Warning from eBay:
 

I received an email from eBay today pointing out that I recently sent another eBay user my email through their messaging system. They told me not to do it again and did not take any actions against me. :D Now here is my question: do they actually SPY on their users or did the guy I sent my email to report me? The thing is, we were considering doing a TRADE (it's not as if we can trade through eBay), but it didn't go through. Did he get ticked off because I changed my mind and report me? Now this guy is a really big seller and he was the one who first asked me for my contact information. If eBay was spying on that conversation, then he should have gotten a warning from them too, right? If he did not receive anything from them, then does that mean he reported me? What do you guys think? What are your experiences?

Thanks

They are not spying however they have pretty sophisticated systems to look for the exchange of contact information or making attempts to sell outside their site. As for trading, ebay sees that as a sale outside of the site.

He didn't report you. You likely just triggered some of their search terms.

I'm not a computer expert, but eBay probably runs some sort of "script" (if I'm using that term correctly) that checks for the @ symbol. I bet if you spelled it out like "John.Doe at gmail dot com", you wouldn't have been flagged.

They "Spy" and corresponding outside of EBay is a big no no to them..

I have tried a few different options and E-Bay has caught them all.

When I PM/message an E-Bay member and receive their reply e-mail, replying info in that seems much easier.

No problem though if you want to retract 100 bids.

I got a weird email from eBay today. It was warning me that a particular auction was ending which I had looked at. Nothing more. It was for a altered reprint that I had no interest in. They're definately spying on their users.

In the last couple of weeks I have received countless emails from them about auctions I have looked at, my OWN auctions LOL, and others I am sure I haven't.

sometimes you bite the 'bay, sometimes the 'bay bites you

^^This^^ They will suspend your account for doing deals outside eBay. They will now also send you messages asking you to do deals outside of eBay to try and entrap and suspend you.

I have got away with doing trades on eBay through messaging with no problem as long as eBay gets their cut. How I do/done it is to tell the other person to list their card on eBay and they buy my card and I buy theirs.

After one sale, Pay Pal gives you a buyer's contact info. There you go.

I still see many sellers with their phone number right in their listings, by the way.

Why don't you tell the seller just to come here and create an account. I'm sure Leon would like that very much :-)

I'm sure you can write "Net54" in an email and it not get flagged.

I've done this a few times with no problem.

You were tagged by they their increasingly sophisticated auto bots. Nothing to do with the guy on other end.

So yea - it appears the easy thing to do is include phone number in listing - Who Knew?

BTW - I have in the past, been able to send contact info via messaging system in the form of pic (JPEG, GIF, etc)

I have about sixty business cards for seller with whom I have dealt. Most of them contain non-EBAY contact details.

Once again, the low-tech approach has it's day. :o

Many sellers have their own web sites with contact info.

Yup, as everybody else says, the bots pick it up.

It's getting harder and harder to even send legitimate messages through Ebay without getting a warning.

Just somebody asking a general question about an item you have up for auction, and you have to be careful not to reference your website, any other sites that might have information for them on that item, your contact info, anybody else's contact info that might help them corroborate information.

If it's somebody I've done business with before, I usually just look for a Paypal e-mail address on file to respond to them properly.

This. E-bay has far more to lose in a legal tussle over e-mails in your messages. It's already clear they are violating contract law with respect to retractions. The minute they come after a seller for a minor offense, the counter suit for allowing someone to bid and then retract would be far more harmful to them.

I would not be intimidated at all by dumb and dumber lawyers over at e-bay.

Picking up email addresses, as well as certain keywords (such as "dot", "period", "at") is relatively simple to do. Plus these types of procedures will be improved by developers all the time. However, they would be susceptible to automatically and incorrectly picking up messages with no intent at bypassing eBay. However, rest assured that anything flagged will not be sent on to the intended recipient.

I read an article years ago from an ex eBay developer, who was there at the beginning. Like many ill-informed companies, eBay (according to the article) decided to go offshore for system development and support. His take at the time (so far a little unfounded) is that the infrastructure of the entire application is so old that eventually it will crater. In the industry, "held together with duct tape and binder twine" is sometimes the explanation. They have apparently built new code on top of old code, and at some time it will crater. Think of it like a car... you can only fix the old one up for so long before you need a completely new car (system).

For me, weird things do sometimes happen... bids that don't go through, my Watch list disappearing, etc. But overall, their system still seems to have held up so far.


Full disclosure:
I have never worked for eBay or written or deployed auction house software.
I am a computer scientist and Solutions Architect, specializing in systems and database development, implementations, and integration.

Regards...
Bob

I believe they also check for phone numbers in messages through their automated system.

Actually they are following the UCC to a "T." The UCC states unequivocally that a bid is NOT a contract until the item has been called sold and may be retracted at any time until the item is called sold.

Also it is not possible to sign away your UCC rights, so if you accept someone's bid you HAVE to accept their retraction regardless of what you say your policy is, even if the bidder has agreed to your policy!

However there is nothing saying that you have to continue accepting bids from someone who has retracted bids in the past.

I know this won't be a popular post but I am 100% confident on my knowledge of the law on this issue since it was beaten into me in class very recently :) You can search elsewhere on this site for a discussion between myself and a lawyer/member on this very issue. I think it was an interesting discussion, and germane to the interests of a lot of the users here.

Now that the Ebates 5% back promo is over, I've been making my purchases through Beckett Marketplace...and I say, (at least for now) **** you, Ebay!

I'd rather just give up that final 1%, than work with them.



.

If you REALLY need to send your email address in an Ebay message to someone, create an image of it and send that instead.

And now you just completely ruined that avenue for all of us who already use it. Ebay will immediately start reconfiguring their bots to 'catch' us.

Thanks.

Edited to add: This was supposed to be taken somewhat humorously. They were probably on to us already.

I like when i make a token bid on a high grade Mantle 1952 Topps just so keep tabs to see how much they go for and ebay emails me and says 'you just missed this one' (card sells for 175k) yeah i missed by about 174k

E-bay is in the Republic of California, so let's start there. We don't follow half of the federal laws here anyway. Here's 2328 California Commercial code (which I think is similar to your UCC reference)

(3) Such a sale is with reserve unless the goods are in explicit terms put up without reserve.  In an auction with reserve the auctioneer may withdraw the goods at any time until he announces completion of the sale.  In an auction without reserve, after the auctioneer calls for bids on an article or lot, that article or lot cannot be withdrawn unless no bid is made within a reasonable time.  In either case a bidder may retract his bid until the auctioneer's announcement of completion of the sale, but a bidder's retraction does not revive any previous bid.

We maybe be talking the same language here, but the problem is e-bay is moving the under-bidder into pole position after a high bidder retracts. That is violating law as I read it, or at a minimum, the intent of the law.

I can quote you on some other California Auction Codes that e-bay is ignoring if you want. In the near future, these AH's, and e-bay, are going to have skin in the game. They will not be able to throw up their hands and declare "i had no clue", or "we're just consignors", when they're enabling listings of the highest degree of fraud on their software platform.

That's all I was saying (the bolded portion) they HAVE to allow retractions. If you look at the other thread mentioned earlier we did discuss remedy after retraction. There are basically two ways a reputable auctioneer handles the situation. They either start the item over or ASK the under bidder if they would like to maintain their bid. Said under bidder is under no obligation to do so. There may be another way to legally handle the situation, but I agree that ebay's way certainly seems to violate the UCC (and yes it appears 2-328 is identical between the UCC and the CCC)

Oh, they can retract even after the sale. I had auctions that ended on Tuesday night. A guy sniped and and won an item for $45 with one second left. He paid immediately. Then, ten minutes later, asked to cancel. Since eBay has it where he can leave negative feedback on me, but I can't do the same, I have to agree to cancel. The underbidder doesn't want the item, because he says he felt uncomfortable with how fast I sent the second chance offer (I don't blame him). So, I sell to the second underbidder for $35. Thanks, jerk. But, he can do this because eBay allows it.

YES, they do this NOW. If you go to post an image in the message, they will "remind" you it has to be within ebay laws. Also I just got a message from a ebay member that had an image attached. ebay asked it if was within their guidelines.

Not to be paranoid, but ebay can look at images in messages.

BTW I have gotten a few "warnings." Just have to be careful.

The bidder "may" retract a bid. What if they permitted bid retractions, but charged a $10,000,000 fee (or whatever) to do it? Could you argue that the bidder "may" retract the bid, in that it is possible for him to do so, and the statute doesn't prohibit putting obstacles in the way of doing it, or would a judge nix this idea?

Yup, I've had this happen to.

A couple months ago I actually had somebody pay me for something two weeks after an auction ended and then request to cancel right after they paid.

Claimed "their dad" bid on the auction by mistake.

I'm pretty sure they paid to avoid an unpaid item on their record, and then immediately went about the business of sabotaging the transaction.

Ebay doesn't give you much of a choice but to just comply. Especially with somebody who knows the ins and outs of getting out of a transaction.

Yes but we were speaking of legal rights, not ebaygle rights...

I made a sale outside of eBay using paypal. An ebay member contacted me through ebay's messaging system about making them a custom item. Sent the user my paypal.me link for payment. Both my eBay and paypal accounts are now suspended indefinitely. I can't withdrawal my money from my paypal account for 180 days. The worst part is I had a substantial amount saved up in Ebay bucks I was planning on using. I wouldn't recommend doing deals outside of eBay. Be careful using PayPal F&F for goods as well.

Yes, you are risking your paypal account if you circumvent their fees. I would be utterly screwed if I lost my paypal account.

I sometimes ask if they are a member