Should I be worried? Asked to reply via email

[rickuk_xtqitw]

Hi. I was intending to buy something on ebay through local pickup. However the seller had asked to reply to him via email and gave me his address broken up.

Throughout the period of a couple of days, we talked and I attempted to organise a time to come pick it up which he had simply has not responded at all whether via email or ebay and I cannot get via ebay "Sorry, this seller cant answer your question........"

Might be important to note that the listing had ended before we organised and negotiated the transaction.

Should I be concerned? What was the point of this?

[daydreams_12]

You say the listing had ended, had you bought/won item or had it just finished its listing time.  If the latter, Ebay are paranoid about personal  details being passed from person to person as they fear people will trade off ebay and they will miss out on their fees.

If the two of you are just in negotiation they will not allow details to be passed on.  It sort of sounds as if that is what you may have been doing. 

If the seller has other listings, try and reach them though one of them.  If you had talked, was it on phone or through messages.  Many people have had their accounts suspended for a couple of days for trying to pass on info and that may well have happened to this buyer.  There has been mention that if you write details on a piece of paper and take a photo to send seller that might work.  Remember of cause that if the listing has finished it would need to be relisted for you to buy it within the rules.

[digital*ghost]

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@rickuk_xtqitw wrote:


Throughout the period of a couple of days, we talked and I attempted to organise a time to come pick it up which he had simply has not responded at all whether via email or ebay and I cannot get via ebay "Sorry, this seller cant answer your question........"

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It's hard to guess based on this info, but it's possible the seller was suspended for providing you with their email address, which may explain the reason why you can't contact them via eBay at the moment, perhaps they also don't want to risk any further consequences by continuing communication. If you haven't given them any money, there's not much cause to be worried in terms of transaction safety, at least. 

eBay are taking a ridiculously hard line on this at the moment, as they are paranoid about transactions taking place off-eBay - they're monitoring messages, and issuing warnings / suspensions for what used to be perfectly innocent exchanges of information to enable communication and a sale.

Pick-up items are particularly susceptible to this, as many people will want to ask questions, inspect before purchasing, or provide contact info etc in messages - most are ok if a purchase has been made first, but otherwise both buyers and sellers need to be very careful about what they say in messages (buyers are getting warnings / suspensions as well).