eBay Help : Email Information

Spam Prevention

To protect members from spam (unsolicited, commercial email), eBay limits access to contact information, including email addresses. One way that eBay limits access to contact information is to allow members to forward email to other members without disclosing the recipients' email addresses. This helps to prevent the unauthorized collection of email addresses.

Note: For closed listings, sellers and winning bidders will still be able to request each other's email addresses. For open listings, sellers will be able to request all bidder email addresses.

Tips on Avoiding Spam

If you use your email address as your User ID, consider changing your User ID to a nickname instead so that 3rd parties will not be able to get your email address from the eBay site.
If, despite this limited access to contact information, you are still receiving spam, changing your email address may help prevent the problem since your current email address may still be circulated in mailing lists.
Many email providers have spam filtering services which you may be able to use. Please contact your email provider for more information. Your email software may also have some of these filters.

Buying and Selling Outside of eBay
Buying and selling outside of eBay based on information obtained from eBay listings or bidding activity is against eBay policy. These activities are often incorrectly perceived as eBay transactions. However, members who participate in them do not have access services such as Feedback or insurance. This may result in issues that degrade the member experience and trust in eBay. These transactions also constitute fee avoidance.

Note: eBay recognizes that trade between members on eBay sometimes results in a mutually agreed upon relationship and repeat sales outside of eBay. This is fine as long as both parties have agreed with each other in advance to receive commercial offers from each other.

If you encounter a situation where you are offered an opportunity to buy or sell an item based on information obtained from eBay, it is possible to complete that sale and still obtain eBay services. After agreeing to a sale/purchase price, the seller can list the item with eBay's 'Buy It Now' and the Preapproved Bidder features to allow a specific buyer to quickly complete the trade.

Relevant Policies on Spam and Buying and Selling Outside of eBay

Sending spam — Sending unsolicited (without prior permission,) commercial email. Examples:
- Sending unsolicited offers to bidders for the same or similar products that they have bid on in the past
- Soliciting a seller to sell a listed item outside of eBay.
Bid siphoning — Emailing another seller's bidders and offering the same or similar items
Fee avoidance — Circumventing eBay fees. Examples:
- Using member contact information obtained from eBay or using any eBay feature to offer to sell any listed item outside of eBay
- Canceling a listing to sell the item to anyone who contacted the seller through eBay, or became aware of the item through eBay
- Ending a listing early to sell the item at a higher price to the winning bidder
- Using member contact information obtained from eBay or using any eBay feature to offer to sell an item outside of eBay to any of your bidders in a Reserve Not Met listing
- Using member contact information obtained from eBay or using any eBay feature to sell duplicate or additional merchandise outside of eBay to underbidders
- Listing items in a manner that allows circumvention of eBay fees