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Question about answering emails.
 

If you have say 3 ebay and paypal accounts setup on different user accounts, is it safe to check all your emails from one user account as long as you don't log into any ebay or paypal accounts from that user account and just use it to check the emails?

Also is it safe to forward all the emails to one single gmail account?

I am using NetZero dial up for my ebay and paypal accounts and they are extremely slow and it's very hard to get anything done. I also have broadband that I use for everything else. Is it just Net Zero that's so slow or are they all that bad?

I was thinking of using turbolister before I read ebay stealth. I looked into Auctiva and apparently they are charging for their services now.

Thanks

Yes. People here are saying that they found out that ebay and paypal know when you sign into your email accounts even if you don't click any of their messages. What I would do is just sign into each of the emails using a proxy. Easier and less hassle.

Woah, wouldnt that be an invasion of privacy or something? Getting someones details before they click.

cant be thats impossible and so illegal...

I don't think eBay would know you online when you just sign into your email account. But I think you are talking about eBay tracking through emails.

One of the ways eBay uses to track is Cookies. Cookie is not a program. It is simple text file, containing user information, created by a website and stored on a user's computer. When the user visits the website, the cookie allows the website to retrieve information about the user's previous visit to the website.

This is how eBay cookie works:

1. You type in eBay sign in page, eBay item link, or click to respond an eBay email message. The browser you are using will then send a message to eBay's server, asking it for its web page.
2. While the browser is "talking" to eBay's server, it is also looking on your computer for any cookie files that eBay has placed there. If it finds any eBay cookie files, it will send the IDs of the files to eBay's server.
3. Next, eBay will respond to your server in one of two ways:
1. If your server did not send any cookies because you did not have any, the server will think that you have not visited eBay before.
-The eBay server will create an ID for you (and keep a matching one) and send it back to your computer in the answer to your server.
-Your computer will store it on your hard disk. This is the cookie data.
2. If your server did send some eBay cookie files, because you have visited eBay in the past and it has deposited cookies on your computer, eBay will match the ID of the cookies with the ID of your data stored at eBay.

Hope this helps clear some confusion.

The consensus is if you do not display the images you are fine... said with a 90% certainty.

A few months ago, in may, there was a bug where images were automatically displayed (whereas usually, they're disabled by default) and this caused some worrying for some.

As it is it works fine. I use netvibe to monitor the accounts. I have many... this way I know if one gets limited or requires my attention, in case eBAY tried to call or something, the faster you take care of things the better. I only log on the account themselves if I need to read a mail, and I'll usually do it on my main user account with my main IP...however some believe even this is dangerous. Some have bigger tinfoil hats than other... mine is average-sized! Averaged-size... isn't that what all guys say? :bounce:

All dial ups are slow.. I also have different Ebay accounts and different email I log into and even read email that came from Ebay, but I never open any emages and if I have to respond (like there was a question from a buyer) than I go to my dial up, user account, Ebay account and respond through Ebay account email. Worked for me for years now and was not linked.

i log into my accounts all the time from one computer/user. I log into the email to see if I got any questions. I dont click them though. Ebay will not know if you log into your account. They will however if you click on the emails and can link you that way

Hang on lets get this right!

I have 3 email accounts, 1 is for a suspended account the other is for personal and the other is for an ebay account i use which isnt suspended. I go onto them and check emails and click onto the messages but never actually log onto ebay or paypal via this way, its just really to check if payments have gone through and if anything has sold.

So we reckon Paypal and Ebay can link us this way? Surely not. They can link when you click through the email but i cant see them linking you for just looking at the email!

I have had no problems as yet from doing this anyway.

I think you are fine by just opening email and reading what is available to read and not clicking on anything in body of this emails and not responding to anything from your Broadband user account.. This way you can use your Broadband to read emails attached to Stealth Ebay/PayPal acounts and this saves you quite a few dial up log ins. Only when you have to respond to an email from Ebay or PayPal should you log into your user account via dial up.

Gmail has a very good feature of disabling IMGs from display inside the email body. I use ONE Gmail account to READ(ONLY) forwarded eBay Paypal emails from all my other Gmail accounts.

Reply eBay messages through eBay email system is another story of course...

Good point Bluemoon. I believe there was a glich or something with Gmail accounts not so long ago, when all of the emages were opening in emails, so everone panicked. But I don't think it caused any seriours damage though....

ebay and paypal can and DO put tracking in emails. You don't have to be logged in to ebay or paypal for the tracking to work. Emails can contain beacons, images, set and/or read cookies, embedded flash, clear.gif, etc.

Stop thinking small. Just because a user isn't aware or doesn't believe something is possible, does NOT mean it is impossible. You may have the opinion that something is illegal just because it seems wrong - but that doesn't mean there really is any law preventing whatever.

Check your mail with the same caution you observe when actually logging into PP or eBay. Make no assumptions. Forget right, wrong, morality, ethics, or any other superstition.

BE CAREFUL ALL THE TIME AND ALWAYS ASSUME THE WORST BECAUSE IT PROBABLY IS THAT BAD.

Or be a know-it-all and we'll see you back here soon.

Well put vicvelcro! I think I'll take that advice.

I clear my cookies.
turn pictures off on my browser, java off, flash blocked, but javascript on
Then I log into a yahoo account or hotmail account, even ones that never got emails from ebay
Usually I'll suddenly find a new ebay cookie appear.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Yep, they're getting very insidious about how they weasel their tracking devices into a user PC.

A few months ago when Gmail glitched by showing images when user settings were config'd to disable images - I knew something was 'up'. I figured it went beyond Gmail. I figured the Gmail glitch wasn't Gmail's fault, but instead caused by some new gimmick being implemented at the ebay and paypal end. Gmail choked on something it had never anticipated and thus got torqued out of whack.

Thanks for the info you posted. Seems trivial on the face, however it is anything BUT trivial.

It's also very easy to keep track of all your email accounts using Netvibes. Don't actually click on the emails, but you can easily watch them come in and see who they're from.