The eBay Toolbar is a helpful tool to keep track of your buying and selling activities. For more information about and to download it for free, go to the eBay Toolbar Home page.

Why Account Guard is important

The eBay Toolbar includes Account Guard to help you protect your eBay account information. One of the biggest threats to the security of your eBay account and your identity is fraudulent email and websites, which we refer to as "spoof". Both are used to obtain personal and account information. To help protect our members against this threat, we've adopted a comprehensive strategy including the development technology solutions such as Account Guard, community vigilance, and member education about spoof email and spoof websites.

Security Protection Benefits of Account Guard

These key Account Guard features help protect your eBay account information:

• Warns you when you're on a potential spoof website.
  
  Account Guard has a Site Indicator on the eBay Toolbar that changes the color of the Account Guard button that indicates whether you're on a verified site or a potential spoof website. The Site Indicator turns:

  • Green if you are on a verified eBay or PayPal website.

  • Red if you are on a potential spoof website.

  • Grey if you are visiting an unidentified website.

  
  Note: Account Guard identifies only eBay and PayPal spoof websites. When you are not on eBay or PayPal, the Site Indicator will typically be grey.

• Provides eBay Password Protection

  
  Account Guard warns you when you are entering your eBay password into an unverified site (even if it looks like an eBay or PayPal site), and blocks your eBay password from being submitted to the website unless you affirm that you want to use your eBay password on that site.

• Lets you report spoof websites to eBay

  
  If you suspect that you are on a fraudulent eBay or PayPal website, you can use the eBay Toolbar to report the site to us. If we verify that a website is fraudulent, the information is automatically distributed to all other eBay Toolbar subscribers, warning them about the spoof website. eBay Toolbar's ability to detect spoof sites increases with the amount of people that download and use it. As more people download eBay Toolbar and report spoof sites to eBay, the entire eBay Community receives increased protection from fraudulent sites.

• Does not use spyware or collect any personal information. The only time eBay Toolbar sends information to eBay about your experiences outside the eBay online marketplace is when you report potential spoof websites to eBay. You can review the specific ways eBay uses and protects your personal information by reading eBay's Privacy Policy.

• Is free and available for anyone. The eBay Toolbar with Account Guard is for both eBay members and non-eBay Members to download from our website.

• Provides maximum security if you stay signed in. Some of the Account Guard features work even if you are not signed into the eBay Toolbar. However, you do need to be signed in for the eBay Password Protection feature to work properly.

• Works with pop-up blockers. eBay Toolbar uses a different pop-up technology that enables it to display a warning even if your pop-up blocker is on.

• Is not disabled if you hide the eBay Toolbar. However, you will not be able to view the Site Indicator, which tells you whether you are on a legitimate eBay or PayPal site, or a potential spoof site.

• Requires the Internet Explorer browser. To use eBay Toolbar, you must select the "Enable third-party browser extensions" option in the browser's "Advanced" settings tab under "Internet options" in the Tools menu.

Learn more about how to protect your eBay account

• Visit eBay's Security

• Take the Spoof Email Tutorial.

Become part of the vigilant community by forwarding suspicious email relating to eBay to: spoof@ebay.co.uk or spoof@ebay.ie.

Report suspicious email relating to PayPal to: spoof@paypal.co.uk or spoof@paypal.com (for Irish members) .