I notice that today, when you click on "Ask seller a question", you no longer can see their email address. Instead you are supposted to type in your message and ebay sends the email from ebay.

I find this annoying, to say the least.

What say you?

I agree its annoying, but the net result should be the same - the person gets the message. It allows EBay to filter out those who may be spamming certain sellers - for whatever reason.

If I was an EBay seller (the true customer of EBay) I think I'd prefer this - and see it as feature EBay offered to me. That way I don't need expose my E-mail address to the general populace. When the seller responds to the message they most likely do it direct, so you could get their E-mail address through a legitimate inquiry.

It wouldn't be surprising if someone has developed a Bot or Web Craweler that could work its way through EBay skimming E-mail addresses to create mailing lists.

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/im
[This message has been edited by JTimothyA (edited 02-26-2001).]

There is another reason for eBay to do this-it stops people from making direct deals easily to losers in auctions.

I've been approached several times in this manner. The result if this approch is successful is a sale for someone and a purchase for someone, but eBay gets nothing for it.

That's the main thrust of this feature, no matter what they say.

Dennis

Hey Dennis, ...You hit the nail right on the head. Ebay isn't concerned with bidders' email addresses falling into the wrong hands. They are just trying to protect their interests so the second and third high bidders aren't contacted for a sale they can't collect on.

I still enjoy eBay every day. The phrase, "One man's trash is another man's treasure," is very true. I've done well with selling items from the family catacombs that were destined for the local landfill.

Bob

I can see where Ebay is concerned about them loosing business I am a very big ebay'er but I have found a few dealers that I deal with directly not through ebay such as the company (Scan Trends)in california that I bought my first HL from (alcatraz) this company is great and very prompt I just contacted them today to get a peice from their Bill signing that they are having march 11.....sorry Ebay....lol. What concerns me is anyone that uses paypal needs these e-mail addresses to send them money how will that work? I suppose the company will be able to post their e-mail address in their product decription? This will be quite unhandy I think.

I'm just guessing at this, but I would imagine that once the auction is over you will recieve the same type of email that you got before from eBay.

This includes the email address for both the seller and buyer and directs you to contact each other. this will probably remain the same. It will still have the effect of keeping the emails out of the web posting.

I've also done business with Scan Trends,originally on eBay then directly and finally in person. They are very nice accomadating, helpful and interesting people to talk to.

I had a very nice visit when I was in San Francisco last May. Stop in and visit their shop in ghiardelli Square if you are in the neighborhood. you'll enjoy it.

Dennis

[This message has been edited by wheland (edited 02-27-2001).]

I think that anyone who feels the need, would just change their e-bay user name to their regular e-mail address as a few people allready do, so that if someone looked at the list of bidders their name would show up as their e-mail address