eBay PowerSeller Nick Sevino (a pseudonym) answers questions about buying and selling on eBay.

Dear Nick,
My eBay User ID is the same as my email, and eBay has forced me to change it. It's very annoying. Why are they doing this?
Rosa

Dear Rosa,

Actually this is one change that I agree with and is very misunderstood by the selling community. It all revolves around safety and security. A misconception on the part of the public is that the #1 reason why Web sites, computers, and eBay accounts get hacked is because Cryptographers (Codebreakers) are spending hours generating all combinations of words letters and numbers until they get that perfect combination to crack your account.

This is poppycock! Arguably, the #1 reason for hijacked accounts on eBay is that people use the same password for other accounts. If one of the other sites is insecure, ranging from dishonest employees to a scam site, your password will be used against you. It's then easy for them to plug an email address and password into eBay. If the eBay User ID is different from your email address, it makes it much harder to locate.

At the risk of giving anyone ideas (but the bad guys already know this), set up a site giving away free Wazuzis. For every single person that signs up, plug their email address and password into eBay. I'll guarantee that within days you'd be hijacking accounts.

Important Nick Tip: Make different level passwords for different levels of accounts. If you having trouble remembering passwords, consider using Roboforms - it is the Bomb (http://www.roboform.com). No spyware and free, rock steady and stable. From personal experience, it works great in Win 98 and XP machines it even imports Gator passwords. Gator, did I mention Gator? Get thee gone, foul spawn of Satan, back to the pit! Gator is the worst, ask any computer technician. It tracks you and is a real system crasher (due to so many cookies, popups, spyware, etc.) If you have Gator on your machine and enjoy an IQ greater than 60, I'd suggest you remove it with Adaware. Or Spybot search and destroy. (See AuctionBytes article "Dealing with Unsolicited Email" at http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y202/m02/abu0064/s02.)

Another major cause of hacked accounts involves computer disposal. Many individuals think that if they F disk format or delete everything, they are protected. Not true. A myriad of programs exists to reconstruct hard drives. By taking a reconstructed hard drive and plugging in the email address and a password into eBay, an account could be hijacked.

As much as I hate to admit it, eBay's new policy of disallowing email addresses as User IDs will help their customers, and by extension, help them avoid many problems.

Sorry I don't agree with the larger eBay community's opposition to the new policy. Oh my gosh, for once I agree with eBay. Time to don a suit and tie and attend Moral Majority meetings.

To comment on this letter, post a message in the forums at http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=5850

Note from the Editor: See Letters from Readers in this issue for more about this eBay policy.

If you have a question you'd like Nick to consider for a future issue of "Dear Nick," send it to nick@auctionbytes.com.