Fake Second Chance Offers Be Gone!
Not unexpected, eBay’s Rob Chestnut has announced today that eBay is rolling out its eBay Safeguarding Member IDs (SMI) to eBay.com and eBay Canada this week. Launched in November on eBay Motors, it masks bidders’ ID with aliases and provides an updated Bid History page.
Following SMI’s introduction last fall on eBay Motors, our eBay sites in the United Kingdom and Australia also made the decision to launch SMI. The results we’re seeing for all three launches indicate that these changes are having the impact we are striving for – in short, a reduction in unwanted commercial and malicious spam (including Fake Second Chance Offers) to bidders on higher-priced auction-style listings.
As a result eBay.com and eBay.ca will be launching SMI later this week. SMI will impact listings on eBay.com that start at or reach a bid level of $200 or greater. On eBay Canada, it will impact listings above the C$220 level. Please read our Safeguarding Member IDs Frequently Asked Questions for more information.
Rob’s also waving the big shill bidding stick, assuring the community that eBay has invested a significant amount of money into detecting and acting upon it. TameBay had an good guest post by an eBay Motors sellers a few weeks back that argues that these changes should in fact reduce this practice.