I have a selling account, had it for 20 years, ..eBay now want Photo ID?

[j-r-hartley]

Had an selling account for 20 years (this isnt it) I'm a UK seller,  haven't sold a great deal, feedback is still under 1000,  last year after about a year of not using the account I started to sell again, not a lot but eBay first treated me like I hadn't been a member for 20 years and insisted on holding some of the sales (low value s/h items) until I confirmed my bank account (which i'd done a couple of years prior). they wanted to send me a certain amount and I was to confirm etc, they also restricted the value of the items I could sell so I had to ask them via live chat to up the limits or a car I was selling would not list etc, in the end after a few sales things seemed to correct themselves and I was paid straight away for items>

Roll on to may 2024, I've sold a few items over the months, in the last 2 weeks i've sold an item at £225 and one at £125, both collection only, both items have had no problems and i have a couple more items listed. Not electrical goods or high value items etc.  just normal stuff, some new and unused, most second hand and used etc

So today I logged on, I get a pop up stating they wanted me to ID myself, this would be in the form of a driving licence, passport or govt ID...and oh by the way any transactions are held until I comply?   

I don't sell high value / high risk items, I have 100% feedback,  I've had zero returns , my bank account is verified, they have my email address (verified with them some time ago, they send me emails re items listed or sold, email has notnot changed) they send me texts to my phone re delivery notices if i've bought something to collect, my physical address has not changed in all the time i've had the selling account.

and now they want the ID from me, no warning, no time schedule to complete but simply comply and until I do any funds are to be held over.

Furthermore, they want the ID but don't actually tell me where it will be stored, who will have access to it and such like all of which seems very wrong.

Anyone else had this?

[hermione08]

Showing ID to vote and uploading it online onto a website like eBay are two  very different things. Ever heard of ID theft??????  

[patay-9714]

its all part of a wider pattern of identity harvesting and the coming digital ID that I do not want , harassing small sellers to provide photo ID is an agenda issue , however as is always the case they have to pretend that this over reach is something to do with 'protecting ' us , I have several items i wish to sell but I just cant bring myself to use ebay , its a bit like the totally unwanted AI they pushed into whatsapp , it was not needed or asked for and just takes up extra space , i dont want AI on my chat messaging but they just do it and ignore the feedback , be wary when they claim they want to protect us, its exactly the opposite and data theft is now rampant , I am sick of giving all my personal data to every Tom, *bleep* and Harry but really its becoming almost impossible to live a normal life as these corporations will not take no for an answer and are all colluding as a cartel 

[hermione08]

They have actually bleeped the name *D*i*c*k*, as in the diminutive of Richard, this is what AI means. No human behind it to distinguish an insult from a first name. And they claim they can protect us from data theft, how? You just need an intelligent human to beat AI, which at this stage is extremely likely. I loathe new technology because it's deployed at random (and only to save money, since humans require payment unlike AI). Anyway, eBay should have warned people first. They sent me an email regarding transferring my payout and two seconds later one telling me I needed to provide ID or the funds will be frozen. I will use that money to buy stuff, but I'll think twice before selling on eBay again.

[patay-9714]

th Bleep in my reply was a mans name , this is so stupid , i typed the mans name and the stupid AI changed it to bleep , this is why I do not accept AI 

[patay-9714]

bleep Emery, Bleep Van Dycke etc , AI us intrustworthy , stupid and unreliable , Tom Bleep and Harry , can I type Fanny Craddock , Willy Rushton or Johnny Weismuller lol 

[patay-9714]

you can use the money to buy stuff but not to get the money transferred , make it make sense !!!! 

[theelench]

As someone from amazon once said, I'm probably paraphrasing but you get the idea "We're a data gathering site that just happens to sell books".

Same as ebay, another data gathering site that, once in a blue moon allows private sellers to sell the occasional item.

Gradually ebay finds one excuse or another to get sellers to hand over photo-I.D, next time it will be your NINO.

I recently changed my lap-top and had to go through the "let's check it's you" rigamarole when I tried to log-in.  First this, then that to verify who I was, got to the "We'll send you a text" but the phone (number unchanged for years) didn't ring.   I thought "sod it then", if I'm locked out of my ebay account do I really care??

One last try later in the day and yes, the phone does ring, I enter the code and I'm OK again.  Still me, still verified, still no threat to the community or ebay.  WITHOUT giving  photo I.D or my NINO.

Ebay has;

my name 

address

date of birth

phone number

bank account number

a debit card number

And that's quite enough to 'keep the community and site safe'.  They won't be getting any more because I want something in reserve to (possibly) keep myself safe.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Not to decry your valid concerns over AI - of which there are of course loads - Identifying potential foul language in this way is not AI. in fact, AI would help because it could infer the context.

Its simply doing a find and replace on a list of words ebay would have stored in the forum programming (which would have in fact been setup by a human). You can easily fool it as the poster above has done by putting * in between the words. They could do an exception to not star the word if found within the term Tom, and Harry, but of course that's more programming than you'd really need to do - and its probably not that likely an occurrance.

[hermione08]

Not AI then but not a human either. The point is greed is as per usual interfering negatively in our lives through technology. When it comes to eBay though, this excessive and inappropriate use of tech is actually reducing their revenues as people migrate to other platforms (like Vinted). You do it to yourself, as the song goes...

[hermione08]

They want to keep your money not to give it to you. In order to keep it, they'll invent all kinds of nonsense...

[indiekiduk]

I also have a 20 year old account or so. I made a very slight edit to the formatting of my registered address and now have been threatened my payments will be withheld if I don't upload photo ID. Of course it didn't say how long they would store the ID photo for and if it will be shared with 3rd party service.

[patay-9714]

yes i tried to remove an old bank card as a payment option and that seemed to trigger a demand for photo ID , i wonder if ebay are insured against loss of ID as its very dangerous and unnecessary for hundreds of millions of people to send sensitive documentation to a trading site , data loss is guaranteed and there is absolutely no guarantee that the company storing our data is trustworthy , its almost certainly being held overseas , this is an accident waiting to happen , my home address and ID match my banking details so surely thats enough , maybe some additional controls can be set for high value items but not for low value household items and bicycles etc , This is over reach but I can guarantee you they wont listen, my only hope is that maybe a major loss of revenue will encourage them to do the right thing but I doubt it , aggessive and threatening data demands are now the norm and are being encouraged by governments, hence the undemocratic and unwanted national ID taht will be a safety nightmare and its full steam ahead to 1984

[papso22]

It's part of Ebay's responsibility under the Money Laundering regulations.  It's called KYC as in Know Your Customer.

If you don't provide it you won't be able to continue selling and they may freeze your funds. 

[indiekiduk]

Yep but it's a lazy implementation of KYC that gives users unnecessary stress and could potentially cost ebay some users. A simple improvement would be, "are you sure you want to make this change? You will now be required to upload photo ID if you do. The photo of the ID will be deleted after it is checked".

[patay-9714]

some one is claiming that KYC should apply to everybody , there is absolutely no genuine reason why small sellers need to be accused of being involved in crimninal activity , i also dont understand why these sick policies need to be rolled out worldwide 

[patay-9714]

please note that ebay pay people in India to monitor our content