Uhhh, anyone else no longer see the DM panel on the left?
Summary: Participants reported that the direct messaging feature disappeared, speculating it was due to efforts to eliminate scam messages. eburtonlab confirmed messaging was temporarily disabled due to phishing attempts, and it was mentioned that an official announcement was underway. Several shared concerns about scammers, while others questioned previous navigation options. Some expressed skepticism about how long 'temporary' might last, and later, it was noted that the feature had been restored.
I've refreshed, logged out and back in, but it's just GONE. Just me?
44 comments
eastlaneave
·4 days agoGood News! It's back
gurlcat
OP4 days agoHOLY SH YOU'RE RIGHT, WOO-HOOOO!!!
dhbookds
·4 days agoYep, and I've still got the phishing messages........tho the link is "dead" according to firefox........ you do now get the warning you are leaving ebay......
kibble-net
·1 week agoStaff have posted that they disabled DMs due to phishing attempts.
adamcartwright
·1 week agoCONGRATS! 🥳
gurlcat
OP1 week ago · EditedCongrats? For ....????
EDIT: OH!!! Do you mean for the Genie auction? LOL thanks. Chinese buyer too, exactly what I hoped for, WOO-HOOOO!!
adamcartwright
·1 week agoOh, that's even better. Whew!
gone.c-33
·1 week agoI’m mostly on iOS/Safari where we never had it.
This board UX is a mess lol
grann-4629
·1 week agoI am also using Safari on an iPad, and before they pulled the DM menu, I had 5 scammers on the list. Mods said I was shaming members when I posted it, and 'archived' my thread.
gurlcat
OP1 week agoWait I'm confused -did you actually NAME the members?
grann-4629
·1 week agoI posted a pic of my DM menu that showed the id's. Prior to that, I posted the 'id' of the first one I got. I knew it was a scam, and that post was changed and heavily edited by the mods.
mam98031
·1 week agoStay Protected from Phishing Attempts
Summary: seller_news_team announces the temporary disabling of private messaging on the eBay community platform due to an increase in phishing attempts targeting users. The message provides guidance on how to stay secure, such as verifying links, avoiding sharing sensitive information, and contacting the eBay Community team if in doubt. Members are advised to report suspicious emails claiming to be from eBay to a designated email address. Additional resources on phishing and security are available on their help page.
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We're seeing an increase in Direct Messages with phishing attempts targeting users on community.ebay.com. Due to this, we have temporarily disabled private messaging on Community to protect our members. Some of these DMs are very difficult to identify as phishing attempts.
To continue to keep your account and information secure:
Verify links before clicking them.
Do not enter any sensitive or confidential information on external websites.
Always inspect the web address for any page asking you to input personal or sensitive information.
Do not grant anyone access to your eBay account.
When in doubt, please contact the eBay Community team directly to confirm the legitimacy of a request.
If you'd like to report a suspicious email claiming to be from eBay, you can forward it as an attachment to: spoof@ebay.com.
For more information about phishing and what to do if you receive a suspicious or unexpected email, please visit our Recognizing Phishing Emails and Phone Calls help page.
Thank you for helping keep your account secure.
Your eBay Team
bennotbill
·1 week ago"temporarily disabled"
With no timescale given would that "temporarily" be permanent?
mam98031
·1 week agoSometimes a timeframe is not available until after they dive into the problem and review what it will take to fix it. I'm very glad Ebay has taken this step as many members may have been financially harmed if they were to thing those Scam emails were real. For the rest of us, while inconvenient, we remain unharmed.
inhawaii
·1 week agoI know you like sending me those daily affirmations but you're just going to have to hold off for a while. 😉
mam98031
·1 week agoThey will be back. They are likely trying to resolve the issue of all these spam emails that were coming through the DM. IMHO it would be a good choice to close them for now while they resolve the issue so that no members get hurt.
eburtonlab
·1 week agoIt seems that eBay has temporarily suspended direct messages through the community to deal with the rash of "verification" scammers. There should be a public post about this shortly.
gurlcat
OP1 week agoBy "should" do you mean you happen to be in-the-know about it, or in your opinion (in which case I agree, and better yet there should have been a public post made simultaneously).
eburtonlab
·1 week agoThere was just a quick "heads up" post about it in a non-public mentor forum (so no link) indicating that a public announcement was being drafted.
dhbookds
·1 week agobe interesting to see WHERE they put it........will we have to search each thread?
eburtonlab
·1 week agoIf I spot it I will provide a link.
dhbookds
·1 week agoAh.......we got a pinned post.......good thing.....
dhbookds
·1 week agoshould be............forgive me.........wanna bet?
gurlcat
OP1 week agoThe only reason I would put even $1 on that dog is because eburtonlab said it .... but yeah there's no track record here of feature changes coming with announcements at all.
eburtonlab
·1 week agoI think it is less of a "feature change" and more of a "quick, pull the plug before something else catches fire" situation.
dhbookds
·1 week agokind of wonder why they didn't do it yesterday.......
gurlcat
OP1 week agoIt appears they maybe did do something(?) 2 days ago, like maybe remove it from the app version? -Grann posted about it then
https://community.ebay.com/forum/ask-a-mentor-57913/topic/missing-direct-message-menu-478074/
grann-4629
·1 week agoThe mod that removed my info on this a few days ago said I was not allowed to name/shame members ... they thought the scammers were real members before more complaints from other members started showing up. I guess they didn't believe me when I told the mod it wasn't a 'someone' I was shaming, but a no -one scammer ... it was so obviously a scam to even a lowly buyer like me.
grann-4629
·1 week agoReceived 2 more notifications about DM's sent to me ... both scammers. Could not open either one as Direct Messaging is gone ... I am very thankful for that. Hopefully the fix won't take too long.
gurlcat
OP1 week agohow do you know they were scammers then?
grann-4629
·1 week agoBoth had similar names to others with dashs and underscores, both were new 'members' with zero feedback, so a fairly safe assumption.
gurlcat
OP1 week agoHey @grann-4629 I saw that you posted about this in the Mentor forum 2 days ago, and it was "answered" (and locked) but I got the sense your question was misunderstood.
Did you ever get DM back between then and now?
grann-4629
·1 week ago · EditedNo, and the three lines thing at top right where there was long drop down menu to find DM's is also gone from my screen. It may be gone due to the high number of scammers showing up.
gurlcat
OP1 week agoHmm, I saw that you mentioned something about a 3 lines thing, but I've never seen that. This is what the top-right corner of my screen looks like:
grann-4629
·1 week agoIt was like 3 blue bars at the top left corner ... when you clicked on it, a long drop down menu appeared with lots of choices.
I hope someone can verify this ... maybe too many rums last night ...
gurlcat
OP1 week agoI think so, because in the previous reply you said top RIGHT, now you say top left.
grann-4629
·1 week agoFirst one was wrong ... sorry. I used to navigate in off road rallies and always wondered why we kept ending up in the river.
gurlcat
OP1 week agoWell for what it's worth, there's no '3 blue lines' in the upper left corner either. Maybe you dreamed it??
darn_yankee
·1 week agoDitto. Gone.
christworks
·1 week agoIt's gone from mine, too. Hopefully that means they are working on getting rid of the scam messages and the ability for someone to send such messages.
bennotbill
·1 week agoMaybe that's their fix?
I hope not.
gurlcat
OP1 week agoYou beat me to it, that's exactly what I was going to say.
christworks
·1 week ago@bennotbill @gurlcat I do not think permanently removing the messaging feature is necessarily their solution. I could see them temporarily disabling it while they investigate the apparent vulnerability, update the system, and test it to ensure it cannot be exploited again. Disabling the feature gives them time to determine exactly what happened and what safeguards are needed before restoring it.
nyr134
·1 week agoGone - was there an hour ago but not now,