Ebay sharing email and personal data when you just bid on something now?

[Jwalling]

This is a bit disturbing.

I bid on this: https://www.ebay.com/itm/401882286743?

And within 30 seconds (obviously automated) I got an email from jt@bidadoo.com to my *real* email address from the seller and they address me by my first name!
WTF is this?

Hi Jay,
Thank you for your recent bidadoo bid! We appreciate your interest and want you to know we're here to answer all of your questions so you can make an informed purchase. If you have any questions during this auction please don't hesitate to call us at 206.442.9000 or 1.877.bidadoo.
Remember, for freight quotes and logistical support simply click the Freight Estimate or Calculate Shipping button. For all other questions click the "ask a question" or "contact the seller" link within eBay - we'll have a response to you the same business day.
As always, we currently have a great selection of quality equipment on auction ending weekly at bidadoo.com/auctions.

[Stray Electron]

   That seems fishy to me. For YEARS, Ebay has tried to hide the bidders and sellers E-mail addresses, phone numbers, and names from each other so that they can't make a deal outside of E-bay.

  I would suggest sending an E-mail to the seller , VIA E-AY, and asking them if they sent you the message and if that is their E-mail address and how they got your E-mail address. Be polite and explain that you just want to know if the message that you got was legit.

  OTOH did you bid via a proxy bid system?  Maybe the E-mail came from them or maybe their system has been hacked.

  Other possibility, Have you bought from that seller before? Maybe that's how they know your name and E-mail address.

[klunkerbus]

Seems to me that it could be a canned message automatically sent by eBay for the seller. 

EDIT: Do you see a message in your eBay account that has the same context?

[edpalmer42]

Check the email headers.  You should be able to figure out whether the email came direct from bidadoo or via ebay.

Bidadoo appears to be a big outfit based on their ratings and many sales of > $10K each, even a few > $100K, so it's unlikely that this particular seller is working a scam.  But I wouldn't like to think that ebay is quite that free with my data.

Ed

[Ismsanmar]

   That seems fishy to me. For YEARS, Ebay has tried to hide the bidders and sellers E-mail addresses, phone numbers, and names from each other so that they can't make a deal outside of E-bay.

That's not quite right. Until the entry of the GDPR you could request that eBay sent you the registration data of a user with whom you had recently made a transaction, even before you made the payment. Those data included the full name and telephone number, but not the email. Now that option is gone.


Maybe it's a new feature for PowerSellers?.

[StillTrying]

Did you bid $500.00

[TheSteve]

I am sure it is a feature power sellers get and is sent via ebay automagically - or maybe they have even more features then a power seller.
Seems odd Boeing sold a 3458a though if it was working 100% - is this how they are paying for the 737 rework?

[wraper]

I am sure it is a feature power sellers get and is sent via ebay automagically - or maybe they have even more features then a power seller.
Seems odd Boeing sold a 3458a though if it was working 100% - is this how they are paying for the 737 rework?

Doubt that. Now even seller/buyer email address is hidden on paypal transactions made on ebay. And before purchase it was never available. On top of that in TOS ebay strictly forbids exchanging contact information. Even if ebay gives such contact information, not to some usual power sellers.

[sleemanj]

Maybe you bought from them or some other seller who is under the same umbrella in the past and so they have your details from that sale on file.

[coromonadalix]

Annnd the price has gone up  loll

[Stray Electron]

   That seems fishy to me. For YEARS, Ebay has tried to hide the bidders and sellers E-mail addresses, phone numbers, and names from each other so that they can't make a deal outside of E-bay.

That's not quite right. Until the entry of the GDPR you could request that eBay sent you the registration data of a user with whom you had recently made a transaction, even before you made the payment. Those data included the full name and telephone number, but not the email. Now that option is gone.


Maybe it's a new feature for PowerSellers?.

    I don't know what GDPR is but Ebay hasn't sent user information for YEARS.  Very early on, they sent it to each party at the end of the auction but they stopped that. Then for some years you could still request the information about the other party from E-bay but only if both of you had completed an auction. But they stopped that probably close to 10 years ago and since then they do their best to prevent the buyer and seller from exchanging E-mail addresses and the like. Their message system is monitored and if you send anything that even remotely looks like an E-mail address, Ebay will reject the message and return it to the sender with a nasty-gram.

[Stray Electron]

Annnd the price has gone up  loll

   It was bound to!  The last one that I saw on E-bay sold for $2750 and it didn't even turn on. That was on Sept 5th.

   Things like this don't sneak by on E-bay.  There's too many people looking for them.

[Peabody]

This happened to me recently too.  I put an item on my watch list, and a bit later got an email from the seller offering some kind of extra discount on the item.  I called Ebay to ask why I was getting spam from the seller, and the lady said it was a setting in the seller's listing.  I asked if there was a setting I could make to turn off such spam, and was told there was not.  As far as I'm concerned, this is a new buyer-hostile practice, and I'm really disappointed in Ebay.  To be fair, I'm not sure the seller actually knows my email address.  But spam is spam.

[Zucca]

This is a bit disturbing.

Yes! Since you had nothing to sell next time better to post in "General Chat". 

[Jwalling]

1. Did not bid through a proxy bid system.
2. Never bought from them before. (I keep all my records)
3. There's no references to Ebay or it's servers in the full headers of the message.
 

Received from dovdir2-asa-05o.email.comcast.net ([96.114.154.150]) by dovback2-asa-01o.email.comcast.net with LMTP id 0OKPK0Oyel0SYwAA6hDPbQ (envelope-from <jt=bidadoo.com__rk296t43pkocbbt3.q6k9hlmpiiywr1j9@9mbr44rtxaqnty6d.v5qs.3-gebeau.na32.bnc.salesforce.com>) for <MY EMAIL ADDRESS@comcast.net>; Thu, 12 Sep 2019 21:01:55 +0000

from [10.246.206.218] ([10.246.206.218:40096] helo=na32-app2-10-phx.ops.sfdc.net) by mx1-phx-sp1.mta.salesforce.com (envelope-from <jt=bidadoo.com__rk296t43pkocbbt3.q6k9hlmpiiywr1j9@9mbr44rtxaqnty6d.v5qs.3-gebeau.na32.bnc.salesforce.com>) (ecelerity 4.2.38.62368 r(Core:release/4.2.38.0)) with ESMTPS (cipher=ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 subject="/C=US/ST=California/L=San Francisco/O=salesforce.com, inc./OU=0:app;1:phx;2:phx-sp1;3:na32;4:prod/CN=na32-app2-10-phx.ops.sfdc.net")  id 57/0A-18991-532BA7D5; Thu, 12 Sep 2019 21:01:41 +0000

4. No messages from them in Ebay's message center.
5. Yes, I bid $500.

There's lots of stuff for a few bucks, maybe someone else can throw a bid in and see what happens?
https://www.ebay.com/sch/bidadoo_business/m.html?item=401882286743&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562
 

[wraper]

They were allowed to publish their contact data in their ebay store:
http://www.ebaystores.com/bidadooinc/faq.html
http://www.ebaystores.com/bidadooinc/contact.html
So they should have some individual deal with ebay. Because normally it's strictly forbidden.

Phone: 1-877-bidadoo or 206-442-9000
Fax: 206-442-9020
Email: auctionservices@bidadoo.com
Web: http://www.bidadoo.com

[Stray Electron]

This happened to me recently too.  I put an item on my watch list, and a bit later got an email from the seller offering some kind of extra discount on the item.  I called Ebay to ask why I was getting spam from the seller, and the lady said it was a setting in the seller's listing.  I asked if there was a setting I could make to turn off such spam, and was told there was not.  As far as I'm concerned, this is a new buyer-hostile practice, and I'm really disappointed in Ebay.  To be fair, I'm not sure the seller actually knows my email address.  But spam is spam.

   That seems to be one of E-bay's new "Features".  I looked at two items this week and saved them in my watch list and a short while later I got an offer of a Buy It Now for about 20% off of their listed BIN prices.  I don't think these came from the seller and I doubt that the seller has my E-mail address, these seem to be a sales gimmick generated by E-bay.

[Illusionist]

They were allowed to publish their contact data in their ebay store:

I think business sellers are required to do so. If you look at any (I just checked a few) you can see their full business and contact details. Personal sellers, on the other hand, are forbidden from doing so.

[StillTrying]

5. Yes, I bid $500.

I only knew because it was the only bid there at first.

I don't know what this bit means:

Item description:Item Title:Agilent 3458A Digital Multimeter DMM 8.5 Digit Calibration Test Measure bidadoo

Bid activity (%) with this seller: 4% = "This shows the percentage of all bids from this bidder that went to this specific seller."

edit: I think the 4% must be = 1 of 25 of your total number of bids, or something.

I used to to get email offers on things I'd browsed while logged in to ebay, and on things I'd already bought, but I turned the spam off, I just get the order confirmations now.

[edavid]

Note about this seller:  If you open an eBay case against them, or if you leave negative feedback, they will ban you

[Stray Electron]

Note about this seller:  If you open an eBay case against them, or if you leave negative feedback, they will ban you

    I don't suppose that you want to tell use how you KNOW that? 

      They might "ban" you from bidding on their auctions but they can't ban you from E-bay.  And actually I don't think that they or anyone else can stop you from bidding on their items but they can cancel your bid.  At least that's how E-bay used to work.

   If I had to open a case against a bidder, I doubt that I'd be bidding on any more of their auctions so them "banning" me wouldn't be a lose as far as I'm concerned.

[Brumby]

And actually I don't think that they or anyone else can stop you from bidding on their items but they can cancel your bid.  At least that's how E-bay used to work.

EBay allows Sellers to set up a "blocked bidders list" - and have done for years.
If a Buyer on such a list tries to bid or buy, they get a message telling them that the Seller has blocked them.

The crazy thing is that this list is based on the ID of the account - not the account itself. If you simply change the ID of your account, you can bid and buy to your heart's content. (You can see what IDs an eBayer has used by going to their full feedback page and clicking on the "View ID history" link at the right near the top.)

[edavid]

Note about this seller:  If you open an eBay case against them, or if you leave negative feedback, they will ban you

I don't suppose that you want to tell use how you KNOW that? 

Experience 

And actually I don't think that they or anyone else can stop you from bidding on their items but they can cancel your bid.

As Brumby has pointed out, you are wrong about this.

   If I had to open a case against a bidder, I doubt that I'd be bidding on any more of their auctions so them "banning" me wouldn't be a lose as far as I'm concerned.

An overseas friend asked me to bid on some of their items.  (I didn't know about the changing the user ID trick - thanks for the tip.)

[Seekonk]

I can't be sure, but I got a direct offer from a manufacturer.  That item was on a watch list on my ebay.  I had only put it in my watch list and never bid. There are spies everywhere, but ebay has gotten strange lately.  Search is about useless with them pushing items that don't even match my search criteria. If I search for items less than $100 there will always be several $1500 items included.

[StasMa]

always happens