eBay is disabling the direct-messaging feature on its discussion boards because of scam emails that it said were very effective in tricking users. eBay published an announcement on the Selling discussion board to warn sellers on Tuesday (September 1, 2026). (It only impacts the community section of eBay and is unrelated to messaging between buyers and sellers.)
"We're seeing an increase in Direct Messages with phishing attempts targeting users on community.ebay.com," eBay wrote. "Due to this, we have temporarily disabled private messaging on Community to protect our members. Some of these DMs are very difficult to identify as phishing attempts."
eBay offered advice to sellers, warning them not to grant anyone access to their eBay accounts and to be careful about clicking on links and entering confidential information on external websites. It also directed sellers to its Recognizing Phishing Emails and Phone Calls help page.
Sellers discussed the problem on the forums, with some sharing one of the direct messages they received purporting to be from eBay's security team, but in fact a phishing email that conveyed a sense-of-urgency, a hallmark feature of scams:
Subject: [Action Required] Account Verification: 24-Hour Deadline
Our systems have flagged your eBay account for a mandatory security verification. This is a standard sweep to align with our updated platform protocols.
Process is non-negotiable. Here is your secure verification path:
For transparency, the unique verification gateway assigned to your session is:
Verify
Timeline & Status:
You have 24 hours to complete this verification from the timestamp of this message. Failure to comply will result in the temporary suspension of transactional privileges (buying/selling) until the process is completed.
The integrity of the marketplace is a shared duty. Fulfill your part.
The eBay Security Team
A seller who
shared the above DM said they were suspicious because it came to them on the discussion boards - "I'm going to assume this is a phishing expedition since I didn't get it in my eBay selling in box or my email account tied to my seller account," they said.
Amazon is not immune from phishing problems either. In a
blog post on Wednesday (September 2, 2026), it offered the following advice for buyers dealing with suspicious messages, emails, phone calls, or texts:
"Amazon is making it easier to tell the difference between real messages from the company and fake ones from scammers. Every year, 360,000 customers contact Amazon customer service with the same question: "Is this message from Amazon real?" Now, customers can simply ask Alexa for Shopping, the world's best, most personalized AI assistant for shopping, whether a message, email, phone call, or text they received came from Amazon."
Can marketplaces deploy AI to prevent phishing messages from getting through in the first place? The downside to consider is the risk of legitimate messages getting mislabeled as scams and never getting through to the intended recipient.
Let us know if being unable to DM people on the eBay discussion boards is a minor inconvenience or a big deal.
eBay Disables DMs to Thwart Scammers