Last week eBay began pulling listings that included references to BidPay and cash for violating eBay's Safe Payments policy, which was introduced to the site on January 15. When AuctionBytes contacted eBay on Monday to learn why eBay hadn't removed listings of eBay's largest sellers for the same policy violations, eBay spokesperson Catherine England said eBay had changed its enforcement procedures.

The Trust & Safety team "decided that just pulling the listings might be a little to aggressive," she said, explaining that eBay was trying to educate sellers. The team had to consider enforcement from a security standpoint versus the user experience point-of-view, she said.

eBay is instead use a blocking technique, England said. If a new listing is created with a reference to an unacceptable payment method, a message comes up informing the seller of the policy. The block will prevent listings containing references to BidPay from being listed.

When asked if the block would work if references to BidPay and cash were included in a listing as part of an image file, and what would happen in that situation, England said she would have to look into it, and did not have an answer by press time.

When asked if the change in enforcement procedures had to do with larger sellers being found in violation, England said no, her inquires last week sparked internal conversations within the company.

Related Links

From the Editor
http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y206/m02/abu0160/s01

eBay Pulls Listing that Contain References to BidPay
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m02/i02/s01

eBay Removing Listings that have BidPay in them (OTWA)
http://www.otwa.com/community/showthread.php?t=37905

eBay Safe Payments Policy
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/safe-payments-policy.html