My friends: I have a dumb question, but I've never had to do this before...

Jun 25, 2008
19,665
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As a seller, how do I get access to a potential buyer's email address/contact info? As a buyer, I've had sellers respond to my personal email address even though it was blocked in the message I sent through the e`bay email system and I never gave them the address. How did they do this? :shrugs: (Please forgive me if this is a lame question. I've just never looked into it before.) Thanks!
 
I guess it depends on how you have your email notifications set up. I have mine set up so that when I get a message on ebay, it sends an email to my hotmail address. When I get the email in my hotmail address, it lists the sender's personal email address in the sender's field. (Unless they checked off "hide my email address"). Hope that helps!
 
Isn't it getting sent to the personal email through ebay? It's not really directly coming from the seller, so they still don't get access to your email add if you blocked it. Does that make sense?
 
Thanks for responding. I know what you mean, but in my case the emails are coming directly from the seller's personal email to my personal email and NOT going through the duplicate e.bay emails we get whenever we leave or get messages from people while on e`bay. I always hit the "hide my email..." --always-- when asking questions about an item. When I want photos, I give out my email to that specific seller. Yet, several time now, sellers have responded to emails I've sent while on e.bay (from the "ask seller a question" page) by sending me an email directly to my personal address instead of just replying to the e`bay email.

]ETA: Nevermind, you're right! My (and everyone else's) personal email does show up on the notices/duplicate emails e`bay sends to our personal emails. So if I "ask the seller a question..." while on e`bay, and this person receives a notice that he/she has received a message from such and such along with a duplicate of it, he/she can see the email address of the sender. How dumb is that? What in the world is the point of having a "hide my email" box if the email will show up anyway on the message notice? What way is that to protect our privacy? .
 
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I think that maybe the seller checks their regular mail (e.g. yahoo, hotmail) and saw the question and hit reply from their regular mail so that it goes to your regular mail instead of responding/signing into eBay then answer. To get buyer's contact info you need to go to advanced search (next to search tab on top of every page) then on the left hand of the page under MEMBERS click on the find contact info. you'll need to know the buyer's id and the auction item number you are trading. then ebay will e-mail you the buyer's contact info (phone #, address, etc)


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They may have contacted someone you have done business with. Is there something they are trying to do that is suspect?

Nope. They just send a message to my personal email instead of replying to the e`bay email I sent. Most of the time the ones who do this are sellers who recent my (politely) asking about the condition of the item and/or for additional pictures (if they have them), and get a bit nasty about it. I guess they don't want their replies to be on e`bay's system.
 
I think that maybe the seller checks their regular mail (e.g. yahoo, hotmail) and saw the question and hit reply from their regular mail so that it goes to your regular mail instead of responding/signing into eBay then answer. To get buyer's contact info you need to go to advanced search (next to search tab on top of every page) then on the left hand of the page under MEMBERS click on the find contact info. you'll need to know the buyer's id and the auction item number you are trading. then ebay will e-mail you the buyer's contact info (phone #, address, etc)

Thanks so much for this info! Now I know.

I still don't understand why fleabay offers a "hide my email" check-box option when sending a question to a seller, if the seller is going to see the buyer's email anyway in the "you've received a message..." notice fleabay send's to the seller's personal email. How can fleabay offer an option to hide an email and then provide that email? That's a fraud; it's giving the buyer a false sense of security. Is it possible that no one at fleabay has noticed this? I doubt it. Why don't they do something about it? :shrugs:
 
If the option is checked, your e-mail should not show. Maybe with those that are friendly, you could ask. IF the system is broke, eBay needs to know it ad fix it.

eBay has said that they are going to take away that option all together and hide all e-mails. Maybe that is why, it's broke.

I get about 30% of my e-mails that have the address blocked, so I know it works some times but....

If you want to get the nasty e-mails back on the system, copy and paste it as a reference when responding THROUGh the eBay system. Make sure you save the original so if eBay ever asks, you can show them.

Before I do that, I would probably block them as a buyer and explain in your e-mail that you do not wish to continue the discussion if it is going to be unnecessarily hateful. Most confrontational buyers quiet down with a calm response, but I do not know the specifics of your communications, so.....
 
I usually reply to the buyers through my regular e-mail instead of logging into *bay. but I've noticed that sometimes when i hit the reply button i'll see the buyer's e-mail and sometimes i get the generic email address: [email protected] and that means i would have to log in to reply to the buyer. so i'm sure the privacy button must work for some people. i just don't know how to make sure it works for you.
 
Thanks for the advice eBayguy. I ALWAYS check the box--always without fail. The email address may not show (as it's hidden) in the e`bay email the seller gets (as you say you've seen 30% of the time), but it shows on top of every duplicate email the seller or buyer gets at his/her email address when e`bay mails them the "you've received a message..." E`bay needs to fix this pronto. Given the scam epidemic on its marketplace and what anyone can do with an email address nowadays, it is beyond my comprehension how e`bay has neglected to fix this. Most ebayers set up their My Ebay options to receive email notifications at their personal emails, so that means that most people can see each other's emails on this notifications regardless of the "hide my email" option check-box. I'm much less concerned about the nature of the messages as I am of the fact that anyone I send an email through e`bay who gets a notification and duplicat at his/her personal email address can see my email address because e`bay puts it there for no reason.
 
I usually reply to the buyers through my regular e-mail instead of logging into *bay. but I've noticed that sometimes when i hit the reply button i'll see the buyer's e-mail and sometimes i get the generic email address: [email protected] and that means i would have to log in to reply to the buyer. so i'm sure the privacy button must work for some people. i just don't know how to make sure it works for you.


Hi there! If you are able to reply from you regular email address, it means you're getting notified whenever you receive emails at My e`bay from other ebayers. Look at the very top of the message you got at your personal email addess, at the "to" and "from" area. You should see the following:
From: "e`bay user id here" (member@e`bay.com)
Sent: with the date and time
Reply to: the email address of the person who sent you the email at e`bay
To: your personal email address.

The Reply-to info should be hidden if the person checked the "hide my email box," shouldn't it? But it isn't.