You may have heard that buyers are sometimes enticed to trade outside the eBay site by fraudsters promising a great deal. Such buyers not only risk losing their money, but also their trust in the eBay experience, and in eBay sellers. To help prevent this, we’re making email addresses in certain situations anonymous.

Starting 1 September 2008, email addresses sent through the eBay system (ie Ask Seller a Question, Reply to Question and Contact eBay Member links on the site) will be made anonymous in emails sent before the sale takes place. This applies to members who have not recently transacted with each other. Once the item is purchased, the member’s email address will be visible.

This involves the email being routed through eBay’s system before it’s received by the member. To do this, eBay will replace the sender’s email address in the “From” field with a temporary anonymous address.

The eBay email system has a range of filters to reduce spam and emails from fraudsters.

What this means for buyers
Buyers do not need to prepare for this change, but will notice some differences:

1. When sending an email to a member through eBay, you will not have the option to hide your email address, as this will be done automatically.
2. The yellow Respond button that is embedded within emails sent through eBay is being removed. You will be able to respond in the same way you reply to normal emails.

What this means for sellers
These changes may help sellers manage their customer service operations more efficiently:

1. Emailing your customers: You can still respond to customers’ questions using your own email provider (eg Outlook and Hotmail); you no longer have to use My Messages.
2. The yellow Respond button: Larger sellers found this button slowed down their response speed. This button is being removed as it’s no longer needed.
3. Email address preferences: To ensure emails are from legitimate members, email addresses used to respond to customers must be added to your eBay account. You may want to set up a separate email address anyway so that customer emails don’t get lost in your inbox.
4. Email sorting: The subject header is changing. You can use the subject header to route emails based on pre and post transaction questions about a particular subject.
5. Limitations on emails: There are some limits on email size and attachments. Also, email addresses included within the message will automatically be stripped out.

Next year eBay will look at removing email addresses from listings as this can also lead to fraudsters tempting interested buyers to transact outside the eBay site. We haven’t made this change yet as we know many of you are busy ramping up for Christmas.

Learn more about these changes