It's all in how you ask...

Last week, Seller Development's Todd Lutwak hosted a number of webinars to help sellers understand all the new changes announced by Lorrie Norrington on Wednesday.  (Watch the archive, or attend our final Webinar tomorrow at 1pm Pacific.) I was "backstage" during these events with a (very) small army of helpers.  We huddled over our laptops during the 1-1/2 hour sessions, and answered all the questions that attendees could chat in to us while Todd and other SMEs ("subject matter experts") were presenting.  Talk about an adrenaline rush!  The rapid-fire question/answer session was better than a triple Grande to get the blood flowing....

Slide #21 was a particular favorite for attendees, and, after several requests, I promised we'd share it here on the Chatter blog.  Todd was covering a variety of proven Best Practices for sellers who are looking for ways to improve their DSR scores.  He shared this example of a very effective letter that some sellers are using as package inserts:

Dear {BUYERUSERNAME},

Thank you for your prompt payment. I appreciate great buyers like you.

Your item has been shipped via USPS priority mail and you should receive it within 3 days. The tracking number is xxxxxxxx

I have posted positive feedback for you.  I hope you will do the same for us.  In addition to your positive feedback, we hope you will give us FIVE STARS on all of the Detailed Seller Ratings.  If you feel like we fell short of FIVE STARS, please email me first at jd@sellerco.com and I will make sure you are happy.

We appreciate your business and hope to do business with you again soon.

Sincerely,
John Doe.
jd@sellerco.com
Manager of Customer Service

It's a great letter, because it is packed with meaning that sends a strong, positive message to the buyer -- 1) YOU care deeply about customer service.  2) YOU really want them to be extremely satisfied.  3) Assuming they feel  YOU lived up to your aspirations, you are asking them for 5-stars as a measurement.  4) And if not, you are inviting them to write you and let you know how YOU can improve.   I exaggerated the YOU parts, because this is more than a letter about Detailed Seller Ratings; it's about branding yourself as a customer-centric business.  The customer-focused, personal touch can give eBay sellers a big advantage in a competitive market.

And while we're on the subject of DSRs....

Last week, in Lorrie's message, she announced a new selling standard that requires sellers maintain a minimum of 4.3 across all 4 DSRs in order to continue to list.  It helps to know that 85% of all DSRs left in the marketplace are 5's.  Only a very small number of under-performing sellers have less than 4.3 on any of their DSRs.  What's more important -- this same group of sellers is also responsible for a large number of BBEs (bad buying experiences).

But out on the forums and in the webinars, some sellers pointed out that, since "4" is labeled the equivalent of "satisfied" for each category, a seller who delivered satisfactory service and who received all 4's from all buyers could be blocked from listing. 

It's understandable that the question has come up, but how real is this concern? Are good sellers going to get "caught in the tuna net?"   How many have received all 4's from all their buyers so far?  The answer is ... zero.  This has never happened, and there are NO sellers on eBay who've received all 4's.  As Griff and the rest of the "PINKS" posted again and again last week on the 8/20 Announcement Forum, it's not the 4's that hurt a seller's DSR scores, it's the 1's and 2's, and the vast majority of sellers have no worries in this regard.

(Note: We will be archiving the best Q&A from the 8/20 Forum by topic announced....stay tuned.)

Happy 5th Birthday eBay Vancouver

The week of March 3rd marked the 5th Anniversary of the eBay Vancouver Customer Support center. Since its humble beginnings with a handful of employees in March of 2003, the center has grown exponentially and now proudly provides 24/7 support to eBay members around the world!

The week was filled with a number of celebrations for the Vancouver employees, but the highlight for everyone was a two-day visit from "Uncle Griff"! As many of you know, Griff was eBay's FIRST Customer Support Representative, and he is adored by eBay members and eBay employees alike. The Vancouver employees were thrilled to welcome Griff to Vancouver and they enjoyed tapping into his rich history in Customer Support and hearing his great words of wisdom. Those of you who know Griff also know that he is a barrel of laughs - we've had a lot of good chuckles during his visit :-)

Griff, thank you for coming to visit us all in Vancouver, and..... HAPPY BIRTHDAY VANCOUVER!

Here are a few photos from the week:

(Clockwise starting with photo on top with moose: Baywinkle Moose with some Customer Support reps, Griff with some Trust & Safety reps,  Griff & yours truly, Julie Drossos, Trust & Safety team celebrates 5 years, and finally, Baywinkle Moose with French-Canada rep, Vincent.)

“Psst! Wanna Buy This Item Outside Of eBay?”

Remember that Seinfeld episode where George concocts a fake charity, in order to wriggle out of buying holiday gifts for his co-workers? Instead of buying them gifts he claims that a donation has been made in their name to "The Human Fund" (with the slogan "Money for People"). The holiday season and the first few weeks of the new year might bring out the best in most people, but for fraudsters, it's a time to bring out their worst scams.

One such scam eBay members should watch out for is an offer to buy or sell listed items outside of the eBay website (instead of buying "on-eBay," which means bidding on or buying the item on eBay, and then paying through the eBay Checkout process). Going outside of eBay to buy or sell an item listed on eBay is worse than falling for an old, legendary scam like "Psst! Wanna buy the Brooklyn Bridge?" It's like going down a dark alley to settle the transaction with your buyer or seller. You might find your money or item taken, with nothing to show in return. It's an unsafe and unprotected way of doing business.

On the other hand, completing the transaction on eBay (and with PayPal) is safe, because eBay has many buyer and seller protection programs, such as the Purchase Protection programs and Seller Protection programs to protect you if something goes wrong.

Fraudsters will attempt to lure you off the eBay site with Fake Second Chance Offers
Recently one of our members (let's call him Robert) recently bid on an item that he really wanted, but didn't win. Shortly after the listing ended, he received an email in his personal email inbox that looked something like this:

"I am the seller of the item you recently placed a bid on: Hoover SteamVac F7425-900 Shampooer Steamer. The winner got rejected due to security reasons. Your last bid price is taken into consideration. If you are interested to buy it please email me at myemailaddress@aol.com and include your name, address and eBay ID. Please contact me at myemailaddress@aol.com with your response, either yes or no."

It seemed too good to be true, but Robert contacted the "seller" anyway. Robert thanked him, stated that he did still want the steamer and agreed to pay using the "seller's" preferred payment method, Western Union. He sent him $185 through Western Union. 

You can guess where this story is going. Robert didn't get the steamer, and ended up losing his money.

Another common method a fraudster might use to lure people "off-eBay" is by including an email address in their listing, telling buyers to contact them directly for a "better deal."

If you're faced with a situation like Robert's here are some tips to avoid the errors of judgment that he made:

• Do not use Western Union for eBay items. You will NOT be protected. Western Union is not an accepted payment method on eBay because it is unsafe when paying someone you don't know.
  • Check out a really creative page our friends in eBay Australia have come up with for tips on how to spot fraudsters using Western Union to lure you into an unsafe transaction.

• Ask Seller a Question – Sellers, beware of buyers asking you to contact them about a transaction at a personal email address instead of using the Ask Seller a Question feature.
• Report off-eBay offers to us – Lastly, if you receive an offer to to buy or sell a listed item outside of eBay, let us know about it! Here's how to contact us to:
  • Report an outside offer from a seller
  • Report an outside offer from a buyer
• Confirm all Second Chance Offers in My Messages – In fact, make sure you check My Messages for ALL communications from your buyer or seller. If it's a genuine email, you should see a copy of it in My Messages.

Lastly I encourage you to take the Buying Safely tutorial and spend some time in our newly revamped Security Center. There are some great tips in there for both new and experienced buyers alike.

Fun Employee Collections: Meet Carebear Collector Laura

Hello again,

I wanted to introduce you to another employee here at our Vancouver office with a fun collection. Laura works in our Billing Department, and she is a passionate collector of Carebears!

Check out this video to watch Laura show off some of the most cherished carebears she has displayed at her desk (she has over 72 and has lost count), including her rare vintage "Seacrest Bear" from the UK, as well as her "America Cares" bear.

Fun Employee Collections: eBay Vancouver's "Sneaker Fiend", Trevor Wong

Hi There!

Greetings from the eBay Vancouver office. Here in Vancouver, the vast majority of our employees are  active on the eBay site, and like many of you, many of our employees have become big collectors.

I'd like to introduce you to Trevor Wong. Trevor works in our Trust & Safety Department. In his spare time,  he is a big collector... of Nike Shoes! Watch the video below to view (part of) his collection, and to learn how he waited about a year and a half to find a pair of shoes that was in just the right condition and for the right price. He finally won it after what he calls "a gruelling auction." Way to shop victoriously, Trevor!

Safety tip: "Passwords are like underwear...

...change yours often."

Did I get your attention? GOOD!

As the guy in charge of Trust & Safety messaging, you might say my job is an uphill battle.  Safety messages are, to be blunt, boring. (This is also one of the reasons why we're making our Security Center friendlier and more inviting.)

Most serious content on the vitally important subject of password security (including eBay's Help page, I'll admit) reads like mom's admonishment to "eat your vegetables" or "clean up your room." We roll our eyes and inwardly groan, "Not another litany about passwords...I know, mom! I KNOW!!"

We often feel like the messages are for someone else. We might even feel a bit patronized by them. "Of COURSE I use strong passwords, duh! My passwords are NOT my birthday, my pet's name, my favorite sports team, or the word 'password123,' so what could possibly go wrong?" we say.

Well, plenty.

We can thank the University of Wyoming for taking the subject of password security out of the realm of broccoli and room cleaning. Evidently someone there knows how to grab the attention of the notoriously capricious student mind. Heck, introduce underwear into the conversation – that time-honored, giggle-inducing topic we learn to love in kindergarten – and you make even the most apathetic of users sit up and read. We all are kids at heart, after all.

The picture is from U-Dub's brilliant page on Using Strong Passwords. Once you're done chuckling over the underwear analogies, you'll find that the information is pretty darn serious.

How fast can someone guess your password?
We all know that the bad guys behind phishing and identity theft scams are out to steal our passwords, but thinking that they're hunched over their computers trying out different combinations manually to arrive at our passwords is wrong.

These crooks write software programs that can "guess" passwords far more easily and quickly than you might think. Even desktop personal computers have now become powerful enough that they can process 100,000 encryption operations per second. And here's a sobering statistic: according to the University of Wyoming, if your password has 5 characters and uses only lower-case letters, it can be cracked in under 2 minutes. If it's 6 characters, it takes a bit longer, but it can still be cracked in under an hour!

The good news is that the longer and more complex your password is, the harder it gets for these rogue software programs to even come close to cracking it.

For instance, if you have an 8-character password that uses a combination of upper and lower case, it will take 17 years of computer processing to crack that password. If you add just one more character to your password, you're significantly upping the ante – the University of Wyoming says that it will take over 800 years to crack a 9 character password made up of upper and lower case letters. And if you throw numerals into the mix as well, the rogue programs will have to grind away even longer.

Is your password strong?
eBay has technology that detects whether your password is "strong" or not. If you have a password that our technology identifies as prone to being cracked by known patterns used by password-guessing tools, we present an additional layer of authentication to prevent your password from being broken. Remember how sometimes you see a combination of squiggly letters and numbers when you're signing in to your account? A password-guessing program can't recognize those characters, but a person – i.e. you – can. Despite this additional layer of protection, I'd still say that everyone should change their passwords often, at least every 30 to 60 days.

So here are some tips I urge you to use:

1. Read the University of Wyoming page and chuckle over the underwear references (or frown and say "Tsk! tsk!", if you're a mom).
2. Carefully read the serious information about creating a strong password.
3. Read eBay's Help page, as well.
4. Visit our remodeled and friendlier Security Center for more useful information on staying safe online.
5. Review all your passwords and change them frequently.

Otherwise, you may end up getting a password wedgie.

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!!

eBay Employees Compete in the eBayzing Race!

The eBay employees at our Vancouver Customer Support centre work 24/7 to support eBay members around the world in a number of areas. In order to give them a break and the chance to have a little fun now and then, we like to get a little creative. One annual event that is a crowd pleaser year after year for the Vancouver employees is our very own EBAYZING RACE!

No doubt you've heard of the popular reality TV show, The Amazing Race. Well, the eBayzing Race is basically a quirkier and more environmentally-friendly version of the hit show. This year was our third annual eBayzing Race and it has been touted as the biggest and best ever. Over 100 eBay employees clad in their brightest and best eBay colours raced against the clock to complete challenges throughout the city of Vancouver. Employees used environmentlaly-friendly modes of transportation to get around - they walked, ran, cycled and took public transportation all over the city in order to complete their tasks.

Along the way they were faced with 5 "roadblocks" at which they had to do everything from eat a lemon meringue pie with no utensils, play an impossible game of downhill bocce ball, make their way down a gigantic yellow waterslide, and much more. As you can imagine, things got pretty wild!

Check out a few photos from the eBayzing Race:

Employee Spotlight: Meet a real life spoof ninja!

Hi Everyone, sorry it’s been so long since I’ve last blogged. I’ve been pretty busy here in Vancouver and I’ve finally gotten back on track since the excitement and energy of eBay Live! in Boston. By the way, It was great meeting many of you in Boston. It was fun to meet some of you that had read a few of my blogs, face to face! Today I’m going to spotlight an employee here at our Vancouver Customer Support office – Jason Luu. Jason has a very unique job, we call him our “Spoof Ninja”. I sat down with Jason last week and interviewed him. He was thrilled, and very honored, to get to share a little bit about what he does with our loyal Chatter readers. Enjoy!

Julie Drossos: How long have worked for eBay?

Jason Luu: Wow! I was bamboozled when I checked my work records here, according to them, I've been here for roughly 1158 days (that’s roughly 3 years and 2 months). The root of my amazement isn't that I'm surprised to have been gainfully employed here for such a solid amount of time. On the contrary, it's more to do with the fact that it doesn't feel that I've been here for that long. The constant challenges presented to us here along with the rewards that come from meeting those challenges, really make every day here seem like a new day. Interestingly enough, according to those same records, it says that I'm a great performer and admired by many, so those records could have been tampered with.

JD: What areas have you worked in?

JL: I have had a very colorful career so far at eBay, having been introduced to many different work groups and fortunate enough to be involved in several important projects. I've been involved in Reactive Fraud, Spam/Spoof, Account Security, and, of course, Spoof Handling. Before working in the area I’m currently in (which is a job I LOVE), I have to say that my favorite department to date has been working in Account Security. It was like a roller coaster ride that never ended. Every day was interesting. 

JD: What is your job/role currently and what exactly does it entail?

JL: My current role at eBay is that of a Spoof Ninja (more formally known as a Spoof Handler)! You might be thinking that that sounds pretty crazy. And you'd be right! The governing principle behind my job is simple: to diligently protect you, our members, from phishing sites and maintain the integrity of the eBay site. The existence of phishing sites and fraudulent listings that manipulate users to visit a phishing site are serious issues. We treat such issues with a great deal of urgency. We play an instrumental role in monitoring phishing site trends and, by working very closely with ISPs and networks globally, getting these sites off the grid. It's a Ninja thing.

It’s Alive! Bringing the Creepy to Life

Greetings from SLC,

Perhaps no post is as fitting for Friday the 13th as this one. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, many of our SLC employees were avid eBay users long before they decided to join the company in an official capacity. One of these early eBayers, and now a member of the eBay Trust and Safety Account Management team, is Brandon Fox. Brandon discovered eBay early in 1999. At the time, like many of our Community, he had a niche business (for Brandon, an amazing talent for bringing the creepy to life) and was looking for the best way to get his product out there. He had contacted local retailers and even considered creating his own catalog. Luckily, he had just heard the buzz about eBay and decided to give it a try. Eight years later and his business is going strong. There he is to the right, working on one of his many creations.

eBay turned out to be the perfect fit for Brandon (eBay User ID: silentcreations) as he specializes in creating, ummm, unique, hand crafted, one of a kind items — “horror and oddities” in his own words. Things that you hope never haunt your worst nightmares (although the pictures of his creations below might). But for Brandon, the more terrifying the better.

“There was nothing like making that first sale. The first time you sell something it is the best feeling, the best win-dorphin. After that, I was hooked.”

So hooked in fact that Brandon jumped at the opportunity to join eBay in November of 2002 as a member of the Customer Support team. With his experience on eBay, Brandon has been able to help out a variety of other eBayers over the years in his Customer Support role.

Brandon definitely keeps busy. With his work at eBay assisting other Community members, as well as his efforts trying to keep his store stocked with severed limbs, skeletal remains, and rotting flesh, Brandon knows all to well that Halloween is only 7 short months away.