This is a follow up on my previous about the risk of making money online. I just want to share with you some of my own experiences of being banned as an eBay seller.

Of course the umbrella “Making Money Online” covers more than just blogging. It also includes webstore, eBay selling, Affiliates Marketing and any other method you use to make money online.

My first banned was by Paypal. This was actually my own fault. I forgot my own password. After entering a wrong password for the third time, the account is locked. If I remembered correctly there is no option for you to enter security questions where they can send you the password if you answer correctly.

The only way to unlock my paypal account is to fax them household bills to proof that I am the account holder. Faxing that all the way to USA? Can you imagine the hassles of doing that? So I just let it be. Luckily, my currency balance is zero.

The last I heard is a Malaysian lady’s account frozen and she still have usd1000 inside. Her account got banned all of a sudden not because of forgotten password, she was actually suspected of fraudulent activities. Be sure to keep in mind point 2 and 6 in my previous post.

My second ban was from eBay itself 2 years ago. My account was NARUed. This is the worst nightmare that could happen to any eBay seller. I was suspected for shill bidding. And luckily this lasted for about two weeks and was easy to be reinstated.

But my friend was not so lucky; he was NARUed for eBay suspected him of fraud cases. He sells handphones. I learnt that if you sell branded goods in Asia, you will usually be suspected because of the fraud cases around here.

My third selling restriction was just recently. I was banned from selling for one day because I misinterpreted the location of my items several times despite warnings. Again, you need to play by the rules if you need to make money online.

I admit these cases weren’t too extreme and they were due to my ignorance. So my dear readers, do not think you can trick ‘their’ system into anything, for they can detect the slightest fault. ‘Their’ in this case is anything you registered and applied to your blogs or online business, Adsense, Technorati, eBay, Paypal and everything!

I have also collected a few stories or experiences around the blogosphere to share with you about people being banned online.

To read real Paypal nightmares, go to www.paypalsucks.com. After reading this, you may not want to use Paypal. But there is not much choice. If you do not use Paypal, it gets thougher to do business online.

Click here to read eBay NARUed cases.

Click here to read How Not To Be Banned By Google.

Click here to read one story about being banned by Adsense.

And lastly, but it is my FIRST real ‘ban’ of making money not online but offline, when I had a major surgery of brain tumor. My income comes to a total halt. I feel lucky that I have my savings or I wouldn’t be able to go through one whole year without income. That is why point 5 is very important too. Imagine IF you have children and family to feed.

Please never let these dampen your spirit and enthusiasm to earn money online. The probability of these happening is probably one in a thousand. The probability of getting a brain tumor is maybe 2 out of 100. Life is so unpredictable, no matter how small the probability, I can be so ‘lucky’ sometimes.*thinking*

The result of making money online can be lucrative. Just sitting down and afraid to make the moves because of risks will not be worthwhile. Just be prepared for it and you will not feel too disappointed when it happens.

Do you have any stories getting banned? I hope not. Otherwise, I’d be happy if you could share with me stories of people being banned from other channels which I am not so familiar other than eBay. Let me learn and be aware of it too. *wink*

Abbreviations used in this post:
MMO = Making money online by any means like eBay, Affliates, Blogging, Webstore and not “Make Money Online” niche
NARU= No Longer A Registered User

Tags: make money online, ebay, paypal, adsense