I used to amuse myself occasionally by "window shopping" on ebay, dreaming of things I might buy in the future when I was more flush. And buying things I needed once in a while. But then this happened: I was browsing through used sofas for a transitional situation in our household. I'm pretty fussy, but finally found one I liked within a reasonable distance. The seller had only the barest description, lacking even measurements. So I used the "contact the seller" option to ask for the sofa width, which is crucial for me. No answer. Three times. So I was already pretty disgusted at that point. I mean, does the seller really want to sell or not?
Meantime, ebay keeps spamming my inbox several times a day, telling me I should make an offer on the sofa, and unhelpfully sending suggestions of other sofas I might like. Finally, I decided out of frustration that maybe if I activated the "make an offer" button and offered $5, I could at least get the seller's attention to ask about the width. (The "buy it now" price was $150). When I activated the "make an offer" button, however, it wouldn't allow me to continue. I later happened to think this might be b/c I don't have a Paypal account, and I realized that I had always purchased in the past through my kids' Paypal accts. My son told me to email him the link, saying he'd make the lowball offer through his acct. the next day.
Next day I look at my email and there are three messages from ebay. One tells me I left an item in my cart. The other 2 tell me that they are suspending my account. And not to try to reply. And something about it being a violation. (Attempting to enter an offer is a violation??? Huh??? Isn't that what the site is for? But of course I wasn't even able to submit the offer anyway, so WTF?) And telling me it's a permanent decision. And there's no appeal.
All in all, it was not only baffling and frustrating, I felt it was downright rude and insulting. I still have no idea what I did that they deemed wrong or some kind of violation of their rules. However, all of that becomes less and less important, since I have lost any good feelings I once had about ebay.
And mostly I wonder how this is all working as a business model for ebay. Sellers who don't write the minimally necessary facts into their descriptions, then continually fail to answer potential customers? Ebay spamming their customers at the same time those customers can't get basic information about purchases they want to make? Then when the customer finally responds to ebay entreaties and tries to make an offer, ebay insults that same customer and permanently bans them for attempting to do so? And BTW, they continue to spam me about sofas they think I might like (I'd rather pick out my own, thanks). How do you stay in business by banning your own customers?
All in all, I guess what I'm asking is, what the hell has happened to ebay in the time I haven't been using them much?