Shop Victoriously... and Safely!

I'm John McDonald from eBay's Trust & Safety team. With the biggest shopping season of the year right around the corner, it's more important than ever that internet users – on eBay and off – stay safe when they're on the internet.

I'll be blogging here every couple weeks with important safety tips, as well as news about advances we're making at eBay and PayPal to help the marketplace stay safe. 

Feel free to share my blog posts with your friends and family – safety is everybody’s business, so spread the word!

This week, I'd like to share some positive developments with you related to Phishing emails and also bring you up to date with what we're doing to keep eBay buyers and sellers well-informed about the recent spate of product recalls.

1) eBay, PayPal and Yahoo! are partnering to reduce dangerous Phishing emails
eBay, PayPal and Yahoo! have joined forces to reduce the number of phishing emails that eBay and PayPal members get. All emails from eBay and PayPal have a digital signature (a bit of code that spammers can’t replicate).  Yahoo! Mail will now check all emails claiming to come from eBay or PayPal for this digital signature. If you use Yahoo! Mail for your eBay or PayPal activity, you will receive only genuine email from eBay and PayPal in your inbox, because authentic emails will have the correct digital signature.  However, a phishing email that is pretending to be from eBay won't have the digital signature, and so Yahoo! Mail will automatically prevent it from reaching your inbox. This is a huge victory in the ongoing battle against phishing.

For now, this effort will help only our members who use Yahoo! Mail, although we hope to form similar partnerships with additional ISPs in the future.  (Read more about this project on PayPal's blog. )

Speaking of phishing emails, remember these important safety tips:

Please -- don't get Phished! An email from your bank, PayPal, eBay or another institution that asks for you contact information or for your immediate response is fishy – or possibly PHISHY!  Here are some steps to take:

1. Stop.  Don't rush to reply or take action – even if the request is really urgent sounding.
2. Look. Read the text several times, and ask yourself why this information or call to action is necessary.
3. Check. Check My Messages for an eBay email, or contact PayPal customer support. 
4. Forward.  Forward any suspicious emails to us at spoof@ebay.com and spoof@PayPal.com.

2) Shopping safely – Toy Recalls
If you read our General Announcement Board regularly, you've noticed a number of U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recalls lately. We want to make sure our Community stays safe, and doesn't buy or sell items that could pose a health or safety hazard. As a service to our Community, we announce toy recalls or major recalls that could affect to buyers and sellers.

One way we're working to increase our Community's awareness about eBay's Recalled Items policy is by including links on various product category pages, such as Toys & Hobbies and Baby. You can see a bunch of helpful resources on the bottom right of the category page, under "Category Community Links." We provide notices to sellers when they are listing items that may be part of a major recall. We also have links to the Recalled Items policy and other resources on the Toy & Hobbies Discussion board.

Finally, our Security and Resolution Center (which you can find at the bottom of most eBay pages) also has one-click access to the CPSC, making it easy to get helpful safety tips directly from the CPSC. On the CPSC site, consumers can also access a searchable database of recalled products, and sign up to receive email notifications of newly recalled products.

That's it for now.  Until next time, Shop Victoriously – and Safely!!