When you are looking through items, say Silver Strikes, to see who's been bidding and what they are selling for, you might run across something like this.

Bidding History (in order of bid amount):

marie5111 (0) (not a registered user)

Last bid at: $127.50

Date of bid: 10/05/99, 16:32:00 PDT

silvstr48@aol.com (7) (not a registered user)

Last bid at: $125.00

Date of bid: 10/01/99, 05:41:15 PDT

But when you hit a group of auctions, with the same seller and same bidders, and all are not registered, you can figure that eBay lowered the boom.

The funny part is that these might just be very active collectors, bidding against each other and one very active seller. Ask Jomodad how that one got him 30 days. <G>

Another option is that a user can ask eBay to close thier account. I did this myself when they told me I shouldn't have two accounts. (I guess that changed?)

Ebay also has a warning policy, if someone has a non-payment or other minor violation. 1) Warning, 2) Second warning, 3) 30 day suspension, 4) Account Closed. So they are pretty cautious about some areas.