EBay gives buyers phone numbers to the sellers ? WTF..

[sarettah]

Ok, heres the story, it is from a private board so I can't reference the url here but...

Buyer makes her bid wins the auction.

Sends seller an email asking a question, seller does not reply.
Buyer sends another email and another and another, etc. No reply.

Finally, to get his attention, buyer makes a "neutral" feedback comment on the seller.

Next thing she knows, seller is on the phone bitching her out about the comment and wants her to take it down etc. When she asks the seller how he got her phone number he says he asked EBay and they gave it to him.

Now, I would have thought that he actually got it by doing some backtracking but further on in the thread another seller comes in ands says that she has often had to get a buyers phone number from Ebay when spam blockers and such are stopping the emails from going through.

Does anyone know if this is a standard policy with EBay ?? Cause if it is it sounds like a bad one. Sounds to me like if a buyer gave a seller negative feedback or such then Ebay is giving the seller the tools to harass the buyer.

:hmm:

[voodooman]

Bad policy if you ask me. I cannot verify if Ebay does give out phone numbers, but I would think that they wouldnt.

Maybe the guy did do some investigating and just used Ebay as a scapegoat.

[sarettah]

Bad policy if you ask me. I cannot verify if Ebay does give out phone numbers, but I would think that they wouldnt.

Maybe the guy did do some investigating and just used Ebay as a scapegoat.


I went and looked at Ebays privacy policy and it looks like they feel free to give the phone number out. It pretty much states that the seller has access to the buyers contact information which makes some sense. I mean the seller is going to have to have the address to ship to and such.

But it is something that could be misused pretty fucking easy.

[Peaches]

I don't think I gave my number when I opened my Ebay account. If I did, I gave them a fake one ;)

[voodooman]

I went and looked at Ebays privacy policy and it looks like they feel free to give the phone number out. It pretty much states that the seller has access to the buyers contact information which makes some sense. I mean the seller is going to have to have the address to ship to and such.

But it is something that could be misused pretty fucking easy.

I could understand if someone bought something and didnt pay for it, actually, that still would not be grounds to give some stranger a phone number, but it would make more sense than if I called up Ebay and asked for someones phone number because someone gave me a bad rating, and them giving the number to me.
I think as big as Ebay is, they should have an in house mediation service to deal with these matters.

[graphicsbytia]

They do give the numbers out to the buyers and sellers, I've been in contact with several people who I've either bought from or sold to, and I agree, it's a risky business, but I haven't had any trouble .... yet

[TheEnforcer]

Wow.. that's kinds surprising.

[sarettah]

They do give the numbers out to the buyers and sellers, I've been in contact with several people who I've either bought from or sold to, and I agree, it's a risky business, but I haven't had any trouble .... yet


With the "yet" being a key piece in there imho.

I think it is quite a risky proposition especially with the number of scammers on Ebay getiing higher and higher. :blink:

[MorganGrayson]

I could understand if someone bought something and didnt pay for it, actually, that still would not be grounds to give some stranger a phone number, but it would make more sense than if I called up Ebay and asked for someones phone number because someone gave me a bad rating, and them giving the number to me.
I think as big as Ebay is, they should have an in house mediation service to deal with these matters.

I'm not positive, but I do believe that eBay has an in house mediation service. The feedback rating is very serious to a seller.

eBay also has it's own "inbox" type thing to contact sellers and for sellers to contact buyers. It's useful...if you remember to check it.

[graphicsbytia]

I'm not positive, but I do believe that eBay has an in house mediation service. The feedback rating is very serious to a seller.

eBay also has it's own "inbox" type thing to contact sellers and for sellers to contact buyers. It's useful...if you remember to check it.

yes they do, but the first step in that mediation process is to give the respective users each others contact information, I've never had to go beyond that, my next step is always to paypal to try to recover funds