A Message from Rob Chesnut – Safeguarding Member IDs

[BellisimaJ.]

[quote author=dimucci link=topic=5731.msg39939#msg39939 date=1168373783]

Can you say  "shill bidding will rule "?

I would assume we can safely say it.
[/quote]

And the proposed policy adjustments insure that we can still safely say it. :

[mandy]

More changes to eBay's SMI policy:

Enhancing SMI -- adding transparency for items over $200
Last January, Rob Chesnut introduced an important Trust & Safety initiative called Safeguarding Member IDs (SMI). This project protects eBay's bidders on high-end items from fake Second Chance Offers and other malicious email. (Read Rob's announcement from January 8, 2007 for more details.)

While SMI has been very effective in protecting our marketplace from fraud, we also realize that it reduced transparency on the site, and, for some bidders, took away some of the magic of that makes eBay so unique.

As promised, my Buyer Experience group has teamed up with Trust & Safety and the Community over the past few months to look at ways to make the bid history more transparent without jeopardizing the safety that SMI has added. I'm pleased to let you know that this week, we'll be making the following adjustments to the User IDs displayed on bid history for items over $200:

    * Actual Feedback Score is back – We will be bringing back the bidder’s actual feedback score next to each member's respective User ID.

    * New User ID Masking - We are replacing the current aliases (Bidder 1, Bidder 2 and Bidder 3) with a masked ID that consists of two random characters from the member's User ID – for example a***b. For any given member, this masked ID will be consistent across all auctions over $200 for which they place bids. At the end of a listing, the winning bidder's User ID will be displayed on both the item and bid history page. Please note: Sellers will still be able to view the actual User IDs for bidders on their listings through the Bid History page.

Also, please understand that to protect our Community, eBay reserves the right to change this masking algorithm in the future, but will only do so if absolutely necessary and with advance notice. We expect to add more enhancements in the future, although our intent is to move cautiously so we can ensure we’re preserving safety.

[BellisimaJ.]

Not perfect, but better.

[mandy]

Update:

Hello...This is Matt Halprin, eBay's Vice President in charge of Global Trust & Safety. As eBay continues to grow into a global online marketplace we are a natural target for online criminals. As you may know, fraud related to fake Second Chance Offers has been a significant challenge to the safety of our marketplace. Fraudsters send these authentic-looking, malicious emails to bidders on auction-style listings in an effort to convince them to send them funds. Unsuspecting bidders get fooled into thinking they are dealing with a legitimate seller, and agree to send funds (often by an unapproved method like Western Union, a major red flag that fraud is involved) in exchange for receiving an item like the one they had recently hoped to win.

Combating fraud by protecting our Community’s identities
In January 2007, the Safeguarding Member IDs project was launched on eBay.com for auction-style listings of $200 or greater to reduce the negative impact that these fraudsters have on the marketplace. Last August we also made enhancements to bring back more of the transparency to the bidding process, which our Community told us was important. These changes did not reduce bidding on auction listings above $200 and virtually eliminated fraudsters' attempts at this price level.

How Safeguarding Member IDs works
Bidder User IDs are "masked," so that scammers can't tell who is bidding on a listing and therefore cannot target them with official-looking spoof email. The masked User ID's consist of two random characters from the member's User ID – for example, a***b. This method of identifying a bidder (whose feedback score is also visible) gives legitimate members a sense of who is bidding, while protecting the bidders' identities. (Please note that sellers who are logged in can see all the actual User IDs for the bidders on their listings.)

I'd like to address a common question we hear - How do scammers get a bidder's email address? Unfortunately, a high percentage of eBay members have registered an email address that is very close or identical to their User ID. Fraudsters attempt to send emails to the bidders they are targeting by using the User ID, plus several of the most common domain names – i.e. userid@yahoo.com , userid@gmail.com, userid@hotmail.com, userid@aol.com. This combination yields a very high success rate for them. Subsequently, too many eBay bidders get fooled – and lose their money - as an unfortunate result.

The state of fake Second Chance Offers (or attempts by criminals to tempt you into a false transaction) today
For over a year, these masked User IDs have proven to be very successful on these higher-end listings. In fact, we saw the volume of fake Second Chance Offers for $200 or more drop significantly. We've also worked to educate members about the importance of unique email addresses, and we have aggressively targeted members who have risky User ID/email combinations to encourage them to change. Please note - If your User ID matches your email address, please protect yourself by changing your User ID so your user ID doesn't match your email address. Please also review our Password Tips.

While these efforts are important, we must do more to stop this type of fraud. Despite all our previous efforts, criminals have adjusted their methods and the overall problem persists. By increasing the volume of fake Offers that they send now to buyers of lower priced items, they hope they can make the same returns they'd been making on higher-end items.

Protecting buyer's identities as they bid on all auction-style listings
To protect the Community from this growing safety threat, we have made the decision to mask User IDs for bidders on all auction-style listings on eBay.com and Motors. This change will go into effect later this week. Even with all this history and need, we understand that masking User IDs on all auction-style listings is a significant change, and it this is not a step we are taking lightly. However, in light of today's environment - and the damage fake email offers pose to our members and to overall buyer trust in the marketplace – it's imperative we act now to make this change.