Seller spamming = breach of policies? Apparently not.

[bigjigsaw]

Is this a breach of eBay's policies?

1.  I purchase a product on eBay (suppose the seller's name is ABCXYZ).

2.  I receive an email message at my personal email address notifying me that the product has been posted.  The email message is from orders@ABCXYZ.com.

3.  I now receive spam from ABCXYZ.com.

Obviously, eBay user ABCXYZ and the website ABCXYZ.com are connected.  The latter sent me the postal details.

How could ABCXYZ.com have obtained my email address from the eBay transaction?  (Note: my eBay email address is different to my Paypal address - they're not using my Paypal address.)

Regardless, isn't it a violation of eBay's policies for an eBay seller to take my personal email address and use it in off-eBay *unsolicited* marketing??

I've raised this with eBay several times, but the artificial intelligence that replies just tells me to change my preferences to opt out of marketing emails from *eBay*.  That's not even what I described!!  It could only be a computer program responding to my messages - the responses make no sense at all.

Anyway, none of the "people" I've reported this to seem the slightest bit concerned.  Apparently it's quite acceptable practice.

[bigjigsaw]

Oh, BTW, the email address I have registered with eBay is unique to eBay - I have not used or disclosed it in any other context. The seller could not have obtained it except through eBay.

[imastawka · Accepted solution]

Yes it's against policy.

We don't allow our members to send each other spam. "Spam" is an email (or part of an email) that is both unsolicited and commercial in nature.

Unsolicited means the message was sent without the explicit request of the person who received it. Commercial means the message discusses buying, selling, or trading of goods or services.

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/policies/rfe-spam-ov.html

There is a link in that to report it

[bigjigsaw]

Thanks for confirming what I thought.  I have tried reporting it numerous times but not a single one of their artificial intelligence bots (or whatever it is that's responding to me) seems to understand the issue.  Evidently eBay is uninterested in enforcing its policies on this occasion.

Is it legitimate that the seller can obtain my email address though?

[englishrosegardens · Accepted solution]

When you buy something the seller gets an email to say their item sold.  That email contains the buyer's details, including their ebay email address.  Some ebay sellers ignore the rules and add your email address to their newsletter subscription list.  I've had the same problem and ebay couldn't care less.  I blocked their emails through my email provider.

[bigjigsaw]

Thanks, I'm having a similar experience.  I won't waste any more effort dealing with the support bots. Based on my experience trying to report this, it seems eBay doesn't bother enforcing this particular policy.

One of their 'helpful' suggestions was to click on the spammer's unsubscribe link.  Clicking on unsubscribe links in unsolicted spam is the surest way to ensure you get more spam!

In this particular case, it was easy to connect the ebay seller to the spammer.  It's clear they're the same entity.  However, there's nothing to stop the ebay seller from collecting email addresses and selling them on to unrelated spammers.  One would have no way of knowing how a porn spammer (for example) obtained your email address.

It's disappointing to learn that sellers have access to your email address - I wasn't aware of that.

[lyndal1838]

Only report through the links provided by ebay....emailing does no good at all.

As you have already found out, emails are replied to automatically and those replies usually bear no resemblance to your original email.

Why wouldn't sellers have access to your email address?

[englishrosegardens]

They can get your paypal email address by looking at the transaction, so having your other email address is no different if they decide to spam you.

[phorum_junkie*]

What you need to do is tick the link to unsubscribe, there should be one at the bottom of the email, or if there isn't send them one message telling them to stop contacting you. If you reveive further spam after that report it to their email provider as spam and then mark it as spam in your inbox.

[no_clues]

Four years later and this still happens.

I'm in the same situation as bigjigsaw and don't trust the unsubscribe link in the email.

The ebay support system is failing abysmally, so how do we provide them feedback?