Jedi Chestnut makes big impact on the Dark Side!

Today Rob Chestnut who runs eBay's Trust and Safety (TnS) group, announced that  eBay is going to start hiding the specific eBay user IDs of bidders.  This solves a huge problem on eBay where the bad guys have built databases of ebay user-IDs and emails and then when bidders bid on high-end items, they send them a slew of emails (usually fake second chance offers).

I've heard stories of bidders receiving 5-10 of these for a single bid.  The relentless spam you receive as a buyer on eBay has to stop and this is a critical first step.  Great job Rob!!!

One of the potential downsides of this change is it will make shill bidding harder for potential buyers to detect.  I don't worry about this because eBay has stallar detection technology on shill bidding.  The driving off of buyers from phishing and other scammers is a much larger problem.

Ok Rob, now next on the list:
1. Implement a system for top-sellers to stop account takeovers (key fob or challenge word are good)
2. Require more stringent (paypal-esque) registration requirements for sellers.  This way when they get booted, you can keep them off by matching their information.
3. Then there are some things in the feedback system that could use some tweaking to protect large sellers from bad-guy buyers.

Comments

[Kathleen]

Several years ago, eBay, for "security" reasons instructed me to remove my name from my ID. I did. Without much thought, I then used my town and state to replace it. Imagine my horror to discover that eBay, without my knowledge or consent, added MY NAME in my ID history. So now there, for all to see is my name and address. I've spoken with MANY customer service agents asking to remove my name as a SECURITY issue. They said it is against the eBay policy...even though eBay added my name. I've written two letters to the legal department. No response.
If this isn't a crime waiting to happen..when I advertise expensive items in my small town.............GOOD GRIEF!!!!!!!

[Blocking bidder]

Sellers will be able to see all of the under-bidders and nothing will look different. The only change is on the bidder/potential bidder side, they are the ones that will not be able to see the info.

[Jerry]

If they are going to do that, then as a seller I have no way to screen bidders and weed out the obvious problem buyers before the auction ends. I regularly review the bidders profiles during any big-ticket auction I run, and cancel and block the bids of anyone who looks like they might be trouble. One thing I also check is the feedback they leave for others- you don't know the whole story about a bidder until you check that.

[Todd]

RE: keyfob or challenge word to stop account takeovers

I saw a recent link where you can use a key fob to access your Paypal account (just like Etrade uses) and it said that you can link your ebay account to it. However if you have to use the fob on ebay how can 3rd parties (ie, channeladvisor) access your account through the API if the password is constantly updating?

[Chuck]

I see both positives and negatives in this enhancement. But I do commend them for doing something.

Now if they would only put a "report" button or link in the MyMessages so we can easily report those Chinese eBayers who are spamming us with the MyMessages system. In the email from eBay it actually says this:

Is this message an offer to buy your item directly through email without winning the item on eBay? If so, please help make the eBay marketplace safer by reporting it to us. These "outside of eBay" transactions may be unsafe and are against eBay policy. Learn more about trading safely.
-- http://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/selling_safely.html

Is this email inappropriate? Does it violate eBay policy? Help protect the Community by reporting it.

But it doesn't give you an easy way to report it like there is for a listing.

Seems like a pretty easy thing to implement.

Chuck

[dimesy]

Hiding bidder ID's to prevent phishing assumes that scammers are getting bidder data from the actual listings.

I don't think that's necessarily the case. When eBay's 'favorite search' email system was non-functional earlier this month, users who stopped receiving those alerts noticed they also stopped receiving eBay phishing email.

I think the scammers long ago figured out how to harvest user ID's/email addresses by tapping into the massive volume of email sent out by eBay.

If that's the case, hiding bidder ID's won't have the slightest affect on phishing as long as eBay continues to send out end of auction emails to participants.

It will, as you pointed out, have a negative affect on GMV if buyers refuse to counterbid due to shilling concerns.

Time will tell!