posted on November 2, 2000 10:52:53 AM
I have two different email addresses I use on eBay (one for buying and one for selling), but I send all my email from only one of those addresses. I've been doing this for a while now. Today, I received a question from a seller asking why there were two different addresses. This is the first time anybody has commented on this. I have never really paid much attention to the addresses on the email I receive, and I got to wondering... Does anybody else compare the "send to" and "received from" addresses on their email? Should I start?
posted on November 2, 2000 11:25:36 AM
Good point...I do check, because some Mail might be sent from Work, but may prefer to receive answers to Home addy.
******************** Shosh
posted on November 2, 2000 11:46:58 AM
I keep a paper record for each auction and always make notes of any e-mail I receive from winners. At the same time, I always check to see if the e-mail address is the same. If not, I jot down the new e-mail address. That way, if there are any problems with the transaction later on, I am more likely to be able to reach the buyer quickly.
Sometimes people change ISP's and, if only casual buyers on eBay, forget to update their user information.
If am e-mailing the buyer back for some reason, and e-mail names are totallly different (e.g. one is a company name, the other a personal name) I sometimes send the e-mail to both addresses.
posted on November 2, 2000 11:55:46 AM
When I sell, I send email using eBud, which gets the address from eBay. When I buy, I always "reply" to the seller's message. In each case, I never really have to think about the email addresses involved.
Both of my email addresses (buying and selling) go to the same inbox, but I guess there is no way for the sender to know that.
posted on November 2, 2000 11:55:55 AM
I would say it is very important. How do you know the email is from the winning party or from the seller. I once got an email to mail payment to a name and PO BOX. When I noticed the different email, I checked. It was NOT from the seller, but from a third party in a different area of the US. I wonder how many the person tried this with and succeeded in having $ sent to a fake name and PO Box.
posted on November 2, 2000 12:05:02 PMHow do you know the email is from the winning party or from the seller.
I never thought about that. Fortunately, most of the things I'm dealing with are relatively inexpensive, and there doesn't seem to be much trouble in the area I usually buy and sell in (NPB's, misrepresented items, etc.).
I'd suspect that anybody trying to fool someone by posing as the buyer/seller would most likely focus on higher dollar items. Maybe not, though- I suppose you never can tell.
posted on November 2, 2000 01:02:24 PM
I've run into this recently as a buyer and a seller.
Buyer story is: I won a digital camera on eBay and the seller wrote to me from a different (not eBay's user ID address) e-mail addy asking for me to send money here XXX or PayPal me here XXX (a THIRD) email addy.
For that much money, I wanted to be sure I was PayPalling the right guy, so I asked that he contact me from the address matching his eBay user ID. He did, it was the same guy (addy was at his workplace), no problems, the seller was very patient with me and did write to me from the eBay address. I got my camera and everything was cool. But I could see how it would have been really easy for someone else to jump in and write to me hoping I would PayPal immediately without thinking it through. And I almost did!
Seller story is about the same, I won't repeat it all, but basically someone could jump in with first contact, snag the items, and I might never even contact the actual winner (thinking I already had). By the time the real winner contacted me to find out what the heck was going on, the item could have been shipped already.
posted on November 2, 2000 01:10:26 PM
I won an auction yesterday and the seller's email address was entirely different than the one I received requesting my shipping info. I had already contacted the seller w/ my name/address, but the email I received, the seller requested my zip which I thought was strange since I had sent that info earlier in the day. I feel uncomfortable sending payment to an email address that is different from what was listed in the auction. Wish people wouldn't do that.
posted on November 2, 2000 01:25:21 PM
When I sell, I send all email out using eBud, so even if another person tried to pose as the buyer, the real buyer would still be getting email from me. I suppose I should double-check from now on though, just to be sure.
When I'm buying, if the seller is the first to make contact, I'll "reply" to their message, and even though the outgoing mail has a different address, the email message contains a copy of what the seller wrote, which would indicate that I really am the correct buyer.
It appears the opportunity for confusion is when I contact the seller first. The way my email works, there are two addresses for my email account, but only one of them shows up on the email I send, so the seller would be seeing the email as coming from my selling (not buying) address.
posted on November 2, 2000 01:38:18 PM
When I buy I make SURE that the invoice email addy is that of the seller. There was quite a scam going about a year or so ago when rip off artists would pose as the seller and ask the high bidder to send $ to a PO box (not the real sellers).
posted on November 2, 2000 01:42:58 PM
Geeze Louise- it's too bad people won't put as much effort into figuring out how to make an honest living as they will trying to cheat somebody.
posted on November 2, 2000 02:02:59 PM
If you wish, you can put your name (or your company's name) on both of your email accounts. This way the recipient never sees your email address at all, just your name, and therefore will never know which account the email came from.
posted on November 2, 2000 02:14:01 PMIf you wish, you can put your name (or your company's name) on both of your email accounts.
Actually, I only have one email account, with two addresses.
I'm not sure how different email readers work, but I'm using Outlook Express, and I have my real name in the "From" field for all messages I send. When I receive email, usually I'll see the name of the sender in the "From" field, and if I double-click on the name, it shows the email address of the sender. In my case, it would show my selling address, not my buying address.
posted on November 2, 2000 03:42:41 PM
Right click on any email and then click properties, you can then see where any email has come from, IP, and their email address if it just shows a name. Heather
posted on November 2, 2000 04:33:01 PM
Yes, you're right.
I guess what I was trying to say is the original problem I had with the seller I wrote to is that although I can receive email addressed to me at [email protected]or[email protected], I can only send email out identifying me as [email protected] I cannot send email out with the [email protected] address.
The seller obtained the [email protected] address from eBay, but before he wrote to me, I sent him a message, which shows my address as [email protected], and he was concerned about the discrepancy.
I don't know if that helps any- I think I'm confusing myself, now.
