Recover very old account. Login was not an email address

[daer-5841]

Hello,

I was a seller on eBay many years ago - maybe 20 - before eBay required email addresses as user names. So my username is just an 8-character word. Now it doesn't allow me to enter a non-email username. Also, I no longer have access to the email address I was using.

I'd like my account back - for credibility sake if nothing else.

Any suggestions on how to get my account back? Thanks.

[eburtonlab · Accepted solution]

eBay never required email addresses as usernames, though it was allowed at one time.

eBay no longer allows usernames that are email addresses; non-email address usernames are fine (as long as the username is not already taken).

If you have not signed in to your eBay account in many years, the account has likely been deleted by eBay to prevent the account from being hijacked and used for scamming.

Several years ago, hackers were able to obtain access to a list of encrypted passwords for eBay user accounts. eBay responded by requiring all current accounts to change passwords. If users did not update passwords, the account was deleted.

[daer-5841]

Thanks. That makes sense. I'm getting the message "Oops, that's not a match." when I try to login with my old username. I assumed it meant that it needed to be an email address, but - based on your comment - I'm not guessing they just couldn't find the username - likely because it was deleted.

Thanks,

-Dave

[eburtonlab]

If you still have access to the old email address, you might try resetting your password.

It is possible to sign in to an eBay account with the email address used to register the account in place of the username.

One way to tell if an account is gone is to try to create a new account using the same email address; if eBay allows you to create a new account, then the old account no longer is registered, I think.