EBay has instituted "login verification," where they display a CAPTCHA image containing a random 6-digit number that the user has to type in at the time of login "as an additional security check, or if your password is identified as not being secure enough." They say, "This extra security check helps us prevent automated registrations and inappropriate use of the site."
This challenge sometimes appears and sometimes doesn't. I got the challenge every time I tried logging in yesterday, even after I tried changing my password several times to something that couldn't possibly be considered anything but ultra-secure (mix of lower-case and capital letters and numbers and symbols, no dictionary words, etc.).
Since Auction Sniper and other automated systems cannot get past the CAPTCHA, even if this challenge appears occasionally, it means that occasionally AS won't be able to place a bid or do other tasks it needs to do in a timely manner. The eBay "help" desk (in quotes because they're really not very helpful) tells me that I cannot opt out of this extra layer of so-called "security."
Not only is this very annoying, but I wonder whether this is the reason for all the recent reports on this board of bids that failed to go through. It certainly prevented me from doing anything with AS yesterday, as eBay had my account on "CAPTCHA" status all day and AS couldn't log into my eBay account at all.
Is there anything to be done about this?
(Side thought: It really looks like this is eBay's way of strong-arming AS and other automated eBay helpers out of business. Is this the end of sniping? Or, perhaps, is eBay about to get into the sniping business themselves?)
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