If the email address you entered during your buyer or business registration cannot be used to verify your identity, you will be asked to place your credit or debit card on file. This usually happens for one of the following reasons:

• The email address came from a free, Web-based account such as a Yahoo! or Hotmail account.

• eBay attempts to send a message to this email address but the message is repeatedly bounced back to eBay.

eBay keeps your credit or debit card on file to safely and quickly verify your identity. Verifying some basic information about our members helps make eBay a safer place to buy and sell. Your card will be used for identification purposes only and will not be charged at any time.

Remember: Your personal information is protected by eBay's Privacy Policy and encrypted by the industry-standard SSL software.

If you don't want to place your credit or debit card on file, you might want to try registering with an email address from a company, school, or paid Internet Service Provider. Our automated system will determine by the email address that you use whether or not you would still require verification through a credit or debit card.

Selling items on eBay

To begin selling items on eBay you will need to verify your identity and tell us how you will pay your seller fees.

1. How to verify your identity

To sell items on eBay, you need to place one of the following on file:

• PayPal account information

• Credit or debit card

• Checking account information

If you'd rather not provide this information, you can have your identification verified by a service such as ID Verify instead. This is an online process in which you answer a series of questions that help to establish your identity.

2. How to pay your seller fees

Once you've created a seller's account, you can choose to pay your seller fees using the credit or debit card you've placed on file. However, you can also choose other payment methods instead, such as PayPal. For more details, see Paying Seller Fees.

Credit or debit card trouble? See Solving Credit and Debit Card Problems.