Ebay -An update on our fraud prevention efforts

The sooner we all work to stamp out fraud in this market place the better!

Regards
Steve H

Over the last couple of years, we've introduced a lot of changes in the marketplace and made significant progress in our fraud prevention efforts. We wanted to give you an overview of how our initiatives fit into an overall strategy.

Preventing fraud:

* We've made it harder for fraudsters to open new accounts by using stronger identity verification.
* We've worked with the likes of Yahoo! and Google to block phishing emails before they get to your inbox.
* Later this year, we'll prevent accounts from being taken over by requiring anyone attempting to list an item from an 'unknown' computer to go through identity confirmation.

Removing fraud visibility:

* We prevent items most favoured by fraudsters appearing in search immediately to give fraud detection algorithms and teams more time to detect fraud.
* In March 2008, we expanded the use of anonymised bidder IDs to all auction-style listings, resulting in a 90 per cent reduction in fake Second Chance Offers.
* In 2009, we'll prevent malicious content by controlling 'active' user-generated content in listings.

Ensuring safer transactions:

* We now require all sellers to accept PayPal and sellers of higher-risk items to accept PayPal only.
* Later this year, anonymous email forwarding via our secure member-to-member communication system will keep pre-sale communications safe on eBay and keeps buyers e-mail addresses anonymous and protected.� If you ever suspect that an email you receive isn't legitimate, forward it to us at spoof@ebay.com or spoof@paypal.com to help protect yourself and other members.

While we do all we can to make the marketplace as safe as possible, you also play an important role. Your community reports help us to clean up listings that slip through the cracks, so please report any fraudulent listings you see to help protect yourself and other members.

Regards,

The eBay Team