Call Kurtis: Blacklisted From eBay And Nobody Will Tell Me Why

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — When a grandmother made her first eBay transaction ever, she bid, she won, she was excited until eBay blacklisted her.

To look inside Janie Payne's fridge, no one can say this grandma isn't organized. "all three lids are interchangeable," said Payne. Stack upon stack of tupperware including containers she just bought during her first eBay buy ever. "i was pleased as punch," said Payne.

However, not with eBay, after getting email weeks after her purchase saying her account was "suspended indefinitely." Payne recalls the email "it hurt my feelings."

She wanted to know why her account was suspended but when she called she said eBay would not tell her and told her not to ask again. "i didn't do anything wrong and no one's listening to me," said Payne.

Payne is not alone, we found similar complaints from people online. One writing "they are unable (unwilling) to discuss details with the customers" about the suspension and another writing "...The decision to suspend my account was permanent and could not be appealed."

"Everybody that runs a business wants to keep a customer," said Doug Elmets of Elmets Communications. Elmets a public relation's expert, thinks if a company shuts you out, they should at least tell you why saying, "without customer service you have nothing."

We reached out to eBay the company sent us a statement saying "the majority of the time we are transparent around account restrictions or suspensions.... However, when a suspension is due on the basis of risk, we keep reasoning general as we don't want these individuals circumventing the suspension".

After we got involved, bay realized they made a mistake in Payne's case. They reinstated her account and offered her a $25 dollar buying coupon as part of their apology.

Payne is thankful the mix-up was straightened out but says the next time she buys tupperware she may find it somewhere else, "no more eBay for me," said payne.

EBay never did tell us exactly what happened in payne's case but she got an email from them saying somehow ebay connected her account with someone else's by mistake and that the account was considered risky which lead to the suspension.