Thousands of Marktplaats accounts blocked after malfunction

Human error was the cause of a major malfunction on popular trading website Marktplaats on Tuesday. It resulted in thousands of accounts being blocked on the site after they were labeled as being con artists.

"Our first priority is to inform and assist affected users," the company said. "We deeply regret the events and do everything we can to prevent them in the future."

The trouble began at the end of Tuesday afternoon, and continued into the evening. After accounts were labeled as fraudulent, emails were sent to warn people who were engaged in transactions with those accounts, according to Tweakers.net.

“At this moment we are trying to find out specifically what went wrong, We are also in contact with the users who have been involved with this mistake on how to help them recover their accounts,” a spokesperson told Nu.nl. Around 20 thousand accounts were blocked due to the incident.

Marktplaats is a site which is used by people to buy and sell products. It was started in 1999 and bought by eBay five years later. It is considered the most popular place to buy and sell second-hand goods in the Netherlands.