Why the hell does eBay know this?

[Izzy]

Re: Why the hell does eBay know this?

My mom signed up for wireless internet and they asked her all kinds of questions. Like what city she lived in 12 years ago.

[DJ_Swabber]

Re: Why the hell does eBay know this?

Sorry, Shayne... truth is, I didn't want to visit you.. I was taking measurements of your old house.. I work for eBay. D:
WTF.

[Ground_Breaker]

Re: Why the hell does eBay know this?

Acreage and square feet of your residence isn't creepy at all. If someone came up to me and said, "I know how many acres you have...and exactly how many square feet your residence consists of...I'm coming to kill you..." I wouldn't be put off in the slightest, even if they said it in a weird voice and waved their fingers around, because that's just retarded.

It's all public info that can be obtained quite easily.

[darkshark]

Re: Why the hell does eBay know this?

But why do they need it? Do they really need to ask you security questions that YOU don't even know?

[Ground_Breaker]

Re: Why the hell does eBay know this?

Because they were trying to verify that it was actually you. That would probably be the part where the guy said, "When an unrecognized computer is used for selling, we are prompting members to complete the Identity Confirmation process." I doubt anyone but you and whatever agency collected the information and gave it to eBay knows the acreage and square feet of your residence, so that would be a pretty good way to find out if you're really who you say you are, assuming all they're going off of is info about your residence.

[MalDON]

Re: Why the hell does eBay know this?

Actually I have an explanation for this....


They don't actually know the number. Identity verification processes often times will give you multiple choices that they can cross reference. Asking which county you live in is very typical. If you sign up for a band account online they make you go through this process. Although it's a little worse since it goes something like:

"In the last month you have charged over $5,000 dollars. How much have you paid off:"

They just want to make sure you are not an automated script trying to grab any account it can. In ebay's case, they probably take it a step further and validate your answers against publicly available information. It also can help out later if you end up with your account stolen. If someone said your last house was 1 story, when in fact it was two, a judge can look that up.