eBay is updating its privacy policy, effective next month (2025-04-27). The major change is a new section about AI processing, accompanied by a new user setting with an opt-out checkbox for having your personal data feed their models.

While that page specifically references European areas, the privacy selection appears to be active and remembered between visits for non-Europe customers. It may not do anything for us at all. On the other hand, it seems nearly impossible to find that page from within account settings, so I thought I'd post a direct link.

I'm well aware that I'm anomalous for having read this to begin with, much less diffed it against the previous version. But since I already know that I'm weird, and this wouldn't be much of a discussion post without questions:

• How do you stay up to date with contract changes that might affect you, outside of widespread Internet outrage (such as recent Firefox news)?
• What's your threshold -- if any -- for deciding whether to quit a company over contract changes? Alternatively, have you ever walked away from a purchase, service, or other acquisition over the terms of the contracts?

I've used eBay for many years. It seems to me their support is just getting worse and worse, and their buying experience is beyond confusing.

Most recently, I've been getting an invoice for items that I never committed to buy, I merely asked the seller if combined shipping was a possibility on these items. eBay support first told me that I made a bid on the items. I responded that is incorrect because the items weren't even up for auction, it was a fixed price. They responded with "oh sorry, I see you did not bid, but you did send an offer and if the seller accepts, you must pay the amount". But I never sent any monetary offer, I didn't even request a shipping price.

This is the most recent of a few experiences that just seem beyond confusing to me. Is anyone else having these kind of experiences?

Today I got an email from ebay.

It says:

We wanted to let you know that your eBay account has been permanently suspended because of activity that we believe was putting the eBay community at risk...

Well this is weird because I don't use ebay. I sold some things there over 10 years ago. Since then I may have logged in once or twice. Maybe I reset my password a few years ago to make it more secure. So I couldn't have violated any of their policies.

This is a concern to me because I assume someone has been using my account. I assume they have been logging into it and scamming other people. And the account is linked to my email so the scammer has that. So I don't know if someone found out my address info, credit card, or something else. But I can't login to ebay and change my email or check account history because my account is suspended.

So I contacted customer support and they replied a few hours later that I'm banned for life and the reason can't be told to me.

By the way, I did not reply to the original email or click any links in it. I went directly to the ebay site and contacted customer support through that. I'm sure it wasn't a phishing attempt, it's really ebay and they really banned my account (which I haven't been using).

Any suggestions? In my opinion eBay has not used proper security and is exposing me to risk by not giving more information about what has happened.

Mods: I put this in Tech because Amazon is a tech company, if this is the wrong group I apologize.

For the last several purchases I have made through Amazon, not only has the advertised "expected delivery date" been wrong, Amazon hasn't even shipped the product by the delivery date. The day I expect an order to arrive, I get a notice from Amazon saying it's "running late" and the new expected delivery date is anywhere from 4 to 10 days away.

This is on top of the fact that I have Amazon Prime. Prime eligible meant "it would be delivered within two days" for the better part of a decade. They slowly transitioned away from that to "two days delivery after it ships," and now it seems like half of everything takes 5-8 days to deliver, even with Prime.

Anyway, the reason I reported them to the FTC because I believe they are advertising misleading or downright incorrect delivery times in hopes of winning your business over a competitor who is honest about their delivery times. If I want a monitor and Best Buy has it for $200 with 3-5 day shipping, and Amazon advertises it being delivered on day 3, I'm probably going to go with Amazon if I'm in urgent need of a monitor. But then the third day rolls around and Amazon indicates "oh, well, it's probably going to be 3-4 more days." If I had known that, I would have just gone with Best Buy, where I know it would have at least been delivered in 5 days; now I'm stuck waiting a week for Amazon.

I don't even know if this is something the FTC cares about. But it should. I encourage everyone to report this if they've encountered the same issue.

OK, so this is kind of a weird question, but has anyone here ordered a USB cable recently, and if so, how long did it take to arrive? I ordered a 3 meter USB A male to USB A male cable on June 27th from NewEgg, who have been fairly reliable in the past. I got an email later that day or the next saying the shipping label had been printed. So I thought, OK, it will go out in the next day or two. It still hasn’t shipped. After about 2 weeks of waiting, I ordered another one from B&H Photo. It also hasn’t arrived yet. I know there is a global chip shortage. Would that affect cabling too? It just seems odd that it’s taking so long to get a single USB cable. Anyone else experience this or am I just unlucky this month?