eBay is ramping up enforcement of its Paperless Payments policy that took effect in October. The company had given sellers until January 15 to be in compliance, and told developers last week it was ramping up its block on listings that violate its ban on checks and money orders.

eBay said filters would look for certain words and block those listings - "we might block on the phrase "personal check" instead of "check" because it is more clearly a paper payment method," the announcement to developers explained.

We've begun to block listings that are in violation, but we are ramping up the listing blocks slowly and carefully to make sure our filters are accurate and don't have any unintended consequences. We're starting by blocking on descriptions where sellers are most likely to still have violating text, and where we are confident our filters have high accuracy.

For example, we're first going to start blocking listings with prohibited payment methods in "additional checkout instructions," because we still see a number of sellers with violating text in this listing field, and our filters have high accuracy in this field.

Then we'll continue to slowly ramp up those listing blocks, as we refine our filters and work with sellers to change their listing templates.

eBay said that while it ramps up automatic listing blocks, it is also continuing to manually remove listings that are in violation. "If your seller's listing still has paper payment methods in the item description, and it is reported, it will be taken down."

Link to eBay Developer Announcement