Why doesn't Ebay delete you old Email address, as they are legally obliged to do - from selling list

[kenjen62]

I changed my Email address with Ebay and Paypal as I was moving to another ISP, sold an item the other day only to find that payment has been attributed to my old Email address and I cannot access the payment - upon contacting paypal the answer was to reinstate the old Email address - and bizarely they couldnt understand why I didnt want a now defunct (and probably reassigned - as it was an early common name address) email address reinstated to the account and denied they had a responsibility to remove account details, that are no longer required, under GDPR regulation - there is no complaints procedure and if you try asking them about the financial ombudsman you will find that, according to their advisors they are not part of Ebay and not regulated by the financial services authority.

I am sure this must have happened to others and would be interested to know where this held cash (in my account regardless of the now uused email address) ends up.

[pixiesen2012 · Accepted solution]

ebay do delete the old email address from their records when you change it to a new one

but when you change your email address it is up to you to revise any live listings and remove the old address and insert the new one

also, when you create a listing you have to change the email for payment yourself, as it is autofilled with the previously used address,

if you don't change it, and can no longer access the email address the money is returned to the buyer after 30 days, or the buyer can cancel the transaction through their paypal account

you need to contact the buyers and apologise, ask them to cancel the payments, then you can send them a paypal invoice for the money.

[kenjen62 · Accepted solution]

Cheers - a lot more informative than speaking to Paypal's customer support - I had changed my email address well before selling the item, cant see any reason for the old email address autofilling into the Payment option -- not bothered about the money - I was selling for a clear out just didn't want PayPal or Ebay profiting from what is clearly an issue with their processes.