Permanent Selling Restriction Due to Bad Buyer Experience (BBE) – Seeking Advice
Summary: Several participants are discussing their experiences with permanent selling bans from an online platform due to resolved buyer issues. personalbuy mentions being a small EU seller with 11 sales, facing a ban despite resolving two problems. The discussion seeks advice on dealing with these restrictions.
Hello eBay Community,
I’m reaching out to see if anyone has had a similar experience with eBay’s Bad Buyer Experience (BBE) evaluation, specifically regarding permanent selling restrictions.
I’ve been a seller on eBay for over 13 years with an excellent feedback rating and no prior violations. However, my account has recently been permanently restricted from selling due to BBE, despite the fact that all cancellations on my account were related to shipping limitations to the United States, which were fully disclosed and proactively managed.
Here are the key facts:
- I received written confirmation from an eBay supervisor (Scott, from the Customer Service Leadership Team) stating that cancellations due to shipping address limitations wouldn’t negatively affect my metrics.
- I also implemented a high domestic U.S. shipping rate to prevent unwanted purchases from U.S. buyers, which was explicitly permitted by eBay.
- All cancellations were linked to temporary suspension of shipping from Serbia to the U.S., and I did everything to ensure transparency with buyers.
Despite this, my account was permanently restricted, and I am seeking advice or similar experiences from others in the community. Have any of you encountered something like this? How did you resolve it?
I’ve reached out to eBay Trust & Safety, but I am still awaiting a final resolution.
Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Goran
rarefj
·2 weeks agoHi,
I experienced a very similar situation.
My seller account was restricted under the BBE policy after two buyer disputes resulted in defects. In both cases, the buyers had already received their items, and the cases later closed after 21 days of inactivity.
I contacted eBay Customer Service, and Senior Representative Ajay B. reviewed my account under SR# 1-506809057175. After reviewing the cases, he administratively removed both defects and confirmed in writing that they would not count toward my monthly evaluation or have any negative impact on my account.
However, my account remains permanently restricted, and I have received different explanations from Customer Service regarding how this decision affects CBT metrics.
I am still trying to understand how these responses are consistent. If anyone from eBay or another seller has experienced a similar situation, I would appreciate any clarification.
foxhub
·4 months agoThis Ebay admins are always want to stay with buyer side, they wont even give respect to the sellers , my account is also restricted due to BBE , even though refunded and resolved all the cases . They let the scam people or encourage fake buyer manipulators nowadays.
In my case , ebay closed the case of one buyer has received the item and he gave positive reviews after 20 days he saw one negative review and asking ebay for refunds as " Item not received " I reported to ebay that buyer was doing fraudlent even he recieved he was asking the refunds. The case closed on favour of ourside, after a days the same buyer raise a return asking refund without initmating me ebay took my money and refunded to buyer?
What is this, ebay is taking my hard earned money for scammers
nightanddaystore
·4 months agoHello Community,
Firstly, I would like to ask, what is this bad buyer experience?.
I have been selling since 2018, and in every 90 days, seller performance used to be evaluated, but since this BBE has emerged, there is no proper information.
I didn't receive any eBay training calendar mail or something; there's been no proper guidance on this BBE.
And what I am not able to understand is that my rating is 100%. No negatives, no disputes, no return cases.
Just in the seller dashboard, BBE shows that between July and October my percentage is high in the global sales market and in the US between June and August. But then suddenly my sales stopped, and my listing got ended, and reaching out to this platform took me 6 months.
In which I have not received any such dispute case.
orzanikstore
·4 months agoHi,
I am writing regarding the recent permanent selling restriction placed on my account under eBay’s Bad Buyer Experience (BBE) evaluation.
I have been an active eBay seller for over 8 years with a strong feedback record and no prior violations until December 2025.
This situation is very concerning to me.
Recently, an order was delivered in damaged condition due to transit issues. The buyer did not contact me prior to leaving negative feedback and opening a return request. I processed a full refund immediately and did not request the item to be returned, which resulted in a financial loss on my end.
I also reported the issue to the postal service, and they acknowledged the damage during transit. Despite this, the transaction was counted as a defect. As a result, my defect rate has increased to 6.1% (2 defects out of 49 orders), both linked to the same buyer.
I have already submitted multiple appeals, but unfortunately, the restriction remains in place. Given my long history of compliant selling and the circumstances beyond my control, I kindly request a reconsideration of my case.
I would appreciate your review and guidance on how this issue can be resolved.
community_export
Dear savas013,
Greetings from team eBay!
Your query has been sent to the relevant team and you can expect to hear from them shortly.
Regards,
eBay Team
personalbuy
·1 month agoSame here. Small EU seller, 11 sales, 2 problems (resolved), permanent selling ban
jojo.urban
·5 months agoHi!
actually I have similar problem.
My eBay account has been permanently restricted due to a higher “Item Not Received” rate.
I want to clarify that this issue was caused by two international shipments where the postal service mistakenly swapped parcels, not by listing errors, misleading descriptions, or seller negligence.
Both affected buyers were immediately refunded, and I also let them keep the items, resulting in a financial loss for me. No disputes remain unresolved.
I have been a reliable seller since 2017 with ~500 completed transactions and 208 positive feedback ratings, consistently providing tracking for all shipments.
Previous attempts to appeal via the HK/APAC form and customer support have repeatedly ended at the first line with automated responses.
community_export
Dear jojo.urban,
Greetings from team eBay!
Your query has been sent to the relevant team and you can expect to hear from them shortly.
Regards,
eBay Team
personalbuy
·1 month agoSame here. Small EU seller, 11 sales, 2 problems (resolved), permanent selling ban
ikonsgr74
·5 months agoI'm afraid there is no way to resolve it my friend...
This ABSURD BBE policy imposed ~2 years ago by ebay, lately started to act like a plague for non-US small sellers...
I recently got two well established "ebay top rated seller" accounts PERMANENTLY restricted for selling (=practically CLOSE account FOR EVER...), just because i got a few INR cases and a couple of order cancelations in a realtively short time...
Here are some details about how exactly this ABSURD BBE evaluation works:
It mainly uses:
Item Note Received cases: Ebay blames and punishes a seller for something OBVIOUSLY not their fault, NO seller owns his private postal service company! Further more, Ebay blames and punishes a seller for INR case, even if buyers are immidiately refunded! If someone opens INR case, and receive no (or negative) repsonce from seller, and ebay escalates to force refund, then this metric might made some sense, but if seller refunded buyer WITHOUT escalation, WHAT'S THE POINT of STILL punish the seller?
Seller Fault Unfulfilled: The main factor on this metric is the number of order cancellations! The deception here is that ,although metric is labeled "seller fault" (like item accidentally not available or something) , in practice ANY order cancellation for ANY reason is accounted for! Although getting punished for order cancellations is already something far-fetched,the MOST ABSURD is: HOW ON EARTH cancelling of an order that BUYER ITSELF ASKED FOR (because he bought it by accident, or jsut change his mind, SIMPLY AS THAT!) , is considered "Bad Buyer Experience" and seller must be punished for?
Finally, evaluation period is only the last 11-12 weeks, and they use ONLY average PERCENTAGES for comparison (~1,2% for INR and 2% for "Seller unfulifill"). So, if you are a relative small seller (for example make a few dozen sales/month), and you happen to get just a couple of INR or order cancellations, this will TRIGGER BBE and get immidiate restrictions! BUT, the MOST ABSURD is that if you happen to get these cases in a short time, it would need ~10-11 weeks for the account to re comply again (e.g. have cases to got out of the evaluation window ) , BUT ebay will wait ONLY for ~month, and then it simply end ALL your listings and PERMANENTLY restrict sellings!
Quoting from someone commented very aptly the subject here:
eBay.com has launched some kind of hidden campaign to eliminate all small and medium-sized sellers located outside the USA. The rules created to sell on eBay.com are such that any small or medium seller is essentially playing a lottery as to when they will be destroyed, no matter how well and professionally they do their job...
...the reality is that eBay’s rules are designed so that sooner or later you will be forced out, even if you have fulfilled your responsibilities honestly.
...about two years ago, the eBay representative assigned to our store called me. After a longer conversation, the representative clearly stated that if your annual turnover does not exceed $100,000, you are not considered an important seller to eBay — they simply do not care whether you are there or not.
...Look at how often international sellers have recently been writing here that their stores have been closed because of this BBE statistic. This is not the fault of a single seller — it is the result of a system deliberately created by eBay’s BBE metrics, where for any seller outside the USA it is only a matter of time before they lose their store.
community_export
Dear ikonsgr74,
Greetings from team eBay!
Your query has been sent to the relevant team and you can expect to hear from them shortly.
Regards,
eBay Team
personalbuy
·1 month agoSame here. EU seller, 11 sales, 2 problems (resolved), permanent selling ban