eBay will give all your personal information to anyone

[DaQ]

I recently became a victim of a clause in eBay's privacy policy which basically allows them to give ALL your personal information to any company that files a complaint against your listing through VeRO.

Here's an exact quote:
"We may also share your personal information with:
eBay VeRO Program participants under confidentiality agreement, as we in our sole discretion believe necessary or appropriate in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity. In such events, we will disclose name, street address, city, state, zip code, country, phone number, email address and company name."

For those that think this may be a valid reason to surrender personal information, I just want to say that eBay gets to decide whether you violated anything or not so basically, they can give out all your info to ANYONE.

Although eBay refused to give out specific details about what my listing violated, I suspect the problem was that I copied the description of the item from the manufacturer's website. So eBay ruled that several lines of text publicly available on manufacturer's website that described the product was a good enough reason to release all my personal information to at least three companies:

1. Manufacturer of the product
2. Their legal contractor
3. The contractor they hired to look for violations

I should also mention that the eBay listing in question was not even active at the time I received the notice from eBay. It was only listed under my unsold items and was not publicly available.

I do not want to give out the name of the company who filed the complaint not to give them any free advertisement, but the item is a rotating curling hair iron which, by the way, is garbage and I couldn't even sell it for 1/4 of the price I paid for it originally.

[taocredit]

Oh, My God ! Is it really ? I can not believe that. This is a imparity clause to ebay members. PROTEST !PROTEST !PROTEST !

[frostbitetwice]

Just another reason for me not to do business with them...

[Steve R Jones]

What am I missing? I thought ALL legitimate sites will cooperate with authorities etc etc bla bla bla when things like copyrighted material is stolen etc…..

I'd imagine that DaQ's intentions weren't evil - but he took something that wasn't his...

[DaQ]

Originally Posted by Steve R Jones

What am I missing? I thought ALL legitimate sites will cooperate with authorities etc etc bla bla bla when things like copyrighted material is stolen etc…..

I'd imagine that DaQ's intentions weren't evil - but he took something that wasn't his...

There are many different definitions for cooperation. I feel that asking me to remove the material or even removing it themselves is perfectly appropriate. But giving out all my personal information to several random companies is way over the line. Especially since the item did not sell and wasn't even listed at the time of the complaint so money is not involved.

[DaQ]

Originally Posted by Steve R Jones

What am I missing? I thought ALL legitimate sites will cooperate with authorities

Also, note that authorities were not involved. My personal information was given out to completely random companies.

Sorry for double post, I didn't notice I can still edit my previous post.

[frozenstar]

Wow. I didn't know that. Thanks for the information..

[DaQ]

I finally received a response from eBay which contains very little useful information and basically says they will suspend my account if I try to relist the item.

Here's the exact quote:
"Thank you for writing eBay in regard to the removal of a listing.

Your listing was removed through the VeRO Program because of a Notice of
Claimed Infringement that eBay received from [crappy curling iron company] alleging that an item offered in your listing is a counterfeit or unauthorized
replica of their product.

In order to prevent your account from being suspended, it's important
that you avoid any future removals through the VeRO Program. It's also
important that your listings are not removed due to violations of eBay
policy."

They provide no explanation as to how they determined that the product I'm trying to sell is counterfeit and do not give me a chance to prove otherwise.

I should note, that while they are treating me like a thief, I'm only trying to sell a SINGLE curling iron which I paid quite a bit of money for and am now trying to recover some of it after realizing their product is crap. I am not selling these in bulk and my iron is in the original box with the original manufacturer manual and all the accessories.

[tgrt]

I recently had a similar experience buying from a legitimate seller on ebay with a good rating. I made an offer on a "buy it now" and the seller took the offer. I paid immediately for the software. Then on Monday, two days later, eBay cancels the listing for the same reason as mentioned above. However, it was more complicated because I already paid. I started their claim process, because at that point there was no other way to contact the seller or vice versa. Long story short, I got my software and it's legitimate (serial number is valid and it registered) despite what the publisher claimed when they reported it to eBay (and I saved a boatload).

When I called ebay (call don't waste your time on their email support) I did so through PayPal. This apparently happens a lot and they transferred me right over. I talked to very helpful representatives at both PayPal and ebay. I got the impression that they're not any happier about this than their customers are. This policy was probably forced on them by their legal department.

[DaQ]

Originally Posted by tgrt

When I called ebay (call don't waste your time on their email support) I did so through PayPal. This apparently happens a lot and they transferred me right over. I talked to very helpful representatives at both PayPal and ebay. I got the impression that they're not any happier about this than their customers are. This policy was probably forced on them by their legal department.

I prefer email to have solid evidence of communication with eBay.

Also, I'm not interested in hearing an apology from a random employee that is paid to pretend to like me and care about my problems. I want as many people as possible to see that eBay has a very loose privacy policy and when in doubt, they will take the side of shady businesses and not their customer.

Be very careful what personal information you give to eBay because they will give it away.

I have removed all my payment info from eBay and I only have a single credit card registered with PayPal so I can easily dispute any false charges.