Thirty years ago eBay started out as a small auction site where people could recoup a few bucks by selling things they no longer need. In 2025, eBay is an e-commerce juggernaut thousands of sellers are leveraging to grow their businesses.
I’ve been following the platform’s transformation for some time. While it continually strives to protect users, some practices aimed at doing so end up doing more harm than good.
You’ll instantly know what I’m talking about if eBay suspended your account either for no reason or for not being careful enough when navigating its multi-account regulation minefield.
In this article, I’ll share everything I’ve researched and discovered first-hand about eBay account suspensions. Read on to find out what causes them and what you can do to set things straight. Unfortunately, it’s not much. That’s why I also recommend what to do to avoid suspensions altogether.
TL;DR: If your accounts are in good standing and you want to keep it that way without reading all of this, I suggest you check out GoLogin and its video on using multiple accounts on any website, eBay included.
What Causes eBay Account Suspensions?
In analyzing feedback from sellers and researching suspensions, I’ve come across a wide range of triggers. Some are straightforward and easy to find on eBay’s customer service pages. Others are vaguer, so much so that users affected by them don’t even get an explanation. Here’s what pops up the most:
- Unpaid seller costs or reimbursements – Overdue outstanding balances create suspensions. Nothing strange about that. However, I’ve seen people get tripped up when they don’t reimburse eBay for a refund issued to a customer even though the 30-day grace period isn’t over yet.
- Slow buyer issue resolution – dissatisfied buyers are quick to escalate to eBay’s customer service if they feel sellers are taking too much time to resolve the issue.
- Policy violations – One would think that adhering to eBay’s policies would be straightforward. After all, infractions like listing illegal and controlled items for sale or demanding positive feedback are easy to prove and avoid. Even so, “policy violation” without a clear explanation is a reason I’ve come across frequently.
- Problems with account verification – eBay hasn’t processed or isn’t satisfied with the given ID, so they will suspend an account until it’s verified.
- Hacked accounts – The suspension is a countermeasure against accounts that behave suspiciously. It happens, and one can tell when weird new listings start to appear or sellers get locked out due to hackers gaining access and changing their passwords.
Still, eBay can be overzealous. I know of several cases where simply accessing the account from a different IP, like through public Wi-Fi, triggered the measure.
Suspensions related to using multiple accounts
eBay lets users create and maintain multiple accounts, whether to separate buying from selling, concentrate on different niches, etc. However, its policy prohibits creating new accounts as a measure of bypassing the seller restrictions placed on current ones.
In my experience, that’s the most damning mistake new sellers make. I mean, it makes sense – how can you expect to scale a dropshipping business effectively if you’re limited to ten listings and $500 in products for the first month? Compensating by creating multiple accounts is perceived as going against the rules.
It’s understandable that eBay wants to level the playing field and prevent feedback manipulation. However, eBay’s vague multi-accounting policies also create a challenge for new users. On the one hand, they’re encouraged to create as many seller accounts as they need. On the other hand, they can’t use them to the fullest or risk suspensions.
What Account Restrictions do Suspensions Cause?
Although my own eBay accounts thankfully remain in good standing, I understand how much of a setback sudden suspensions can be. A suspension effectively locks down the affected account. It prevents owners from buying and selling or contacting buyers until the account is restored. Buyers may remove their bids from existing listings, while sellers can’t make edits or create new ones.
Some suspensions will last from several days to a month. Severe violations cause accounts to get permanently suspended. The biggest trap I see sellers fall into? Creating new accounts using the same info as the original. eBay’s tracking measures can link the two accounts based on these commonalities and quickly shut down any new ones.
What to Do After eBay Suspended Your Account?
Whether anything can be done depends on the reasons listed in the eBay messages you receive, provided there is one.
There are several ways to verify your account information. Providing copies of a valid ID or providing bank account information should be enough. I wouldn’t be surprised if these don’t work for everyone, as claimed by multiple disgruntled users on Reddit and other platforms. Contacting support remains the only option if the first two fall through.
You used to be able to clear outstanding dues or reimbursements through a one time payment. eBay no longer supports this and will try to deduct the expenses from existing funds or a preferred payment method. If this doesn’t work, you need to update your payment option information by following these steps.
The last available option is to contact eBay directlyc, lay out your case in detail, and hope you’ve provided enough information and evidence to lift the suspension.
Permanent suspensions are hard to reverse, but I did come across a Reddit thread in which people claimed to have successfully overturned suspensions after calling a number and explaining their situation to a human agent. This is anecdotal, and you should consider such advice only if you’ve exhausted every other official course of action.
How to Ensure eBay Doesn’t Restrict or Suspend Accounts?
I’ve only found one reliable way of running an eBay business without worrying about blocks, restrictions, or suspensions. It took a lot of trial and error, though.
Proxies
A proxy was the first thing I tried. Since eBay can link two accounts through the same IP address, a reliable residential proxy should keep this information, and therefore the accounts, separate. And it does, except an IP isn’t the only identifiable marker.
It turns out that the combination of hardware specs and the browser on the desktop I was using created a unique fingerprint that eBay and other sites use to establish account relationships.
Multiple phones or other devices
That means I’d need to tie each eBay account to a single device and have them all use distinct IP addresses through a VPN or proxy for a multi-account setup to work. Not to mention use different emails and payment methods for each.
Just the one-device-per-account prerequisite is already a limiting factor. Buying several phones would be the cheapest option yet still too expensive, especially once scaling demands more and more accounts. Handling each would also take up too much time.
Anti-detect browsers
In the end, anti-detect browsers turned out to be the most elegant and cost-effective solution. They allow one to run multiple accounts from the same device while isolating each and giving it a unique browser fingerprint and IP.
These measures cause eBay to view every created account as independent. It’s technically possible to create as many accounts as necessary to grow a dropshipping business, test different niches and segmentation strategies, or automate large-scale listing without risk.
Dozens of anti-detect browsers promise comprehensive account protections, yet few deliver. After reviewing all the heavy hitters and practically every minor player, I’ve come to the conclusion that GoLogin’s approachability, depth of features, and reasonable pricing make it the most dependable anti-detect browser on the market.
Running Multiple eBay Accounts with GoLogin
I kept hearing about GoLogin each time anti-detect browsers were mentioned as a solution to sell on eBay without fear of suspension, so I gave it a shot. GoLogin does new user onboarding well. For example, I had to answer a brief questionnaire during account setup that they use to gauge users’ familiarity with anti-detect browsers and help set it up accordingly.
The dashboard is clean and minimalistic at first, but the amount of information quickly changes as accounts are added without impacting visibility or ease of searching.
Creating profiles
The process starts by creating profiles. These are self-contained browser instances that mimic the unique browser fingerprint and IP combo you’d get from using separate physical devices on different networks.
A button press opens a new window with streamlined profile creation instructions. After picking a name, I also had to choose a proxy. Unlike almost every other competitor, GoLogin supplies proxies from ten locations around the world as part of the subscription, so I didn’t have to pay extra for one. You can use external proxies you want to, though. Just be sure to go with residential for authenticity.
It’s possible to add bookmarks and extensions or change the randomly assigned browser fingerprint at this stage. It’s not necessary since the default settings worked fine every time. However, make sure to test the proxy and assign a separate IP to each new profile.
Connecting profiles to eBay accounts
Running a profile opens a new browser window. From there, I could log into an eBay account as usual. Repeating the process for other profiles and accounts was straightforward after that. The best thing about this setup is being logged into multiple eBay accounts yet having nothing to link them to each other.
Closing a browser window or hitting stop on the dashboard stops the desired profile. I was pleased to see that running a profile once more resumes the last session, complete with saved cookies, account details, and the webpage I was last on.
Conclusion
Rules and regulations can be a good thing. Those that are defined clearly strengthen the resilience against hacking, fraud, and other exploits that threaten the eBay community. I wish that other restrictions, specifically those concerning the proper use of multiple accounts, would follow the same standards.
Everything I’ve experienced suggests that, until this changes, there’s no use in leaving things up to chance. If your eBay success hinges on having more than one account with a clean record, respecting the rules while operating separate accounts through an anti-detect browser like GoLogin provides the most effective and ethical solution.
I encourage you to give GoLogin a try and see the benefits for yourself. Download GoLogin for free and manage multiple accounts without bans!
