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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

This happened to me before, but this is my first time making it public.

I called about it before and was told ebay does NOT give the email address to the sellers.

I would beg to differ, which you'll see why below...

 

I did a search for "ebay seller has my email address" from a search engine and saw a bunch of links to these forums about the issue, but they were dated back to like 2014-15, but also 2018.

 

Early threads mention that buyers and sellers were able to see each other's information back then (https://community.ebay.com/t5/Archive-Bidding-Buying/How-did-seller-get-my-email-address-after-I-bid...).

But that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Rather all digital comms go through ebay's messaging system.

 

I saw the section "Completing a purchase outside of eBay" under https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/resolving-issues-sellers/contacting-seller?id=4021

But that's really not applicable since I already made my purchase through ebay and now they are sent me an email directly (not through ebay).

I'm also thinking https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/payment-policies/offers-buy-sell-outside-ebay-policy?id=4272 isn't applicable either.

Links in the email relate to "diymore <dot> cc" and "soundestlink <dot> com" (just to expose them).

There is ZERO chance I'm going to actually click on any of those links, even the unsubscribe one.

 

Here's the kicker though, I tailor my email addresses (yes, plural) for this very reason, to isolate the leakers.

In other words, it was my address used solely for ebay and not paypal, so it's not like they got the address from somewhere else.

That is the basis I'm going by with saying EBay exposes user's email addresses.

Message 1 of 15
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14 REPLIES 14

EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

@nrye1,

 

Have you considered that maybe the seller uses a service that can look up info based on the name and address YOU give them on your shipping info?  So much of our information is shared and stored online that it should not be a surprise that some sellers sell it to marketing companies and it is bought by other retailers. Neither ebay or paypal sells or shares our email addresses, but if you use the same address and email when buying from other sites it can be recorded and sold.

"THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FOOLPROOF, BECAUSE FOOLS ARE SO DARNED INGENIOUS!" (unknown)
Message 2 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

It's interesting that you use one email address for eBay and a different one for PayPal.  I wonder if eBay provides it to PayPal during checkout.  When a buyer pays through PayPal, the email address of the buyer is provided to the seller.  It's in the emails, "Notification of payment received"  and "Instant payment received from..." that PayPal sends to the seller.  

 

I'm sorry if a seller is sending you spam.  This happens to me with every non-eBay, non-PayPal transaction.  I don't sign up for mailing lists, but start receiving lots of emails after buying something online.  Since you have a separate email address for your eBay transactions, at least they're not cluttering up your personal and business emails.  

 

In any case, I don't think eBay would deliberately provide your email address to buyers.  They want to make sure that there are no off-eBay transactions that could cut into their profits.  In the olden days, the email addresses of every bidder were available to everyone, and eBay put a stop to that when they realized what it could lead to.  In addition to off-eBay sales, there were other types of contact.  Back then, if you lost out on an auction, other sellers could email you to tell you about their similar item.  In addition, any eBay member could email you to warn you away from a particular item or seller, and who knew what their real motives were?  (Just an interesting bit of eBay history.)  

 

I would contact the sellers and ask them to remove your email address from their mailing lists.  

Message 3 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

ebay has always said that the buyers email addresses are avaialble.I can look at any buyers email for at least a few weeks in the page that pops up when you click on the order number.buyers emails addresses used to be visible on the auction page but that was a while ago.ebay has never said they were hidden,all of the buyers info is in that box.I think most people over look it most of the time.I have no real use for it most of the time.


Germantown proud Germantown strong
up the whiskey hickon
moving right along
19144
Message 4 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

I forgot to add that the buyers phone number is in there,if you go to seller hub,click on orders and look at the list you will see order numbers,that is the number you click on to get all the buyer info


Germantown proud Germantown strong
up the whiskey hickon
moving right along
19144
Message 5 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

1tuna is correct.  Thank you for that information.  The buyer's email is in the Order Details.  Please note, OP, that it is available to the seller only after the listing has ended with a sale.  

Message 6 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

The buyer's email address, and phone number, is displayed when you go to ORDERS > PAID & SHIPPED > VIEW RECORD

 

I went to an older shipped item, clicked on VIEW RECORD, and did not see the email address, so when I clicked on it, ebay gave me this message: Email addresses are displayed for 14 days after date sold.

 

 

disneyshopper
Volunteer Community Member

Message 7 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

 just now had the same sort of thing happen. I got a strange email outside of ebay, written in a different language, and naming me as my ebay account name, which I do not use on any other website

 

I pasted the message content into bing translate, turns out it's in hungarian, and was a notice that I am now enrolled on a website I have never been to:

 

"

Lampersky – Üdvözlünk!

Kedves tahuyahick!

Köszönjük, hogy regisztráltál a Lampersky oldalon! A felhasználóneved: tahuyahick. A fiók oldalon megtekintheted a rendeléseidet, megváltoztathatod a jelszavad és más információkat is láthatsz: ********lampersky.com/fiokom/

Az automatikusan létrehozott jelszó: $A&)4o6VlZ7K

Örömmel várjuk következő látogatásodat."

 

(link edited to not be some 'invalid html'...)

 

Here's the kicker, only a few hours ago I had purchased a camera lens from a seller located in Budapest, Hungary

 

My ebay message folder has nothing from this seller, they clearly obtained my email from the transaction and took advantage of that in order to enroll me onto their own website without my knowledge or permission

 

This reminds me of a related issue, where items I was receiving from overseas had my personal cellphone number printed onto the shipping label on the outside of the package. I couldn't get any decent answer about that from official staff here, I had to resort to using google in order to find a hack that involves editing my account info to have the number removed. The text box did not have a way to simply delete the number, I had to 'update' the number by entering 11 zeros. Weirdly enough, it now does not show any zeros, just an empty line

 

I really wish ebay would stop chasing every last nickel & dime and actually try to care about their users, but I'm afraid there's already been too much money made and now the entire show is run by greed & self-interest

Message 8 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

OP stated, using an ebay specific email, never used on any other website. Otherwise, you would be correct
Message 9 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

Back in the early days, sellers were logging into ebay with multiple accounts and bidding on their own items in order to drive up the prices
Message 10 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

eBay has always given buyers' email addresses to sellers.  They also have a rule that the seller is not allowed to do what your seller did.  But sellers don't always follow rules,  the same applies to buyers.  I'm sorry you got caught up in such bad behavior. 

----------------------------
Successful and experienced seller since 1997, over 70,000 feedback, boardie since the boards were begun.
Message 11 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

I am on many mailing lists now from sellers I have bought from in the past....the emails are coming from their stand alone websites, savvy advertising !!! And it works as I now shop directly from a couple of them

 

Not sure though if they grab my addy from ebay or paypal though

Message 12 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

Whenever I would bid on a car from a "dealer" rather than a private seller, 

 

I would get baraged with phone calls. 

 

When I bid on a car from a "dealer" that listed himself as a "private seller", 

 

I would get baraged with phone calls. 

 

I had a seller offer me one thing on the ebay forum and another thing on my private email. 

 

From that point forward, all ebay related emails sent to my personal email go into the junk mail file. 

 

If it doesn't go through ebay communications, I don't see it and can't respond to it. 

 

Good luck. 

 

Message 13 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

And now I see another spam email hocking their covid-19 N95 surgical masks, linking to spread5engine1 <dot> com (tracker I assume) and oowlife <dot> com.
This is **4 months** after I've made ANY ebay purchase! And as you might expect, EBay is going to be mum on this kind of trash. Not their fault, right?
Message 14 of 15
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EBay Exposes Buyer EMail Address To Sellers.

So they do supply it... just today I found a report for orders that they supply that includes a lot of customer information. I'm still figuring out why this information is supplied and whether it is usable.

Message 15 of 15
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