Find contact information

[rednikki871]

Hi,

Anyone know what Ebay's definition of "involved in a recent transaction" means?

I have an item listed and a bidder has used the Find Contact Information (under advanced search) to get full contact details including phone number.

They only transaction so far is that he has bid on a current item. The auction is not even complete.

Why dosen't ebay limit who can use this function to those sales that have been completed? or request permission of the seller first?

[thesoulyearns]

Anyone know what Ebay's definition of "involved in a recent transaction" means?

Direct quote from eBay.com.au:

"1. To better protect the privacy of eBay users, you can only request contact information for eBay users who are involved in your current or recent transactions. Examples are:

- Sellers can request the contact information for all bidders in an active transaction and the winning bidder in a successful, closed transaction.

- Bidders can request the contact information for a seller during an active transaction and in a successful, closed transaction if they are the winning bidder."

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I agree that eBay should require some form of permission from the seller first.

[koalablue12]

yes

[putney32]

Why dosen't ebay limit who can use this function to those sales that have been completed? or request permission of the seller first?

eBay has the permission of the Seller, the Seller agreed to the eBay terms and conditions when they signed up, that is all the permission eBay need.

[rednikki871]

My point is that it seems that by using the Find contact information  feature any ebay user can find the contact details of any other user just by typing in the seller id and the code of an item they've listed for sale.

[lyndal1838]

Only if they have bid on the item.

It is grounds for a bid retraction if a bidder cannot contact the seller.

[rednikki871]

Surely there must be some requirement for the bidder to prove that they have tried to contact the seller through the normal Contact seller feature before being given these contact details.

Potentailly every bidder could just bypass emails, obtain the seller's phone number and contact them for queries.

[phorum_junkie*]

When you join ebay you tick a box saying you agree to abide by their policies.

One of their policies is that you must provide a valid phone number and email address and that you agree that ebay can pass on that information to any member who has made a bid on your item and give thier details to you.

If you are not happy to allow this then you should not have agreed to the terms and created the account.

[rednikki871]

Just because ebay has it's policies, does not mean I can't question them. How else does ebay change and improve, as it has done since I've been a member.

[lyndal1838]

Of course you can query anything, but it is doubtful that ebay will change it just because you don't like it.  How many buyers have you had ringing you anyway?  Is it really such a big deal?