We are committed to making eBay a better place to trade by introducing the following measures:

• changes to our Postage and Packaging policies on eBay.co.uk
• making dispute resolution simpler on eBay (UK & IE)
• ensuring our members can trade in a more secure environment (UK & IE)

We will be elaborating on these points over a series of 3 posts.

Changes to Member to Member emails

To increase security for our users and make email communication easier for our members, eBay will be introducing some changes to the email system which will come into effect from 21st October.

Specifically, email addresses sent through the system (i.e. Ask Seller a Question, Reply to Question and Contact eBay Member links on the site) will be made anonymous in emails sent before a sale takes place.  

Sellers will also now be able to respond directly to all customer emails from their own email client (eg: Outlook, Hotmail, Gmail) by simply replying to the email without using the yellow Respond button.

Anonymous email addresses will apply to members who have not recently transacted with each other. Once an item is purchased, the buyer’s and seller’s email addresses will be visible to each other. Until then, eBay will replace the sender’s email address in the “From” field with a temporary anonymous address.
This helps eBay to detect and stop spam and fraudulent messages. It also helps prevent fraudsters from easily obtaining members’ email addresses.
To help us ensure emails are from legitimate members, you may need to add email addresses to your eBay account. If you forward member messages from your eBay registered email account to a secondary email account, you should update your preferences in My eBay with this secondary email address.
To set up this preference:

1. Sign in to My eBay and go to Notification Preferences. In the section titled Delivery Options, click the Show link next to Member-to-Member email address.
2. Choose whether you want to use the same email address to send and receive emails from other members or different addresses for each. You may choose the second option if you need to have one email address to process and route inbound requests, and a second for outbound replies.
3. Enter the email address(es) you want to use to send and receive emails and click on Save.

A short grace period will apply before eBay begins to validate the email address a member is using to reply to member messages. This validation is a secondary security measure to prevent a fraudster from trying to gain access to your account.

Update on protecting buyers and sellers from identity theft

In April, we announced that we're noting the computers you normally use to buy and sell on eBay.

We've now started to verify sellers who are listing from a computer they don't normally use. If you're listing from a different computer (e.g. at a friend's house, at the library), we'll ask you for some additional verification to make sure it's really you listing the item.

This helps us protect your account and all buyers and sellers from fraudulent unauthorised activity. For more details, please check our FAQ.

Thank you for your support as we work to make eBay a safer and more secure place to buy and sell.

Regards,

The eBay Team