Serious Ebay privacy breach

[0phaeton0]

Today I found out by accident that all my listings have information ( my phone numbers and address ) that should only be available on the checkout invoice, is there for all and sundry to read on the listing under (payment options).

Hey! why bother selling when anybody can come over and just take it. 

Help desk can do nothing about removing them if a bid has been placed, unless all the items are removed from auction, I was told it may take up to a fortnight for IT to remedy the problem. After they did some checking, apparently I'm not the only one this is happening to.

The response to a this serious a problem is unacceptable. 

This should never happen and I am pissed.

CHECK YOUR LISTINGS

[purple.cow]

Shock, gasp, horror, 'Ebay the perfect'  making a serious stuffup, impossible surely! (Or so they would have us all believe)

Seriously now ....

I'm sorry to hear of your problem but it looks as though you have no option than remove the listings concerned if you are really worried about your private information being on display.

Mind you, you haven't exactly helped to keep things under control by bringing it all to everyone's attention here and now.

However, I would suggest that maybe you take screenshots of it all, or make printout copies of it before dumping the evidence as such things are a serious breech under the Australia Privacy Act.

A REAL appology wouldn't go astray from Ebay, and perhaps some small manner of compensation from them to show their sincerest goodwill toward you too.

Don't go holding your breath for that unless you take legal action though.

[leader-of-the-band]

Are you saying that this has only recently happened on your listings?

It's only a privacy breach if you put private information there.  I've never put my contact information into that box on the sell-your-item page when preparing a listing.  Ever since I started selling I've known that the payment information would be visible to anyone that viewed the listing, and that I could edit that information when I sent an invoice.

[purple.cow]

And therein may lie the answer to your issue thanks to Leader-of-the-band, as I wasn't aware that you could enter that kind of information into your listings yourself.

Perhaps then Ebay isn't the perp to the problem, but instead you are yourself.

If that's the case I'd be prepared to eat humble pie and dump your present listings pronto if I were you. Unless of course you can now edit the offending information back out of them yourself.

Leader may well know if that's possible, and how to do it if you don't know yourself and ask nicely 😉

Good luck.

[kayedonproducts]

I think you will find the problem lies in what you have put in "Additional Payment Instructions" when listing.

This shows up in your listing when the Payment & Postage Tab is opened and also on your Invoices.  Extra info can be added to invoices.

It should be easy to fix as you can do a bulk edit of all your listings.

Click on "Active Listings" and then "Edit" which appears above listings.  Then select "All Listings".

A new page will open up and your listings will all show up, select all and then click on "Edit" - choose "Payment Information" a list will come up - additonal payment instructions is at the bottom.  Click it on and a blank box will appear - may have to scroll down a tiny bit to see it.  Type in your instructions, leaving out your private details and then click on "Submit All".  This should fix all your listings.

Hope I have it all correct and it helps.

[*new2vintage]

How embarassing - you are blaming ebay for something that you have done.

[colic2bullsgirlore]

If ebay help truly answered the OP with

" I was told it may take up to a fortnight for IT to remedy the problem. After they did some checking, apparently I'm not the only one this is happening to"

when the details are actually in the Seller's payment instructions

...then they also want their asteriod kicked till their proboscis exudes hemoglobin (and its cohorts) because they are fobbing off the enquirer with a steaming pile of bovine muck by telling the enquirer what they want to hear.....

How embarassing to be caught out and lead the OP astray 😐

[phorum_junkie*]

I'd be more concerned about getting AP to deliver one of those trees interstate seeing as how you have offered Cash on Delivery as a payment option!

[leader-of-the-band]

Leader may well know if that's possible, and how to do it if you don't know yourself and ask nicely 😉

That information can be edited on Buy-It-Now listings and listings that have no bids.  Once a bid is placed that info can not be edited or added to.

I just looked at the Sell-Your-Item page and it does say "Additional checkout information" and not "Additional payment instructions", which may give the impression that the information would only be shown at checkout.

[0phaeton0]

Correct-leader-of-the-band, The information should only be available at 'checkout'

As far as I'm aware the block of listings I did before Xmas presented that way.

It was only when I received a call from a relative newbie to ebay wanting to "verifiy his phone number " that I was aware it was in the listing.

The help centre acknowledged that it shouldn't be there, I waited while they checked some other random listings and found it wasn't just mine.

Confirmed it was a serious issue & would have to get their technicians to address it.

Once bids have been placed, neither they nor I can do anything but to cancel the auction.

As this is an exercise in getting rid of stuff before moving, I don't have the luxury of time to re-list everything.

As of now have I've not had any further response to the issue.