Wow, they told you all that crap? That is so sad.

Hi Bill, LTNS. It's always good to see you here.

Here are a few quotes:

05:25:08 PM billslongbows
What happened to the dedicated ATO people that used to be here on chat?
05:27:47 PM Roberta
I can tell you that eBay has now made a specific department who will proactively work on this account. Unfortunately, we are not able to take action on this account you are reporting if you don't have a transaction with this member.

...

05:44:03 PM billslongbows
If you haven't locked the account, you should probably do so. Otherwise, the scammer is likely to just add more.
05:50:59 PM Roberta
The necessary actions such as having the items ended and the restriction to be put through will be done automatically by our tools.

...

05:51:22 PM billslongbows
How long will that take?
05:52:07 PM billslongbows
So far, the 213 items are stil there.
05:52:26 PM Roberta
It usually takes a couple of hours

...

05:54:36 PM billslongbows
Agents used to be able to get the listings removed immediately and I was able to watch them go away. If it now takes a couple of hours, that is a major step backwards in user protection.
05:58:50 PM Roberta
I can tell you that there have been changes on eBay since back the year you have last reported a member. We had workflow changes and there were changes made in our tools. Due to this, we are not able to manually remove items anymore. Our tools decides and ends the item automatically for us. This way, we will not accidentally remove legitimate listings and bids.

...

So, the usefulness of the non-affected person reporting an ATO is essentially zero.

In another part of the communication, I was told that the email route for a non-involved person would take about 24 hours. Not much use when such listings are typically for 1 day. All that allows ebay to do is hide evidence of the fraud by removing the listings after they already closed. It does nothing to protect people that might fall for the scam.

If everyone would get the PayPal security key ATOs would be few and far between.

because it would "inconvenience the user"

I think eBay fears people will lose or misplace their key then just permanently stop using eBay rather than hassle with getting another key.

> IT is good to see this concerned member back on the boards. Your posts have been missed.

Thank you for the kind words.

>> I have been after ebay to make the security key mandatory for all users - to no avail. They claim it is because it would "inconvenience the user", but I don't believe that. There has to be some other reason that I cannot fathom.

> IT would inconvenience ebay's bottom line. The cost would be a big hit to expenditures. Having the SKs would mean having to educate the members in how to use them. ebay has never been good at educating anyone about anything.

It would cost little to implement - the process is already active for those with keys. The savings in not having to deal with ATOs, and there are hundreds of them every day, would save a lot of administrative time. Getting rid of those scammers would mean buyers would trust ebay more than they do now.

There is little education required, the software prompts the person for the one time key value. The security key is one of the few things that seems to work on ebay without any hitches.

One key protects both the ebay account and paypal account. I understand that the same key can also be used on multiple accounts, but I have not verified that information. I know I can use the same key with my bank's security system.

I think you misspelled "fools".

No, I don't think so.