eBay Community values include open, honest communication, and the vast majority of buyers and sellers are reliable trading partners. In addition, we offer safeguards to help protect you when you buy and sell, including:

• A Feedback system to help you know your trading partner’s reputation

• Support if you have transaction problems

• Support for protecting your eBay account

• Policies to protect your privacy

• Rules and policies to promote a safe trading environment

eBay's Feedback system

To help you decide whether you want to trade with another member, you can check the reputation of that member before bidding or accepting a member’s bid. You can check a member's profile by clicking the number next to the user ID or by using the "Find member" form.

When leaving Feedback for an eBay member, please be honest, fair, and factual. This will help make other members aware of your experience and help keep eBay a safe place to buy and sell.

Support if you have transaction problems

If you encounter a problem when buying or selling on eBay, we offer guidelines, tools, and protection services that can help.

We make it easy to contact members to resolve problems. If direct communication doesn’t work, you can use eBay's Resolution Centre to work out a solution with your buyer or seller and report the problem to eBay..

Managing problems with sellers

• In many cases, communicating directly with a seller can resolve your concern. Learn how to contact your seller.

• If you paid for an item, but didn’t receive it, or if you paid for and received an item, but it was significantly different from the item description, start by discussing the problem with the seller. If this doesn’t work, you can work it out in our Resolution Centre.

• If you have a problem with a purchase and you use PayPal, you'll open a case in PayPal's Resolution Centre and your purchase may be covered through PayPal Buyer Protection.

• If you paid for an item with a credit card (not PayPal), contact your credit card company to get information about its protection services.

Managing problems as a seller

• If a buyer doesn’t pay for an item or you need to cancel a transaction, after trying to resolve it directly with the seller, you can work it out in the Resolution Centre.  

• You can report cases of unwelcome bidding or buying.

• You can also block bidders based on their user IDs or select buyer requirements for your listings based on criteria including country of registration, their buying history on eBay, and whether they have a PayPal account. Learn more about managing bidders and buyers.

Support for protecting your eBay account

Learn how you can secure your account and report account theft.

We’ll never ask you to provide sensitive information through email. One of the biggest threats to the security of members’ eBay accounts is fraudulent email and websites, called spoof email and spoof websites. Both are used to obtain personal and account information. To help protect members against this threat, there's Community vigilance, and member education about how to recognise and report spoof email and spoof eBay websites.

We digitally sign every email that we send to you. Email providers use this signature to authenticate legitimate emails coming from eBay and reduce the amount of spoof emails that reach your inbox.

Protecting your privacy

eBay’s Privacy Policy is designed to protect your personal information from other eBay members and from third parties.

eBay uses many safeguards, including firewalls, encryption, and Secure Socket Layers to help protect your personal information against loss, theft, and unauthorised access and disclosure. eBay has security techniques to help safeguard such data from unauthorised access by users inside and outside the company. In addition, although eBay uses cookies, web beacons, and third parties to provide you with the best possible services, we also work very hard to protect your privacy and keep your information secure.

To help protect the privacy of all eBay members, members can request contact information for other eBay members only if they are involved in current or recent transactions.

Rules and policies for eBay members

To promote a safe buying and selling environment for all members, eBay has rules and policies that are enforced.

eBay’s policies are intended to:

• Support government laws and regulations

• Minimise risks to both buyers and sellers

• Provide equal opportunity to all buyers and sellers

• Protect intellectual property rights

• Provide an enjoyable buying experience

• Support the values of the eBay Community

Breaches of eBay policies can result in a range of actions, including:

• Listing cancellation

• Forfeit of eBay fees on cancelled listings

• Limits on account privileges

• Loss of PowerSeller status

• Account suspension

All members are responsible for reviewing and understanding eBay’s policies and all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the User Agreement.

eBay rules and policies include:

• Rules for all eBay members – These rules apply to buyers, sellers, participants on the community boards and all eBay employees.

• Rules for buying – Buyer rules assist buyers in doing the right thing in a transaction, including "Always pay for your purchases". Learning about these rules will make your eBay experience a safe and enjoyable one.

• Rules for selling – These rules contain important listing policies and other rules that apply to selling, including policies involving prohibited and restricted Items.

Learn more about safety on eBay

• Visit eBay’s Safety Centre.

• Take the spoof (fake) email tutorial.