by peterburkimsher 352 days ago | 5 comments

On 2025-05-30, I received an email from eBay saying "Peter, are you still using your account?"

I got a security code by email, and successfully spoke to a nice man from Florida on the phone.

I noticed that my address has changed, because my parents sold their house in France and moved to New Zealand. So I updated my address as well.

On 2025-05-31, I received another email from suspension@ebay.com saying "MC092 FPA NOTICE: eBay Registration Suspension - User Agreement - Abusing eBay - peterburk"

The first thing I did when I turned 18 years old was to open accounts on eBay and PayPal using my old iBook G3 (before even going downstairs to open birthday presents).

And now all my 88 positive reviews are for nought, because eBay blocked me.

If anybody reads this, please let me know an email address in eBay so I can contact a real human to verify that my account is real.

This is not AI, this is not a drill, this is the real world and life is just a little complicated.

mickelsen 352 days ago |

Oh, that sucks. I used my same ID created on ebay.com for shopping, or even selling the odd thing or two, while travelling to different continents ever since I created it in 2009. It still seems to work on the different storefronts with the same ID (.com, .co.uk, .de...) like Amazon, and keeps the international addresses I added before.

I've seen stories of ebay/paypal account closures for people who were <18 at the moment of signing up, getting honored a decade later. Not sure about if your multiple accounts had anything to do with it. I think I'll avoid making any changes to mine, except shipping addresses while travelling.

Honestly I just avoid them these days, they promoted too hard their full service international shipping for US sellers, which was always much more expensive than standard USPS, and really slow, but it handled the whole customs thing if your package ever got caught, because the custom duties were pre-collected. Still unreasonably slow, considering most of the time the packages were weeks in the US bouncing around before even leaving, whereas something coming from China or Europe, which used to take 1.5 months a decade ago to Chile, now get to the door in as little as a week.

HenryBemis 351 days ago | |

> standard USPS

I remember buying a super cool Microsoft keyboard back in early 00's. I got it via USPS (from US to EU), and all was well. One year later I wanted to buy one more because it was soooooooooo nice I wanted to have a second one for when the first one would die out many-many-many years later. This time it was DHL, and those cunts were taking everything through customs, so their 'facilitating' subsidiary makes a buck. Fucking DHL... I haven't given them a cent ever since.

peterburkimsher 351 days ago |

It’s back!

“Got it. The number you would dial to reach our Account Security team would be 1-866-961-9253 (US). Thanks, Peter! -Saul”

youniverse 352 days ago |

Ebay is completely useless once you've got a problem,

Two anecdotes just from the last year: I made an account a few months ago from my home ip, listed a used piece of clothing for sale for $80.

After a day my account got suspended, then they called me to verify my identity and while speaking with me the guy said sorry your account is suspicious we are closing your account and you can't make another one! And then when I asked for a reason of course he didn't go into more detail than that.

2nd: I helped a friend manage their listings on their account of 20 years. They had an issue with a buyer returning an item but the box was opened so all the items value was basically gone at that point. My friend mistakenly refunded the buyer in good faith while the item was in transit and he said in messages that they weren't opened. This was about $2000 in value lost. Ebay support spoke with us multiple times and obviously they are just told to be understanding and reassuring that everything would be taken care of by the internal team they are escalating to and then they never get back to you. I called them 7 times and the same thing, they make a ticket or whatever and nothing ever happens.

Never had a more pathetic experience with a company. Hope you somehow get your issue resolved.

brudgers 352 days ago |

If it matters, hire a lawyer to advise you of your options.

Or notify ebay of your dispute using the methods described in the terms and conditions.