posted on July 31, 2003 07:39:25 PM new
I bet I know what Phase 3 is gonna be. No email addresses in auction description or anywhere on auction page or the About Me page ( no more easy outside of ebay deals ).
All will be under the guise of protecting users from spoof emails.
Very clever these ebayians.
-------------- sig file -----------Growing older is mandatory. Growing up is optional. .
posted on July 31, 2003 07:45:07 PM new
How in helz is anyone going to know who is doing the selling.? If we don't have any ID.
Who is going to supply us with a new ID??
posted on July 31, 2003 09:23:59 PM new
Theoretically it's easier to harvest email address in relation to an active ebay account.
I think ebay will chose the new IDs the same way that Hotmail or Yahoo Mail choses them, via a computer algorithim so if your ebay ID was [email protected] the computer will select something like JohnSmith1734 . That's probably what will happen. Ebay is not paying some guy $40K/YR to come up with acceptable replacement IDs all day.
-------------- sig file -----------Growing older is mandatory. Growing up is optional. .
posted on July 31, 2003 11:58:49 PM new
They announced this a long time ago. I would say about a year and a half ago. The reason I remember is a friend was using his email address and I said that eBay was going to change and make you get a new user ID so your email address isn't public.
I also have never used my email address for my user ID and I get those spam emails all the time.Where there's a will there's a way.. You can't keep a good crook down for long.
posted on August 1, 2003 12:21:18 AM new
Vedy In ta esting......me too.....I have OTHER,,,,,, e bay accounts with NO,,,,,e mail address name,,,,AND THEY get them too....AND,,,,,,I get PLENTY of spam from others also..So what's the real point e bay,,,,??
posted on August 1, 2003 12:29:19 AM new
Doncha just love the word,,,,,Enhance.....Do they really,,,,think,,,,,,they have an audience of PHD's? FIX,,,,, is Understood by the majority......Men have Penis enhancements,,,Women have breast enhancements.....E bay,,,,,stick to FIXING what's broken and leave what's not alone....
WHO,,,Decided THEY were NOT happy with the sales page as it was? I am still stummbling around it.
posted on August 1, 2003 07:42:21 AM new
You guys are a riot. I seem to remember reading in numerous spoof threads that ebay should do something to protect it's users from these emails. Since they cannotcontrol the actions of others the only thing they can do is try to make your emails more difficult to harvest. They are taking steps along that path and all anyone can seem to do is bit*h about it.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really Common Sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on August 1, 2003 07:46:31 AM newebay should do something to protect it's users from these emails.
Changing user names will do nothing to stop the spam and phoney emails. The vast majority of eBayers do not use their email address as their user name and still get the spam emails.
This is nothing more than another attempt to stop sellers from developing their own brand name and selling outside of eBay.
posted on August 1, 2003 08:06:12 AM new
Sorry, fenix, but reamond is correct.
It could be that I see more of this activity than most people; I have dozens of mailboxes and a half-dozen eBay userids, none of which are email addresses.
Spammers are sending the fraud emails to all email addresses they harvest anywhere, not ones they get off eBay. I have received a number of them sent to (for example) [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], etc. None of these are valid eBay userids OR are they emails for any valid eBay userids.
Spammers figure that if they send out millions of emails indiscriminately, some percentage are going to end up in the mailboxes of actual eBay users. It's a reasonable assumption. And it's easily implemented since it's so damn cheap to send spam.
I am not a bathtub full of brightly-colored machine tools on Vendio.
posted on August 1, 2003 09:08:23 AM new
Fluffy - please don't get me wrong, I don't for a moment think that this is going to eliminate the problem but I can say this. I have seen certain people on this board post spoof after spoof mail. I have 3 current and active selling IDs, I have recieved exactly ONE spoof between the three.
The spoofs are never going to be eliminated but at the same time, the people that are niave enough to use and email address as their ID are the ones that are most likely to be niave enough fall for one of the spoofs.
As for Branding - you should never brand an email address. Brand a Name, brand a Domain, but don't brand an email address.
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really Common Sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on August 1, 2003 09:35:31 AM new
Ebay is going to use these spoof emails that are attacking every aspect of the internet ( not just ebay ) to their advantage. This is ebay's chance to put a serious dent in the off-site deals that go on between sellers and lookers. First they outlaw the email IDs then they outlaw any mention of an email address anywhere and institute a Q&A setup to deal with any possible questions between the two parties. Half has always had a setup like that. There are filters that disallow the use of an email address in any correspondence.
I do not do any side deals on ebay unless the buyer has actually bought something so I think this is a great move by ebay to increase its profits and actually keep the fees from rising. Ebay should have done it years ago.
-------------- sig file -----------Growing older is mandatory. Growing up is optional. .
posted on August 1, 2003 10:30:17 AM new
I got tons of spoof eBay emails for awhile (my user id is not my email address) and now they have (mysteriously) stopped - not that I miss them! I did make the mistake of "dummying" an id ("gotojailucreep" with password "nowayjose" ) so I could see where the sign-in link led - probably told the bad guys that they hit a vaild email address so they kept trying.
I got a "question to seller" from someone today who said she wanted to buy a postcard that had not sold earlier this week and had tried to contact me with the "ask seller a question" link in the expired auction and the email was returned to her. Is this more of eBay trying to make sure there are no side deals between buyers and sellers?
posted on August 1, 2003 11:40:17 AM new
I am not sure if I understand what this is all about. Are they only after those who use their email address as their eBay ID, or does this include everyone? I have never used my email address as my eBay ID. Don't have a lot of spam mail. Maybe my Norton Security is filtering out most it.
posted on August 1, 2003 12:15:37 PM new
When you play the noble game of chess you do not only concentrate of the immediate move at hand but instead you plan the next two or three moves as well. Ebay is playing chess and think of its next move and its next several moves as well.
When ebay made the new page layout they retained the 'Watch This Item' function and even let it be usable on closed auction items. That was changed a few days ago and now is back to being usable only on current auction items. You think ebay may have thought that some side deals were being made easier by the 'Watch This Item' function being useable for closed auctions? I do.
-------------- sig file -----------Growing older is mandatory. Growing up is optional. .
posted on August 1, 2003 03:38:26 PM new
Wanna say it here too. Ace can't possibly be a full time support any family type of seller. He finds fault in EVERY way we figure how to increase our sales.
posted on August 1, 2003 04:36:08 PM new
Ace,
Yes I definitely think that was thought of when they changed the watch it from the ebay pages. But, what I am not clear on is if you bid on something that closed with a reserve say, and didnt win, couldnt you still obtain sellers email address and write to them about selling it on the side, since you were involved in a transaction with them?
I also think alot of people bidding dont know all the rules and regulations and probably send email via ebays system "send seller a question."
I wonder, does ebay have the right to read those emails since its through their system and if so, if that is where the see all the off ebay deals birthing.
posted on August 1, 2003 08:00:10 PM new
There were several threads here a while ago about ebay's right to read the 'ask a seller' questions and the consensus was that ebay did have the right to do so.
Adding closed auctions to the watch lists was a good research tool but maybe ebay didn't want buyers using their 30 auction limit on dead auctions? The side deal connection is still there though. How? The buyer can look up the seller on the bidder search and use the 'ask seller a question' about the closed item via an unrelated current auction. That happens from time to time anyway if the sellers email isn't in the ID or in their auctions somewhere.
-------------- sig file -----------Growing older is mandatory. Growing up is optional. .
posted on August 2, 2003 01:34:41 AM new
Well, I'm one of the stupid people who does use the same user ID & E-mail. I have never received any of these spam letters that I always see being discussed here, not from Ebay or PayPal. The spam I receive is usually dupliated on the other e-mail accounts I have, so it can't all be from E-bay.
My question is, If Ebay is just a venue as they always claim, what right do they have to tell anyone what their user ID can be? As far as I am concerned that is the name I chose for my business.
I sell in a hard category, books, and about 1/2 of my customers are repeat buyers. They might not buy every week or every month. How many sales am I going to lose because they can no longer find me under the name I have been using since 1999. If someone does a search under my current ID would it show my new ID listing?
Ebay would do better to make it a rule going forward or for people who are only buying. And give a choice to sellers. They can always have us sign off on something saying we're aware of any problems which may occur by using a user ID as an e-mail address. If we refuse to sign off, then change it.
posted on August 2, 2003 07:38:05 AM new
It's their venue and I suppose they can make any rules they want. What will disgruntled sellers do, move their auctions to Yahoo? Ebay holds all the cards.
-------------- sig file -----------Growing older is mandatory. Growing up is optional. .
posted on August 2, 2003 10:21:43 AM new
Time for that shocking revelation again: Ebay is a business looking to grow its revenues.
They expect that if you use their venue, then they want the cut as agreed in their terms. There are other business/professional arrangements, such as real estate, art-galleries, etc. that also have terms to prevent side-door sales.
