I use Linux Mint 20.2 Cinnamon, and Firefox browser 110.0.

I live in England, which is part of Great Britain, and I've always used eBay from my home here.

For many years I have been buying stuff off eBay without any problems, but recently it has become repeatedly difficult or impossible to log into my account.

Several weeks ago I was asked to verify my account, I forget why but probably for the same reason as now. The problem was that the final part of this verification requires telephoning a very usual phone number that is quite different from a UK number and will not work.

UK numbers are in this format:

0NNNN NNNNNN

They have eleven digits and always start with zero. The only exceptions are three-digit emergency police and medical numbers.

The number I was asked to ring was I imagine an American number, with fewer numbers, no starting zero, and a dash in the middle.

You would expect a big company like eBay to understand UK phone numbers, particularly as they have a UK headquarters and do a lot of business here by all accounts, since the population is about 1/6th or 1/5th of the USA. If I had shares in eBay I'd sell them, as they are apparently neglecting important things. I have never had any problems logging into Amazon or other online retailers.

So I had to try many times over several days to verify my number, but repeatedly came up against the impossible barrier of the weird unusable phone number. Eventually I was asked to verify by email, and was able to log in. I thought everything was now fine.

But, now it has happened all over again with the same problems!

This time they sent me an email saying someone had tried to log in from a town not very far away. I do not think anyone else had, as the ISP I use not only changes the ISP number but also its physical location.

They also keep saying I am using a different computer, which is not true, I have only been using the same computer for years. At one point they said they thought I was a "bot" because Java or Javascript was disabled, I forget which.

Most recent problem has been that it repeatedly says it does not recognise my password, even though it is the correct password.

I have now changed my password twice. Being able to change the password implies that I have control of the account, and that it has not been hijacked by someone else. eBay have not sent me any warning emails apart from the one mentioned above.

So the problem is they still will not recognise my password.

Possible things I'm not going to do or cannot do -

I am not going to prefix the extremely unusual number with the International dialling codes and make a transatlantic call. That will only complicate things.

I am not going to put a zero in front of them either.

Although I found a UK Help number for eBay, when ringing it all you get is someone with a British accent saying you should use the online Help pages. But none of the online Help pages refer to this problem.

Although there may be an online eBay Help forum somewhere, presumably that requires logging in.

******* Maybe someone who can log in to it could tell eBay of this problem on my behalf please? ******

The stuff for sale on eBay seems to be the same and at the same prices as stuff on Amazon.

Ebay, if you have been wondering why your sales in the UK have been declining, now you know why.

Sounds like a scammer has your details, or tried to get them - I've been with Ebay for years, no problems, if anything looks dodgy, I just shut down my computer for a few minutes, or come back another day.

Whether your account has been hacked or not, use this contact site https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/account/...ccount?id=4196

Thanks.

I have now been able to log in to the account, and it does not appear to have been hacked. Perhaps all the fun and games were due to ebay being too busy. It makes me more reluctant to shop there.

Although Jan K's helpful link does lead to a "member to Member" community, you have to log in to use it. I have not tried the other "chat" option.

You should had... it's automated, but will lead you to an agent.

But good you've been "fixed"!