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Offers to buy or sell outside of eBay

Policy overview

We don't allow our members to use eBay to contact each other to make offers to buy or sell items outside of eBay. Also, members can't use information obtained from eBay to contact each other about buying or selling outside of eBay.

If you receive an offer to buy or sell outside eBay, please report it.

Make sure you follow these guidelines. If you don't, you may be subject to a range of actions, including limits of your buying and selling privileges and suspension of your account.

What are the guidelines?

Allowed

Allowed

  • Sellers can end a listing early in order to sell an item at the current bid price to the high bidder.

  • Bidders can ask sellers to end a listing early and sell at the current bid price, but sellers don't have to honor the request.

Not allowed

Not allowed

Some examples of activities that aren't allowed include:

  • Using member contact information obtained from eBay or using any eBay system to offer to sell any listed item outside of eBay

  • Canceling a listing to sell to a buyer who found the item on eBay

  • Ending a listing early to sell the item to the winning bidder a price higher than the current bid

  • Including contact information or an offer to buy or sell an item outside of eBay within a Best Offer

  • Offering to sell an item to a non-winning bidder without using Second Chance Offer

How to tell if you're buying or selling on eBay

The best way to tell if you're actually transacting on eBay is:

  1. Open a new browser and type www.ebay.com.

  2. Click My eBay at the top of the page and sign in.

  3. Check to see that the listing you've bid on, bought, or sold appears in the Purchase History or Sell sections.

If your transaction doesn't show up in My eBay, then you didn't buy or sell the item on eBay.

Why does eBay have this policy?

Offers to buy or sell outside of eBay are a potential fraud risk for both buyers and sellers, and are not protected by the eBay Money Back Guarantee and other buyer protection programs. Additionally, these offers may be an attempt to avoid eBay fees. This is unfair to other sellers and violates our policies.

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