MUST READ!!! Be Careful How You Respond To Ebay Messages

Hey guys, learned something new about ebay that's actually quite scary and wanted to let you all know. You know how when someone sends you a message it comes in to your email as a notification. you can go directly into ebay and view messages and respond from there but you can also from within those notification emails click reply and reply to the message.

until recently i always assumed that still went through the ebay messaging system but was just a shortcut to do so instead of having to log into ebay. Turns out those messages are not on the ebay messaging system, I assume its a hidden email type deal like craigslist has. Anyhow, I was talking to an ebay rep regarding a case I'm going through and apparently they will not accept those messages sent by clicking respond from within ebay email message, they will not accept that as proof for your case.

Lesson being, if you want to keep a paper trail to back you up on ebay issues as a buyer or a seller you HAVE TO LOGIN TO EBAY!!!

I was shocked by this and almost got screwed out of a lot of money so wanted to let you guys know.

Well, I have to disagree at least for the experience I've had.

Just today when receiving an email notification from eBay (which contains the content of the email sent through eBay) I pushed the RESPOND button within that email and it sent my response to the original sender.

He then responded to that email and I responded again. This is all in my regular mail carrier in the notification emails from eBay.

After just reading your note here on the forum I went into eBay and ALL those back and forths were in my eBay message area for my account.

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Also in the past when talking to live eBay operators about open cases I have asked them to check all my eBay messages and they have seen everyone of them both to me and from me to the other party. Many times I just used the RESPOND button in the notification email.

Works for me. Have to see what others have to say.

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Edit: after re-reading your original post and seeing something about you must log-in to eBay it occurred to me that I am always logged in to eBay anyway. That might make a difference. The only way to test it would be to NOT be logged in and make a point of using the RESPOND button in the notification email and then go into eBay and see if it was in fact recorded.

I seldom log out of eBay...never had any reason to worry about it. My computer seems to be pretty well protected with firewalls, anti-virus, etc.

Yeah maybe it matters if your logged into ebay or not. All I can tell you is this was regarding a $11,000 item and I was speaking with ebay "high claims" department so were talking more knowledgeable people than your average sales rep you get when you call the 800 number and from what he said none of those messages through the email would be considered as proof when deciding a case. I'll have to go back and see if my correpondence were recorded in ebay messages system or not