Thanks very much all for your comments and advice @*vyolla* @technthread @dch2112011 @rjwilmsi
To address a couple of questions:
First of all, the photos that I used on the listing are not stock photos per se. It's true that I didn't take the photos myself and that a reverse search of the images would lead to their being hosted elsewhere on the internet. But the photos that I used are the photos taken by the auction house that I bought the chairs from. As such, the pictured items are the very items that are for sale.
I see that from a copyright point of view, I technically ought to have got permission from the auction house in writing, but the larger issue of depicting items that are not the ones for sale doesn't apply here. But eBay might have assumed otherwise.
Regarding questions about charging extra for delivery or making sales off-platform: nope. I've never tried to get a buyer to conduct a transaction directly, circumventing eBay, or via another platform. And I've never asked them to pay for a courier externally/separately either. One buyer asked me to add "collection" as an option because they didn't need my courier, and I did, but that was all above board. (She sent me her van driver's phone number to arrange collection, but this was after the purchase had been made.)
On the question of whether or not this MC011 restriction was justified on the grounds of my operating as a business seller when I am, in fact, a private seller: it's true that, as a private individual, I listed a few furniture pieces to explore vintage reselling. But while I hoped to make some profit, I think there's a clear difference between experimenting with a handful of items to test my vintage-hunting skills and actually operating a business.
As I said, I'm new to selling on eBay, having mainly used it to buy books. My plan was to incorporate a company if I managed to sell a few pieces, and I never guessed that testing the waters with a few items on my existing account would result in a ban. To my mind, if I unknowingly crossed a line, a warning would have been much more sensible than a lifetime ban. For a first-time misunderstanding, an MC011 feels at best overzealous and at worst draconian, especially for a long-standing eBay member.
I appreciate all your thoughts, though, and it's given me some idea of how I might have inadvertently raised the hackles of the eBay team. I'll update on any new developments.
