So I was selling a copy of Pokemon Sapphire (Gameboy Advance) on Trade Me. I've relisted the item a couple of times. After relisting it today I got a warning email that I needed to provide "receipt evidence that I purchased the item", a request that is somewhat unreasonable for a game that hasn't been available since the early 2000s. The email claimed I could be infringing intellectual property.

I responded asking what this was about and that it wasn't possible to provide a receipt. That evening, within the space of two minutes I got spammed with 3 emails; one which told me that I would need to provide evidence or I would be warned, followed by one about how I can't sell fake products, followed a couple of minutes later by a message about how my account has been given a strike for selling counterfeit goods.

I feel confident I can prove the legitimacy; it came from a legitimate games reseller and the physical appearance is consistent with online advice on verifying legitimate Pokemon games. Fakes are lazy and it is quite easy to prove using visual details.

My question is this: what's the deal with this? I've never had a problem like this before and I'm astounded at how they wasted no time in flagging my account and lecturing me on fake items before allowing me to provide alternate proof, presuming that not having a receipt = guilty. Has anyone else had similar problems lately? The reason I asked is I also got sent an email a week ago about how a person who won my auction was "probably illegitimate and I shouldn't sell to them" along with an automatic refund of the auction fees. The buyer was super confused about it via email. I can't see what the risk would have been there because it was shipping + bank deposit only. I feel like maybe Trademe has introduced automatic flagging of accounts and auctions recently and I'm wondering if anyone here knows if there is anything to that?