eBay to Eliminate Pre-Approved Bidder Feature for Sellers

[regic]

An eBay spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday that the company will be eliminating the Pre-Approved Bidder feature for sellers. Catherine England said the change would take place after the holiday shopping season, but could reveal no details about the change at this time. eBay is currently alerting sellers of the impending change through messaging on the site, such as the notice on this page (http://pages.ebay.com/services/buyandsel...ement.html), but has not posted it to the main announcement board.

The optional Pre-Approved Bidder feature is used by some sellers to eliminate nuisance bidding and to control who may bid on their items. Users not on a seller's pre-approved list are asked to contact the seller by email before they can place a bid on the item. But apparently scammers may have been using the feature to collect email addresses of potential bidders.

A seller who contacted eBay about the change posted the response she received from customer support that cites Trust & Safety concerns. "Pre-Approved Bidder is being discontinued because it enables sellers to collect, and potentially misuse, the email addresses of prospective bidders. Inappropriate use of bidder information is, of course, a violation of the eBay Privacy Policy. Occasionally, sellers who have been approved by eBay may receive limited access to this feature."...

full article: http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m12/i07/s01

[FiberGuy]

The tighter their grip, the more sellers slip between their fingers...

:

[stardust]

That means that if a peep from ebay contacts me in the future about an item I had listed six months ago, and they now want it, I won't relist it on ebay with THEM as the only allowed bidder (pre-approved).  I'll just sell it to them OFF-ebay.  Ebay just loses, and I won't feel badly about it. 

[bargainbloodhound]

That means that if a peep from ebay contacts me in the future about an item I had listed six months ago, and they now want it, I won't relist it on ebay with THEM as the only allowed bidder (pre-approved).

eBay doesn't own the item, so if the listing was over that sale would always go through my website not eBay.

[stardust]

I used to maintain the high principle standard with this company -- "If it was seen on ebay, it should in all fairness sell on ebay."  Because of all its underhandedness and screwups, the bleeding and destruction of its fine, loyal and honest sellers, as far as *I* am concerned now, they know where they can stick it.