Slashdot Mirror
What Can You Do When Defrauded on eBay?
"Most of us followed the proper procedures. You wait 30 days to file a fraud claim on ebay. Then you have the option of getting $175 at most from eBay's insurance. It softens the blow, but for many it's not anywhere close to what they lost. Contacting local authorities hasn't accomplished anything nor has filing with the FBI. Many people who paid via PayPal did get a refund, but others paid via checks.
eBay has been one of the bright spots of the internet. As a NYSE listed company, you'd expect more to be done about helping customers. I hope this question comes as a warning to be more cautious on eBay or not to bid for items on ebay over $400 without escrow protection. I've learned my lesson not to do business with anyone who doesn't use paypal or billpoint. But regardless of what we learned, most of us feel helpless because eBay has not done more to get our money back. Any suggestions?"
Paypal will only protect you if you pay with a credit card, and then only because you dispute the charge. (Also note that if you dispute a charge, you will get your paypal card yanked, since in essence paypal is now getting stuck with the bill)
If its more than the insurance limit, escrow all transactions.
One particularly notorious action concerned a certain 'haunted' painting. Word quickly spread over the net and attracted 10's of thousands of viewers. You can read the details here.
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
Auction fraud is illegal, I believe there is a way you can file with the FTC and have the fraudelant seller fined thousands of dollars, or even possibly jailed. IIRC, something about interstate commerce, or whatknot. I think you may also get a full refund of the amount of money you were defrauded from, or a portion of the money collected by the FTC in fines; I don't remember which.
Look in to it.
JKoebel
eBay has fraud protection guidelines where they'll reimburse up to $200 of the loss.
NO CARRIER
Then my friends got ripped off by this dude. Lots of positive feedback from $1 BullShit auctions, and he sold them an indash MP3 player. It was supposed to be for this guys birthday from his girlfriend. It never showed. They've been nothing but shafted from E-bay. or E-gay as he now refers to it. He used to be one of those E-bay people too, that made quite a bit of money on the site selling stuff and what not, Honestly. But now hes turned off pretty much for good.
What, me worry?
and if he wants them back, make him bid for them on ebay
I remember back a couple years ago when eBay frauds were big news...some article was suggesting that whenever possible involve the US Mail system. Have them mail you a quote, or mail payment information or such.
The thing about it is, mail fraud is a federal crime which much higher penalties than other forms of fraud (Internet fraud being generally unclassified). If you get ripped off online, you can try to complain to your local police, or the police in the criminal's jurisdiction (if you can find it) but you will probably get nothing.
In you involve the mail system, then the it becomes a federal issue that is tackled by the Office of the Postmaster General and/or the FBI?
Don't quote me on this, but it would be definitely something to ask your local post office about. If a seller is legit, they should have no problem putting some information on paper and mailing it to you, right?
Other than that...the other thing that was suggested is use a credit card. Paypal had a big fight with credit card agencies on whether people can dispute Paypal charges for fraudulent auctions, but I seem to remember that the courts came down on the side of consumers (yes they could dispute) forcing Paypal to get insurance.
Sorry I couldn't find a link, but maybe it helps narrow down your searching?
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I've used ebay for several purchaces. Never been burnt. But there have been many times I haven't made a bid because the feedback I read sounded a little "fishy", you know what I'm talking about.
All of the feedback sounds kinda the same and cliche.
You can't take the sky from me
I posted some tickets for a recent Mariners game on ebay for my older brother who bought them originally. Since it was a time sensitive thing (just before the game) there was no chance to resell when the buyer did not pay up or contact me. I later saw in the buyer's feedback that he had bought tickets from someone else. !@#$!!! guys should get a kick in the pants, he lost me $150.
Please help! I'm stuck inside my virtual reality headset!
Holding funds in escrow until completion of the transaction is probably the best solution. Like all insurance it costs a bit but provides you with protection from loss. I always use such services for items over $100 (your loss point may differ).
Most credit card companies will limit personal liability to $50, if you pay with their card.
So, if you don't want to worry about fraud, use a Visa or Mastercard.
That got me wondering, what do you all suggest as some good tips on performing an escrow sale, so as not to get screwed like these unfortunate folks mentioned in the story? I've been eyeing some stereo equipment, but after reading this account, I'm spooked.
Perhaps it's too pat an observation, but you handle it the same way you'd handle a real-life fraud: report it to the proper authorities (which you've done), hammer on them to do something about it (which I suspect you're doing), and hire a lawyer for a civil claim if merited.
IANAL, but I'd bet that Ebay would sit up and listen if they were contacted by one.
--j
Never having been defrauded on eBay, but having been screwed several times in regular retail dealings, I would try the standard stuff first.
First: Was the seller an individual, or a company? If a company, go tell it to the BBB. FBI won't take an interest until the dollar amounts add up enough, but you can always go to the Fair Trade Commission. Tax dollars fund their investigations, so it may take a while to see results.
Second: Discredit the seller. Publish their info anywhere you can. Use your venues online to get their information out there. If there aren't venues for this, set one up. I don't know if there's a site dedicated to publishing bad seller info, having never researched it, but I'd guess you're not the first person to run into this.
Finally, how about a law suit? IANAL, but I'm sure there are many who'd just love to get medieval on the fool. And I'm sure for the kind of money you're talking about, you would, too.
Good luck!
I got screwed out of $400 once on eBay. The guy was using a PayPal account, thankfully. I called my bank and disputed the charges (which I'd paid with my debit card). I guess it helps that my bank is JP Morgan-Chase (the largest in the country), because, within a couple of months, I'd strongarmed my money back into my pocket. All of it.
It probably depends a lot on your bank/credit card company, but I've been 1-for-1 so far. (I don't intend to try for 2-for-2.)
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
just use escrow. if the seller won't use escrow, don't buy. period.
Get a lawyer; if you must subpoena eBay to get more info on the guy, do so.
I shop ebay quite often, and though I've had a few bad experiences, I've managed to let them go...
1. From one seller, in 4 different auctions I bought 4 15" monitors for $25 a piece. Shortly after I sent him a money order for the combined total of the 4 auctions, this guy seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. His user account was cancelled, his email address bounced mail, and his phone number was disconnected. eBay didn't do anything for me at all.
2. I bought a Cisco 3000 router that claimed to have 16 MB of RAM and 8 MB of Flash (enough to run IOS 12.0). I receieved the product which had barely enough flash & ram to run IOS 9.0 (worthless nowadays). I contacted the seller, he promised to send me the replacement RAM & Flash, he sent me some bunk chips that didn't even fit in the device. After numerous other emails and phone calls with no answers, I finally gave up. ebay didn't do anything for me on this one either.
3. I won an auction for a bootleg TOOL video. I sent the guy the $14 total, and I never received a product. Apparently this guy screwed over 4 other people bidding on the same item from him, we all left negative feedback. This time the amount was not enough for ebay to care.
Each time I filled out one of ebay's fraud reports, and never EVER got a response. Since these losses weren't too important, they were all things I never really needed, just impulse buys that would have ended up sitting in a corner taking space, I don't really fret over it. Plus, if you believe that the grand scheme of things fits together in one huge orchestrated puzzle that meshes together... they'll get what's coming to them.
I wouldn't be too hard on eBay. It sounds like they do their share. They provide escrow, mediation services, and dispute resolution forums.
If you are unable to get the balance of your money, I would contact your state attorney general office. Most AGO offices have a division for consumer complaints. If you don't get your money, you may be able to get satisifaction in the criminal courts.
I believe that eBay has insurance against fraudulent sellers. If I'm not mistaken, it's somewhere around $10,000 coverage for an item that was sold, yet not delivered. You need to check into that, and contact eBay.
If you paid by check or money order, though, you're just plain silly. Just because a seller has a fancy auction page or a good feedback rating doesn't mean you should send a check for $400-1000 to a total stranger somewhere else in the country and expect the seller to make good on it. Where's your common sense? People get busted for that all of the time and auction sites account for the majority of fraudulent online activity. So think before you pay next time, and good luck getting your money back.
-CT
I remember reading that if you use a lawyer to handle the transactions then you send the lawyer the money and he deals with the seller. This would really only be beneficial if you are buying something expensive.
"I think you know what I'm talkin' about, Mr. President; We're gonna kill us a mummy!" - Bruce Campbell as Elvis Presley
On several occasions, shady-sounding individuals have backed out of auction deals with me, after I suggested using Tradenable. To me, that's the surest sign of a huckster and a good indication that escrow works.
Go back and flip burgers open source loosers :)
my wife always has the item shipped, and then we pay.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'd try bidding with a username like "Tony Soprano", or "Michael Corleone". I'm guessing that people would think twice about defrauding you.
The pomposity of the professor is inversely proportional to the difficulty and importance of the subject being taught.
then accidently mail them to his mother
I agree with an earlier post to post his info wherever possible, but take it a little further, post his e-mail on as many spam lists as possible. Just piss him off!
/bin/laden
rm -rf
The problem with reputation is that it's just so easy to buy! Lets say I go place 20 bids on random crap and my $1 bid wins. Hey, I just got 20 points of reputation for $20! Then I can sell the crap back for maybe $.50 and I have 20 more points worth of reptuation! For literally $10 (and some free time), you can get 40 reputation points from ebay. The whole reputation system is flawed because untrustworthy people are allowed to give out good feedback. Who says that just because someone was honest with a $1 transaction that you can claim they are a "Good trader, very prompt"? What do you know about whether that person is really honest? Yet people give all the feedback to others because they want good feedback in turn.
Listing how much money was spent as part of the feedback doesn't really help either. Just set up a ring of ebay accounts, bid on each other's stuff, and have it sell for higher values. Sure, ebay gets a small cut, but all you're really doing is buy reputation from ebay which you use to screw other people. Suppose I forge $5000 of transactions on ebay and they take 3%. I just bought an enormous amount of reputation (trustworthy for $5000 in transactions) for $167. It shouldn't be that hard for an unethical person to go make $500/scam off of 20+ people.
Lets face it... Reputation doesn't mean anything.
-Ted
tell her mr. t ate his balls
I never use paypal or any other online bill-pay services for exactly this reason. If you've got a guy's phone number or physical address, you've got something to go on. I got taken for ~$900USD for a set of wheels about a year ago and since then I won't bid on an item until I've contacted the seller and verified that I'll be remitting payment to a physical address. E-Bay's fraud services are a joke. They won't do anything without a court order. Paypal, PO boxes and the like just mean trouble. You're half right, the seller does have to be honest for online auctions to work, but its also the buyers responsibility not to be a sucker.
It is just this type of naivete that allows so many people to get ripped off on Ebay. PayPal does not protect you. The only way they will refund is if the seller cannot prove delivery (and only in the US). And the seller can send you a rock and PayPal is fine with that!
The Ebay $200 insurance is a joke. You only have a chance to get $175 back and that's only when you spend many hours with their stupid hard-to-use forms . Ebay it self favors Ebay not the protection of buyers or sellers.
Same goes for the way Ebay removes Microsoft auctions. They are in bed with Microsoft so what else would you expect?
Escrow services work most of the time but they are not cheap or guaranteed. Bottom line if you can't afford to lose it don't buy on online auctions.
If eBay set up a decent, reliable, and affordably priced system and made it inherent in the auction process, the masses would follow.
What about all of the bad buyers?
I both buy and sell on eBay. I've stopped listing auctions with the BuyItNow! option because too many of my auctions have been ended when a brand new bidder (i.e. someone who joined eBay within the last couple of days) comes and uses BuyItNow! to end the auction, then disappears completely and is never heard from/never logs into eBay again. Negative feedback doesn't help in this case, because these bidders inevitably have a feedback of zero or at best one and don't care if they lose one point.
Even without BuyItNow, I've had a number of auctions close and then never heard from the high bidder again, forcing me to relist and costing me time and money. In the worst case, one of my auctions closed at just over $300, the buyer e-mailed me a simply said "I changed my mind I don't want it sorry" and when I left negative feedback saying so, I of course got the retaliatory "FRAUD! Took my money and never delivered!" feedback. Legal action got the feedback removed, but that cost me as well.
I think that eBay should require a bank account number as a pre-requisite for buying or bidding. You agree when you join that if you default on a bid or if you are accused by n people of fraud, your assets will be frozen until the situation can be resolved and those involved can get the money owed to them.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
For any significant amount of money on eBay I send the postal money order by U.S. Mail. The penalties for mail fraud are quite severe and the post office does like to investigate reports of same.
See if any of the buys used the U.S. Mail and/or a postal money order. If so, have that person or persons file a complaint with the postmaster of their zip code, and have him reference the other cases that you have dug up.
sPh
The scope we're talking about here is such that you can't expect local and federal authorities to burn lots of man-hours bringing you justice. You've done the right thing by reporting the incident, and perhaps something will come of it.
As others have said, the number one best idea for buying big-ticket items over eBay is to use credit, because of those great limited liability clauses. If someone doesn't take credit (or PayPal), you've got to ask yourself how much you'll be hurting if your money wings off through the mail and the item never comes.
Good luck.
Spare me your rationalizations. All I know is, stem-cell research kills a quasi-living four-day-old blob.
solution: stop using eBay until laws are in place to protect you.
Less than 66% of internet users have not been a victim of online fraud... Per victim, the price of fraud hovers around $600, which is more than most research estimates of average online retail spending.
What this means is that 34% of all internet users have been screwed over (if you believe their report). Show me another industry that has that high a fraud rate - there isn't, why? 'cause the Fed's would come down hard.
This just isn't acceptable.
That is some serious fraud. I would imagine that EBay would have a vested interest in prosecuting this guy to the fullest extent because he lessens the value of their product. Defrauding 55 people is also a federal crime because it crosses state lines. I'm sure the FBI should be notified as well.
That's what you get. "Ebay is gay." Anyone stupid enough to deal with Ebay deserves what they get.
I reported him to the following agencies:
- United States Postal Service
- Internet Fraud Center
- FBI
- Discover Card
- Ebay
- Billpoint
- PayPal
This guy is currently wishing he never heard of me, with several charges levelled against him, including:
- Mail fraud
- Credit card fraud
- Grand larceny
- Plus the fact this was all interstate, making it worse.
I also tracked his ass down using every known resource on the Internet, and ended up with his home address, home phone, AERIAL PHOTOS OF HIS HOUSE and more...
Needless to say, my money has been safely returned and he's in a world of shit. Sorry, asshole.
I'll sell you and each of your friends a bridge that they can call their own for the meer sum of $25 each.
After I've defrauded you on this, you won't feel the need to pursue it personally, because after all it's only $25. This is great, because I can now go and defraud the next guy, and eventually become a millionaire.
The point is, "these losses weren't too important" just don't cut it. You have some sort of responsibility to ensure that these people don't f**k over other people too. If everyone just rolls over because it's too much hassle, they'll never stop because it's profitable.
Please, for OUR sake, do NOT forget about these types of things, and pursue them as hard as possible, no matter how trivial $25 or whatever seems to you.
Thanks,
MadCow.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I'm beginning to wonder if there are any good deals left on ebay...
Robotiq.com is heavily tested on animals
I've only bought one thing on eBay, and after checking up on the sellers history; they had sold about 75 items, all with good remarks from the buyers. Generally, however, I use amazon.com or another site whom I've bought from.
-mrbkap
Ebay is playing the match maker and if bad matches are being made then ebay is going to be responsible for fixing the problem. Right now I could open an account to sell stuff, I could open 10 shill accounts, I could "sell" myself stuff for a few months and give myself positive feed back and then finally I could swindle a bunch of people with ease. Unless they've changed something the only thing I need is 10 valid email addresses... I could dig 10 AOL and Earthlink CDs with free hours out of my trash.
I just got done with a fraud battle on Ebay and this page was of immense help, and eventually got me my full money back from the bastard who tried to swindle me:
t ml
http://www.mindspring.com/~bookdealers/ripoff.h
Pay particularly close attention to the sections on reporting the fraud to the IFCC section of the FBI, and the Postal Inspector fraud complaint form.
In the postal inspector's case, when you file a fraud report, they notify the person that they're being investigated. This led to me promptly getting a $600 money order from the criminal in question. They actually had the money order to me in a day, and it cost them $25 to mail it. File reports galore, and try to get as much information about the person that you can.
http://diy-auction.com/
no corporate interests or annoying banners there.
I had a bad experience on a $150 item (cell phone).
The seller answered email immediately until I verified that I sent payment (he insisted on a money order). After that, he wouldn't answer email and his Ebay account was cancelled.
I didn't take it laying down. I started by running a reverse lookup on his mailing address to get his phone number. Sure enough, that was disconnected. His email didn't bounce so I emailed him and informed him that I was contacting the local police department. I contacted the local police department and it turned out they'd had two complaints against the guy.
All of a sudden he appeared back and said that the "shipment must have been delayed". 5 days later the phone arrived postmarked the day after I notified the Police.
Auction fraud is fraud. Report it and hound them into the ground.
Seriously, this isn't a product plug and I know Capital One isn't the best credit card company to ever exist, but I have been defrauded a few times on eBay, and each time I have used my Capital One credit card through PayPal. Capital One has an online protection program and all you have to do is call them up and explain the situation. They sometimes ask you to fax or e-mail documents and then they stop the charge by doing a charge-back.
The process is completly transparent, and Capital One fraud investigators then automatically take over if, neccessary. They know you don't HAVE to pay the bill, and most people won't if they have been the victim of a fraud.
The key is to do it quick, e.g. if you suspect you are dealing with a fraud, (e.g. "I just shipped it."), stop the charge. The worse that could happen is there will be a delay. Another option would be to stop the posting of the charge, but keep the charge. In this way, the seller is still guaranteed the funds because they are set aside for them, but they don't actually have them in their hands.
This has worked good, and is why you should NEVER transfer money from your checking or bank account, because it's much EASIER to get credit back than your *real* money. PayPal says a bank transfer is the prefered method, and with good reason because they don't end up eating the cost when one their accounts commits fraud. You do.
"I'll just chip in a bit for RedHat: I actually have that installed on my university machine." - Linus, '95
OTOH, my stepson has just fractured his leg in a dirtbike accident, and on selling his YZ-250, his deal was for cash and carry (or)delivery within ~50 miles.
Obviously that won't add to the convenience of online auctions, but for a $3000 motorcycle, which would be difficult to ship, it made sense. Your mileage may vary.
db
Cig:
ôô
Florida seller, $10 item, sent in a plain envelope and it fell out. Promised a refund then vanised.
Chinese seller, I had bought from several times in the past and trusted, paid via PayPal and got nothing, went through eBay and PayPal, both determined seller was at fault but he had cleaned out his PayPal account and vanished, cheating dozens of others in the process. Seller had 95+ rating all positive prior to this
Ohio seller, had given me his address to send payment, I paid and got lots of promises, but no merchandise. Contacted Sheriff dept in his home county, they suggested contacting police, I had cc'd the seller of my note to the Sheriff's office and that got results.
In a nutshell: if it's overseas, you may be screwed. If it's in the USA you may turn to local police and in this buyers case, contact seller's state attorney general's office. Many states put laws on the books concerning online commerce a few years ago. With this size of party of victims you shouldn't have too much difficulty and probably won't even have to hire a lawyer.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
eBAY? What are you folks thinking?
I have done extensive buying and selling on eBay and only had one REAL attempt to hose me: I won a $1,200.00+ auction for 2 LaserDisc players and a LARGE lot of discs. I paid by US Postal Money Order and sent them via regular mail along with my standard boilerplate : a formal letter listing ALL pertinent information regarding my "win" and necessary shipping details.
Nothing....
No communication with seller...
Nothing....
Filed with eBay and got NOTHING from them: World's WORST EXCUSE for ANY type of "customer service" I have ever encountered, with BLIND defense of the seller and ALWAYS, the one with the biggest feedback rating automatically wins.
Went to the regional Post Office and chatted with one of the "badge, gun and no humor" types for advice.
Filled out the paperwork and paid the $$ to get official copies of the cashed POMOs.
Filed an official Mail Fraud complaint on-line with a list of ALL the documentation I had accumulated.
Nothing...
Nothing...
As per the "bad humor" guy: they (USPS Inspector's Service) prioritize these things on order of $$, frequency(body count), politics and "investigator interest".
I guess that with the bad press eBay had been getting, someone saw fit to send a nastygram to the perp - er... seller.
It took 9 months (I DID get screwed, didn't I?) but FINALLY, 5 large cardboard boxes show up - no letter, no E-Mail - NOTHING other than the shipping labels showing they had been sent about 10 days prior to my FINALLY getting them.
Moral of the story: I avoid ANY seller that:
- refuses to accept a US Postal Money Order,
- operates out of a PO box (mailboxes etc and the like) OTHER than a USPS PO Box
- communicates EXCLUSIVELY using a phony (unauthenticated) E-Mail account
- does not PROMPTLY reply to a pre-close E-Mail question, even if you have to make one up.
Anyone out there "flushing" their old LD collections?
It becomes possible mail fraud if they don't deliver within the time alloted and they don't notify of delays or offer a full refund.
o me .htm
For details and to file a complaint:
http://www.usps.com/postalinspectors/fraud/welc
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
Also, go to the FBI and mention RICO. The feds may take his computer.
Fight Spammers!
Use a credit card to make the purchase. I don't buy anything from a vendor who doesn't take plastic or use a service that does.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
It was a couple years ago. The amount I lost was around $250, the total he defrauded people was around $20,000. Ebay offered no restitution, eventually the city in Indiana where he lived filed a settlement with the guy. He was put on probation (I don't believe there was any jail term at all) and he was ordered to make restitution. The attorney, in his letter accompanying the legal documents sent to victims wrote "In most cases, victims see little to no money." He was honest and correct - I've never seen any money from anyone. If ebay would have had policies in place at the time I would have been in a much better place - $175 would have made a big difference at the time as I was a college student. Really, the worst party in this was the US Post Office - they were delivering all of these money orders to an abandoned warehouse. I know at least one person who used FedEx and received their money order because the delivery person refused to leave the letter there. By comparison, the thief was just doing what a thief does, and he was smart enough to get away with $20K even though he was caught. Hell, I'm willing to go on probation for a year or two to make $20,000 in tax-free cash. Now I rarely buy through eBay and when I do I use the online credit card services, never money order.
I had a similar experience. The person who was selling the item had quite a few good feedback, and only recently started having problems. He sent me an email requesting payment, and when I did (via paypal), he never sent the item, nor responded to subsequent emails.
Fortunately, the item (a book) was only $6. However, since I didn't want this ass to have my money and not send the item, I opened a complaint with paypal, and after a month, they actually gave me a refund.
His account was also cancelled on ebay, during the auction (unbeknownst to me at the time).
you can't expect local and federal authorities to burn lots of man-hours bringing you justice.
Why the hell not? They'll send a SWAT team to break down you door after spending "thousands of man hours" tracking down "an evil hacker" who never did anything worse than run napster and ftp services.
You have no ethical obligation to any system which ignores its own obligations to you. The sooner the government accets that, the sooner they'll be legitimate.
Perhaps I'm missing the obvious here (it happens to me a lot) but, why not pass on the information on the guy here? My guess is you'd have some pretty accurate intelligence information passed back to you in fairly short order. Seven million bored geeks - put 'em to use!
-- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
I bought a musical instrument for $400
on an ebay deal, and the seller
was local. So I went to the seller's house
to pick it up and pay. He mentioned that
he was still considering selling it to
someone else, but that since I was saving him
the trouble of shipping, that I could buy it.
WTF? I got the merchandise, so I wasn't
too upset, but what the seller didn't realize
is that I passed on MANY auctions for similar
items while waiting for this auction to end.
My opportunity cost was supposed to be balanced by his obligation to sell. On reflection, I still feel I should have reported this.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
When a seller disappears without sending merchandise out that's already been paid for, it's a terrible thing for the people who've lost money. If the seller took the money and ran, it's also illegal.
But please, folks, keep in mind this happened before eBay and it'll keep on happening.
Retailers go under all the time, and they often take customers' money with them. Sometimes the officers will cut and run with the cash, too. Other times they simply went bankrupt and couldn't deliver what they promised.
A retailer can usually make more money keeping things together for a few months than it can by stealing and running away, so logically there's no reason to oommit theft. Unfortunately humans aren't always logical.
on the Web. Paypal limits you to a certain amount if you don't give them a bank number. That's fine, they can limit me all they like, but when they only have a credit card number the max I can lose if it gets loose is fifty bucks.
Try recovering -all the money you had in the bank- and eating, paying rent, and so on.
Your suggestion would kill eBay one of two ways: 1)people would wise up and not put their bank numbers on line, or 2)the huge h4x0r population would try to find those bank numbers, see 1).
As part of the ongoing Internet law enforcement initiative, the FTC has trained more than 700 law enforcement and consumer protection officials from 20 different countries, including 17 federal agencies, 25 state governments and 14 Canadian consumer protection offices in online investigation and law enforcement techniques in locations ranging from Anchorage, Alaska to Paris, France.
Sounds like these are the boys (and girls) in blue to talk to. This is where to find them to file a complaint.
Given the dollar amount involved, I think you have a great chance of finding an attorney who will take your case.
Many states have consumer protection statutes that allow recovery of multiple damages and attorney's fees. Although this guy may not be a "business" for purposes of these statutes, the number of transactions involved makes for a decent argument that he is subject to consumer protection statutes.
Also, if what he did really constitutes fraud, he may have committed at least two predicate acts (wire fraud) for federal RICO purposes. Federal law provides for civil damages for RICO violations, along with treble damages and the all important "cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee." 18 U.S.C. 1964(c).
Find yourself a good commercial litigator and go to town on this guy.
Pay with a Postal Money order from the United States Postal Service. (I don't know how it works outside the USA...but I'm sure that there are simliar systems in place elsewhere). Since it is sent via mail, it constitues Mail Fraud, which happens to be a Felony. I know of a friend who had to bust some seller after he realized that the seller was a deadbeat. Once my friend filed the papers with the Post Office, there was nothing the seller could do.
Doh!
I have to agree.
I've wasted a lot of time on Ebay over the past couple of years. Although *technically* I've never been cheated on an Ebay purchase, looking back honestly I have to admit I've gotten stuck with a lot of junk when I could have bought new items for only a little more.
Between the TWO who paid by USPS we crossed the felony fraud line for them. It took them about 2 months to find him (he skipped his address and skipped on his roommates too). Though all I got back was ebay insurance (so far), USPS PIS did find him and jail him. I've not heard if they'll go for recovering all of our money, but eBay was very friendly with the USPS setting up the case.
Moral: NEVER PAY BY ANY MEANS BUT USPS. People who only accept PayPal are likely to be trouble because they know that there can't be a USPS inspector knocking on their door if they exclude that mechanisim for payment.
-- Multics
Anyone who thinks that using Paypal protects you,.. is completley wrong. I have a close friend who was defrauded to the tune of $2,000 and paid via paypal. Paypal says they can not help him and the credit card company will not remove the charge. So be careful out there people. You could really loose some money if the seller decides to skate.
I have been thoroughly screwed on a PayPal transaction, and I'll likely never use the service again over it because of the way PayPal "handled" it.
I purchased (or should I say, paid for) a GeForce 3 for roughly $400 from a certain merchant (that now appears to be defunct, imagine that). They were a verified user on PayPal, everything seemed legit. Two weeks pass and I get nothing, not even a notice of shipping delay. After a whole slew of emails back and forth, finally ending with me buying the card somewhere else and telling them to cancel the order, the "merchant" just stopped responding altogether.
So I took the matter to PayPal. Their response: "We have investigated your claim and found the seller to be at fault. However, we are unable to recover any funds because the seller's account balance is zero. Thank you, have a nice day."
What in the blue fsck is that? The fact that I played by every one of their rules, and they even admit I was defrauded by a so-called "verified" seller, and yet still refuse to extend any consumer protection to me, ticks me off even more. The SELLER should be the one biting the bullet, not me. I did my part of the bargain. He didn't.
So short moral of the story: don't use PayPal to pay for anything you think might have even the most remote chance of going awry. In the end it's no different than sending cash.
I am still trying to get that $400 back -- apparently the next step is going straight to my bank and disputing the charge, although I hear PayPal loves when people do that. Well, they can have all the love I'm willing to give on the matter, for being oh so helpful with an obvious fraud case.
I, along with a bunch of other people, were defrauded by a business with an eBay ID of bayco.
e ed back&userid=bayco
It looks like feedback for this user is still around. You can see the feedback.
http://cgi2.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewF
Basically, what happened was this person was selling RAM and processors. Selling more than hey had in stock, and buying after they have received funds from the buyers. Then RAM prices rose dramatically. Whoops, not enough money to buy the parts we promised to the buyers. Screwed.
This was also a case of a user with a preexisting high feedback rating, suddenly going bad. The buyers could not have helped the situation by researching on the seller.
Do I blame eBay for this? NO!!! I support eBay. They are just a trading marketplace, I would not want to endanger them or make their lives more difficult by trying to blame this on anyone other than myself, or the bad seller. This would cause problems that would make eBay !eBay.
I believe the San Jose police got in on the case, and they requested eMails from a lot of us asking to document our experience. I think I have that eMail around somewhere still, but am not willing to dig it up right now.
I got repayment through eBay's insurance system. I finally got a check from Loyds of London some time afterwards.
Bottom line; bad seller, not my fault, not eBay's fault, sellers's fault, seller is responsible. You sent a check somewhere, go find them, enter their home during the night, and cut off their testicles with a dull rusty butter knife.
Problem solved!
Seller defrauded me on a non-eBay transaction. After 90 days (too late to dispute), I get word from PayPal that they found that the seller was fraudulent, but because their bank account was empty, there was nothing they would do to help. Thanks PayPal.
I encourage anyone who has similar incidents to post them here; the existence of this story could prove a valuable deterrent that we can all utilize in the future. The next time you mail off a check and don't hear back from the guy, fire off an e-mail like this:
Or something along those lines.I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
He should be traceable. The authorities in the area that the checks were cashed should assist the buyers.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
You must be brainwashed if you think that XP is a good product.You are obviously wrong! And you are a dumbass too. But, we will all forgive you for your sins -- no one is perfect.
Go say 400 Hail Marys and try to keep your dick out of the chickens!
Alot of stuff sold on eBay is new, dropshipped from a warehouse on the west coast... butt-nut
You just figured that out? Join the trolls. Its the only way.
I typically look at the feedback rating, and decide if the product is worth it, and if I would trust myself if I was the seller.
I also look at the positive vs. negative vs. neutral comment level - if they had a few negatives, but nothing in the last six months but positives, I consider them OK - if they have negatives that are periodic in nature, then I stay away. Also, sometimes I get the feeling that a seller has one ID, but is actually multiple people or of a company (some you can tell ARE a company, and the ID will reflect it - but sometimes it is just a "feeling"). I also look and see how long they have been an Ebay member, and when the last time they changed their ID (if they don't currently have the shades on) - this can give you an idea of whether they are trying something hinky.
For large items, though - escrow all the way. Small items there isn't much you can do about it. I once won a bid on some memory (about $35.00) - and I sent through PayPal - I never received the memory, and my emails went unanswered - then my emails started bouncing. I later found that others were having similar issues with the guy. It turns out he never claimed the money from my PayPal account, so I was able to get a check back from PayPal - so I was safe. I think he never claimed it because the email PayPal sent was to the old defunct account that was bouncing mail - so he never knew I sent the money.
I later found an email from him in an account I wasn't using at the time - I still don't know why or how he sent it to that account, but he did - asking me when the money was coming - the date on that email was within the time that the PayPal balance was available to him - I don't know why he didn't check his PayPal account (as I had alerted him in an earlier email that he did acknowledge that I was going to use PayPal).
All in all, a weird episode - but I didn't get screwed as hard as others, and managed to get my money back, plus I didn't get a neg feedback from the guy...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I have also been a victim of EBay fraud. Probably not from the same person, since this one was in the UK. (I can't give any more details out YET for legal reasons - I'm in the middle of a claim. But believe me, when this is over he will be exposed to the extent available under the law)
I tried to buy a Siemens mobile phone, which ended up over £50, sent the cheque to the seller, and he never sent the item. Repeated emails were ignored. His phone number was invalid.
VERY annoying.
When he first started, he had a negative feedback rating, but it was only one comment about not accepting Escrow (he claimed that he didn't know it defaulted to accepting it.) That should've set off alarm bells I guess, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt since it was such a minor issue, bidded and won.
More interestingly, after the end of the transaction, he gained positive feedback. That's one good thing out of it anyway, since you can't claim fraud insurance from someone with negative feedback.
What confuses me is HOW he got the positive feedback. They were all from people who seem to have a good reputation too - some with stars next to their names.
So it doesn't make sense! Why would they praise him/her? Yet I'm 99% sure it's fraud - he gives a different name and address in his profile, the phone number is invalid, and he stopped replying to emails the moment I started questioning him on why the package hadn't arrived.
Maybe some of these criminals set up more than one account, and bid highly on each other... then add positive feedback to each other's accounts (without exchanging items or money of course).
In which case, the feedback system is total bull that means nothing whatsoever.
I really don't trust EBay now.
Any better suggestions?
Ebay has a very thorough process for such claims.
What you need to do, if defrauded, is go through Ebay to contact Lloyd's of London, who provides the insurance on auctions for Ebay. Once a claim is filed, investigations are put forth, and, more than likely, you will recieve some of your money back.
The only bad thing, is that there is a ~200 dollar cap on the amount you can recieve, and they automatically take 25 dollars out of that as a service charge.
I was defrauded on Ebay for approx. $250, and recieved $175 of it back, although the claims process took well over 6 months to work itself out.
Its a pain, but you can get your money back.
I thought eBay used the Escrow principle for payment and goods. Buyer registers money with eBay. Seller sends goods after getting confirmation from eBay of deposit. Buyer receives goods and cofirm receipt. Seller gets paid by eBay.
When shit hits the fan get some of these https://youtu.be/pY-GncsZ-UE
I agree with the article ... when this crud happens, the model that makes Ebay thrive is broken.
... ) and waited ... and waited ...
...
... so ... if anyone knows Casey Bennet from Terra Haute, Indiana ... also goes by the AOL email address of Kakugojin@AOL.com ... ya owe me ya butthead. If anyone here actually knows you, please feel free to email me at jahf-at-yahoo-dot-com.
... that felt good.
I've had a similar experience, though much less cost. I bid and won an auction from a seller who had positive feedback. I sent a Money Order as requested (only $35, but still
When I went back to Ebay, I found that his account had been revoked. Ugh
A few weeks later I got an email from him saying he had just moved and it was on it's way "soon". 3 months later and various attempts through email failed. I did get his real name (he had an AOL email address and put his name in his profile) but he no longer lives in the same city so I can't track him further and $35 isn't really enough to involve the postmaster.
I wish there were a way to petition Ebay to help, but understandably I can't prove nearly enough damage to get them to track him down, and their info is probably old, too.
BTW, I promised him if I didn't get it I would try and warn people
Ahhh
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
I would think a lot less people would get screwed if they did that.
I know when I was selling a $5000 testing unit on eBay, I didn't mind at all when the buyer asked to go through an escrow service, because I was an honest seller.
And you're sure that this was fraud and not some sort of freak accident, seller-in-the-hospital sort of thing? There has been many posts here on how to nail the seller, but I guess I would ask how you're sure? In the same situation, I'd try every possible avenue to have voice contact with the offending party. Emails & email adresses are often broken/changed/or misunderstood.
r tp age
Then, assuming due diligence,
http://crs.ebay.com/aw-cgi/ebayisapi.dll?crssta
That's eBay's fraud report form.
I had a problem of a seller not shipping and did the same sort of backtracking to find other victims. After using eBay's seller info and some Anywho research, I was able to track down the seller directly. Faced with that information and the prospect of group action, I got the seller to finally provide what they had sold. The key was just starting the "machinery" promptly and as completely as possible. YMMV
nonsig. unsig. desig.
A few months ago I sold a G4 cube & video camera to a seller that went by the alias hottchick227842 on ebay. At the time he had a positive feedback. I sent the items via USPS priority mail COD for approx. $1400. The lady at the post office wrote "no checks" on the COD label, but as you might have guessed I got two personal checks back. Both of these checks bounced of course. I later found out that the USPS will accept any type of payment as long as the user presents proper ID. This guy did the same thing to one other seller, and attempted to do it to another but that seller sent his items via another carrier and specified "money order".
I contacted the Schenectady,NY police who told me that I should contact the US postal inspector. I contacted them, filled out the paperwork and sent it in. A month later I called to inquire about the status of the case and they said "we don't have any record of the case".
Are there any other avenues get my stuff back? I thought that writing a bad check was a crime.
Maybe it's just me, but when/if I'm defrauded on eBay, it's not like I don't have the person's address. I just pay them a visit with a whuppin' stick.
I was ripped off by a half.com seller for the price of a dvd. half.com would not 'investigate' until long after my credit card co. had processed the transaction. then they told me to go fuck myself.
i won't be buying dvd's there any more.
About a year and three months ago I purchased a Porsche 944 off of ebay. And although I was promised a warrenty, the company who handeled the guys warrentys would not provide one for my car. I had transmission problems, muffler problems, air conditioner problems, and brake problems. I had finally given up when a representative from the state of New Jersey called me and informed me they were orgonizing a Class Action Lawsuit against the individual who sold me my car.
This seems the way to go, collect information about the one individual, and bring it to the state. I happen to be fortunate because he forged my signiture several times when providing documents to the state, so I have a very strong case, so perhaps people might not have as good luck as I do.
The downside is I provided all of this information to the state, and it has still been 10 months, and I have not got word on how the case is progressing.
If it were done as a trust network it would be much more meaningful.
Weight the trust passed on to people you certify (via feedback) using both the value of the item and the trust of the certifier.
A more useful metric of how trust worthy someone is would then be based on a combination of:
Do this and keep seperate ratings for buying and selling and enjoy the results!
Unfortunately, this is the truth. I was a culprit of this a year ago. The FTC would do nothing, there was nothing for me to do. The actuall positive remarks on the seller were from freinds that were doing the same thing. They would just make stuff up about one another. The postive remarks were from freinds they "sold" items too, which the items actually did not exist. Then they would pull one big scam on the public and get out quick. This is just a tricky market to purchase goods in, at least as far as I can tell. If you get screwed, there really is no one to help you.
Read my other post within this slashdot article for details.
Here's what you do: Go get a bunch of free e-mail accounts. Create a bunch of e-bay accounts with this free e-mail account. Hold auctions for stuff nobody is going to buy and do this from 1 single account. From each of those other free accounts, bid on your $1.00 crap. When you win, give yourself a bunch of good feedback. You're an instant hit.
It may be time consuming, but to swindle people for $400-$1700 per fraud, you're looking at a pretty good take for your effort.
I got outbid on a fraud auction. Shortly before I got outbid, I got suspicious and discovered this guy had tons of auctions ranging greatly in what the items were and the costs. Many were dutch auctions. Before he finished his first auction, I got together a group of high bidders, pointed out what I saw and over the next few days, one of the guys in the group said he lived near the address being advertised. He checked it out and confronted the guy.
Poor bastard wouldn't back down. Those who actually ended up sending him money filed for mail fraud with the USPS. It wasn't long before he found himself in court. So, go to the USPS would be my advice. They take this stuff seriously and don't make you wait for satisfaction.
IFCC FBI Complaint Center
One of their prime purposes is to handle online fraud.
Fraude can easily be prevented by using an Online Escrow Service (Trusted Third Party) like Triple Deal.
0x or or snor perron?!
Search ebay on Plasma Screens or Nikon D1x and check out the number of sellers with 0 feedback, shades and two-day-long member histories. Then go to http://www.unicornelectronic.com and see one of their sites.
The thing that gets me is thet there are still ppl who bid on those auctions. I find it difficult to feel sympathy for those bidders, although the sellers piss me off only slightly more than spammers.
http://evan.ethermage.net:81/forums/wetroll.jpg
The guy
1) left bad feedback on the sellers,
2) filled out fraud reports, and
3) finally moved on.
What exactly is he supposed to do? Track down the sellers, shave their cats, and blow up their houses? Realistically, you take a risk when you use eBay, and it's probably best attenuated by using PayPal/Billpoint and merchant agreements to insure yourself.
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
are you speaking of michael ray? from south carolina (not sure which carolina) yeah, he got me bad, palm VIIx, paid $275, never saw another penny, any progress with this guy?
"When all the buildings fall, pimpin still gone stand tall" - Ricky D
Bought a (not new) TiVo in spring from a seller named joscaro2. He didn't claim it was new, but said it was "as new", so it definitely was meant to be in working order. When it arrived, it didn't work. Kept freezing during setup. I called him the first time, and he claimed he never actually used it--bought it, then decided to get a Sony instead while still in the box. Yeah right. It turns out he bought it off ebay also (also used). Anyway, he wouldn't answer subsequent phone calls, despite me being curteous that first time. So I left him a message saying that I'll take up the matter with ebay and PayPal. Right away he responded to my ebay feedback saying that I left threats.
PayPal takes 30 days to follow up an incident, during which time they give the seller a chance to respond. The guy never answered their emails and calls, so they decided in my favor. Which amounted to exactly squat: they said that they can't refund the money, and that's it. Period.
Moral of the story: I won't spend any sums on ebay that I couldn't live with losing. Which basically means amounts considerably under $100, preferably around $25 or so. Any more than that, and I pretty much want to see a shirt that I could grab in anger.
PS Philips serviced my TiVo for $140, so I wasn't completely out of that money. But I ended up spending definitely more than retail.
Airline tickets are cheap and I can find a walmart that sells aluminum baseball bats just about damn near anywhere.
Sometimes, it's time for a good old fashioned ass-whupping.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
I've bought items on ebay over 20 times and never gotten ripped off. I have had sellers be slow and not send the item for 2-3 weeks, and one guy didn't pack it properly and it got a bit damaged in the mail, but I've never had anyone blatantly rip me off.
I'm curious how common fraud is, of the people who claim to have gotten ripped off, what is the ratio of successful transactions to fraudulent ones?
People are thinking this needs to be E-bay's problem to solve. It just ain't so. That's typical of today's society... 'someone solve my problems for me'.
Look how many valid transactions are on ebay. How many dollars worth of commerce. What percentage of those are fraudulent? Anyone? I'm willing to bet it's extremely small.
I just fail to see how anyone can expect ebay to take care of it. It's very, very clear that ebay is merely factilitating the auction, for a fee from the seller. Everything else, including payment and product delivery, is between buyer and seller directly, unless they chose otherwise. There are plenty of escrow services available for a fee already. Ebay does not need ot make it 'mandatory'.
Finally got a response. Apparently, he needed a reminder.
Since then, my wife won't bother with eBay. It really is in eBay's best interests to find a fix for this kind of dealing. I think they will see a sharp decline in use if not.
--Rick
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Ebay is very clear about what they do and do not do; about the role they play.
IT is not their responsbility to ensure that you get your product. They make this VERY clear. It is up to the Buyer and Seller individually to sort out mutually acceptable terms. Ebay is just facilitating the auction.
Ebay is NOT responsible for fixing the problem. Ebay did not vouch for the users. Ebay did not guarantee you anything, and Ebay did not take your money.
As for the 'swindling' part.. you could do that *anyway*, even without ebay. Oh wait.. people DO do that in real life.
As for credit card numbers.. ebay DOES ask for credit card numbers from sellers. So they can pay Ebay for it's services.
As for identification, drivers licenses, etc, why should ebay bother with all that effort? They aren't liable.
that they would actually provide for this kind of service with Paypal (though I know it's increasingly common).
In the case of paypal.. paypal is the one taking the cc payment.. not the pereson you are using paypal to send money to. As long as the money paypal took is valid.. the transaction should be valid as far as the credit company is concerned.
I'd imagine paypal could dispute the fact that it's fraud as well. Paypal charged your credit card to deposit to your account. Nothing fraudulent about that whatsoever.
What a good racket EBAY has going - they have no exposure whether the merchandise is delivered or not. Clearly, EBAY should pay the customer for fraudulent sales. If there is no offer of protection - why would anyone use such a service as EBAY? When fraud is committed against you by a merchant when you pay by VISA or Mastercard, the credit card company reimburses you in full. EBAY should do nothing less.
eBay has been one of the bright spots of the internet. As a NYSE listed company, you'd expect more to be done about helping customers.
Yes, if things make sense, they should do them.. but only if it will sustain their business. A small fraction of transactions are fraudulent, and an even smaller number of those actually result in people not using the service anymore. Hardly worth the money to add 'extra services' to the company do deal with fraud.. especially when they are not a party to it! Ebay's service is to hook alleged buyers & sellers together, that's all. They do not make any guarantees.
Why use a service that does not guarantee its merchandise? Why is no blame being directed toward eBay itself? Strange.
If you ever get into a situation where you are trying to get your money back from a third party (ebay, playpal, bank etc) I reccommend you be honest. Make sure you don't slip in a little lie to try to make it eaiser to get your money, or a little more money. The last thing the third party wants to do is pay you, because it will most likely come out of their pocket if they cannot find the guy. Be honest, it is the best way to get your money and not be screwed.
A more secure way of doing online transaction would require an intermediary that would receive both the payment and a description of the good to receive from the buyer, and the goods and description of goods from the seller.
The intermediary could then match and confirm the order, and proceed with the exchange of goods/payment.
Dead beat bidders are truely a problem on ebay, but the worse ones are the ones that take part in the growing number of "malicious bidders" on Ebay that look for auctions about to close, then bid amounts to make sure they win. Then after winning these auctions.. within seconds they leave negative feedback.. sometimes very derogative and containing personal attacks.
This wouldn't be so bad if Ebay then had some efficient system to then remove these, as even though the feedback was left seconds or minutes after the auction.. sometimes they will not remove them.. or take excessively long amounts of time to remove the feedback. If they do at all.
Ebay I personally think is going to have make some changes in customer service or they are are going to risk losing business to other sites.. or people will simply stop using it with their constantly increasing fees and absoblutely horrible customer service that basically feeds you back to FAQs that tell you can't email customer service as the FAQ according to them answers your question. Then if you do get to email them.. an automated system sometimes searches for keywords and responds with form letters.. Arg..
Anyways.. you get the point.
Volhav
did you get aerial photos of his house?
just curious
This comes very late in the discussion and may be ignored and/or redundant, but one piece of advice: Don't pay much attention to the *positive* feedback, that the big sellers have gob loads of, instead watch out for *negative* feedback, and look at each and every negative statement to see if it warrants attention.
I just decided I'm probably not going to bid in an auction that has a seller who has >1000 positive points, but >30 negative points...
You are a moron for thinking that buying a video card online, from somebody who you do not know, who you can't visit to get a replacement in case the card is faulty, that you have to wait for to arrive in the mail (which increases the risk that it gets broken in transport), saves you $25.
Pushin' 'n dealin', shovin' 'n stealin'
Back a Long Time Ago (1997? 98?) someone on eBay was selling non-existant Japanese swords, offering to repair people's swords, taking them and then selling them or simply disappearing, etc. A bunch of us from the sword mailing list and eBay bidders got together and worked to track him down.
I identified an auction under a new name that was obvious fraud (the image was a link to someone's random web page). He also sent me email claiming to have not know anything about blades using his new email address - but signed it with his real first name, and used technical terms no layperson would know.
We arranged for the deputy(!) he ripped off to be the winner on the bid and got a snail-mail address from him for the postal order. (We'd tracked him down, but he'd moved to another state, and we needed his new address.) When he tried to pick up his check at the PO box, he was arrested. About a dozen blades were recovered, and he was convicted.
Banding together made us FAR more able to get action; this was probably one of the earliest arrests of an eBay seller. Of course, things have changed since then I imagine. Back then I bought a $2500 sword via eBay by personal check (and he mailed it before he received payment - the catch is that he knew who I was from the sword community).
To a certain degree some people on eBay are like people driving around in a van saying "psst: want to get a great deal on some speakers" or "hey, genuine rolex, only $100". Why shuld you trust them? Photos are hardly evidence the item ever existed.
I've both bought and sold a LOT of stuff on eBay over the years, and I've generally been very pleased with the outcome.
However, I've had a few problems with buyers of my products which resulted from them not reading the details before bidding (or ignoring them).
If an item does not state anyplace in the auction that it's "functional" or "in working order", you can assume it to be broken/malfunctioning. If you're not really sure, email the person and *ASK* before bidding!
I've occasionally sold some items that were known to be in not-so-great condition, but I've always stated "as-is" clearly in my auctions when they were like this. I also started the bids at a very low dollar amount. Still, I've had winning bidders of these things get all bent out of shape and threaten legal action before when the product wasn't shiny new and working perfectly after they got it.
The fact is, there are good reasons why people might actually want to buy broken products! Maybe they want to gut it for repair parts, or they want to take on the challenge of fixing it themselves?
Also, if you're buying a smaller-cost item ($100 or less), keep in mind that UPS will typically insure it for up to that amount at no additional cost over normal ground delivery. Therefore, there's no excuse for someone to ship you an item via UPS and have it completely uninsured. (I use the UPS "Worldship" shipping software all the time, and even though it defaults to entering a 0 amount for insurance, it doesn't add anything to the price if you bump that up to 100.00.)
A classic eBay scam is to find a 'clearance' or 'factory reconditioned' item from some normal web storefront that's significantly cheaper than the regular retail price.
Advert it on eBay as the real deal, and don't buy it until the auction closes. Hell, you can even have it shipped directly to the buyer. Hope you didn't bite on that one...
eBay is a big fucking flea market. I go to flea markets looking for atari cartridges and old computer, not the leather sofas and aquariums which are being sold there (San Jose). Keep that in mind, and you'll be fine.
Don't you have to supply a credit card to sell on ebay, in order to prevent such things as this? Why can't they just charge his account, and refund the buyers.
the ones that are only good in the U.S. cost something like 75 cents, can be cashed at any bank you have an account with, or any post office. If anybody intercepts the order then they have comitted a FEDERAL offence, with its own investagative bureau. And if the recipient doesnt cough up the item then they have comitted mail fraud, a BIG FEDERAL offence
The only drawback is you have to get to the post office to buy them and the ones I use are only good in the U.S.. but I think that they also sell international ones at a higher rate
The new U.S. National ID cards would be perfect for this. You won't be allowed to sell or bid on eBay (or any other autcion for that matter) without providing a verifiable ID. Of course, this is all voluntary. eBay will require it, however, so if you want to continue as a member on eBay then you have to volunteer. See how easy that was?
NOTE: This message was brought to you by Sarcasm
Paypal has lately tried more and more to discourage complainers from contacting them. It seems they are suffering the same financial problems of other dot.coms and the first thing to go is customer service. If you're unhappy, they just don't want to deal with you. Of course if you are happy, there won't be any issue they have to deal with. So the simple way to save money is to just not give a damn. This is why I now no longer use Paypay, and why it's in my signature. Be sure to read here
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
It takes some time, but you can use legal process to make ISPs, Mail Boxes Etc, credit card companies, and the USPS disclose identity info.
There are two things I notice that quite a few people ignore.
The first is consistancy. I know the critsim of the feedback system has been beating to into the ground, but there is more to it than simply buying a lot of small auctions for feedback. The TYPES of items sold are important as well as looking for tons of $0.50 auctions. I mean, I saw someone selling a helecoptor on e-bay motors that brought their feeback up by selling cd's and stero equipment. He was talking like this was a normal thing. Always check the recent auctions for consistancy before you buy from someone, and check for generic feedback. Make sure the recent auctions weren't just to boost feedback AND make sure that they are consistant. Someone buying or selling an eratic array of items is an other sign of feedback boosting. On the same topic, your GUT FEELING is usaly right, and ignoring it is a foolish thing to do.
The major other problem have I seen are people NOT READING THE ENTIRE AUCTION.
One of the bigger items in this problem are the "you are paying for information" items. This can sometimes be at the end of the description in a table or something. Spending a few hundred for a playstation 2 and finding out you were paying a few hundred to find out where you can pay a few hundred to get a playstation two is something that wouldn't happen if you read the auction fully. If in doubt, mail the seller about shipping. If the seller doesn't respond within a reasonable amount of time before the auction, chances are you will have problems after the auction as well. For expensive purchaes, read the auction multiple times. You'd be supprised how much you missed.
When dealing with computers, make sure everything is listed. Don't rely on pictures - if it isn't listed, it probably isn't there.
The biggest problem I've seen with people not reading the entire auction are computers. Computers need the following
-Ram, Sound, Hard Drive, Floppy,Case, Operating System, keyboard, modem, ethernet port, monitor, motherboard, processor, FANS, power supply, and the like.
It is very common for an auction to not list ram, or say upgradeable to X amount of ram, or 6 speakers for $40 more or something similar. This means they are NOT INCLUDED IN THE AUCTION. That means this is not a full computer.
Check for a No DOA garentee for some electronics options. Some phrasing may be ambigous, so ask. Basicly this means you should find out if when you get something if its fake or not working will you be frended or get a replacement. This is important espeicaly with electronics. Find out the warentey. I have purchased some items that have no garentees that work, and some that don't. I dealt with both with a grin, becuase i expected it. Why? becuase I read the auction.
Read the auctions fully.
Some items wear down, like monitors. Others work or they don't, like processors. Know the diffrence when you buy used. Remember, refurbershed means used.
Never send cash.
To sum up - Go with your gut, make sure the seller has feedback on the type of item you are buying, check the feedback ratings of the people who gave the seller feedback, and READ THE AUCTIONS FULLY
Liquid Gaming - Your daily dose of gaming news
I complained to AOL about him as well...
The results were that he was banned from Ebay, and his AOL address no longer works, so either he changed his screen name or he's gone.
Hm.. I kind of like the idea of having a number of eBay stores situated in most cities, that organised the handling/trading of the goods and money of both parties involved in a trade..
Trading would be done over the internet of course, but each store could act as a port that holds the funds/goods and only gives them to the recipients once both parties have deposited their share. The stores could have internet terminals in them as well for people to browse eBay on the spot.
I guess it kind of defeats the purpose of the online trading, but the stores would be much more dynamic than your local pawn broker.
It would be trivial for ebay to make fraudulent users stand out a lot more just by representing the data in the feedback summary in a more useful way. How about factoring the price of each auction into a user's total feedback? Something like
...
rating = price0*feedback0 + price1*feedback1 +
It would also be trivial to display a red flag when someone's last several transactions have all been negative. Traversing the reliability of the other users they deal with seems like a good idea, and easy to implement too.
At least one exceedingly lame company is already doing something similar. So why doesn't ebay do this?
I suspect it's because they have a virtual monopoly, and can afford to be lazy.
The FBI has a unit that handles nothing but online auction fraud. They are notorious for handling auction fraud quickly and seriously, but due to the sheer volume of cases they probably have a hard time getting to everyone. Poke around at the FBI until someone puts you in contact with these people.
A couple of options:
1) FTC complaint
2) Call eBay's stock analysts - tell them that eBay is promoting a fraudlent trading environment. If their stock takes a hit, they'll take notice.
3) Sue the asshole. File the suit in your state. Have him served. If he doesn't show up, you get a default judgment. File that. Screws up his credit for about 7 years.
4) If you have a list of numerous people who were defrauded - file a suit and see if you can get a judge to certify it as a class action. You get paid, everyone else gets bubkus, and that guy gets screwed...
5) Call your State's Attorney General, his State too. Call the State's Attorney General's of the states that the other people who were defrauded are in.
6) File a complaint with the Postal Inspectors.
7) If this guy grabbed over $5K from everyone, file a complaint with the FBI.
8) File a complaint with the local police.
9) Check your homeowner's insurance to see if you have some protection against fraud or "theft by deception".
10) File a suit in Federal Court. Having Federal Marshalls show up at this guy's house to serve him will work wonders to get him to cough up the cash...
11) Have his legs broken... Ok, so it's probably not legal, but hey - it gives you some satisfaction...
Keep in mind that as the system grows less comprehensible, the less trustworthy it becomes. Perhaps it's better not to hide the inherent danger in remote person-to-person transactions based on trust.
in germany there is "nachnahme"
what this means is that the seller sends the itm to the buyer and the byer pays the postman at the door. The post takes responsibility for the transaction in exchange for a small fee. that way both buyers and sellers are safe from fraud.
I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from - Bob Dylan
Someone ripped me off on ebay for about $200. I did some investigating and got his address. I told him I'd be in his part of the country in a couple of weeks on business and would stop by and pay him a visit if he didn't settle his debt. I think I even mentioned something about a baseball bat.
It worked, he settled up almost completely. For good measure, I hacked into his AOL, yahoo mail, and paypal accounts. Reading his e-mail, I found numerous exchanges with other people he had defrauded. Also found that he was in the habit of canceling payments he made for auction items through PayPal after the people had shipped (there is a way to do this, believe it or not).
I e-mailed the other people he was scamming and warned them. I then changed all the passwords on his accounts and locked him out.
I felt better.
One of the things that has always been broken about the world is that undoing a problem created by some asshole ALWAYS takes WAY more trouble than it took the asshole to create the problem in the first place. Even if you succeed in prosecuting somebody who victimized you, you really never end up in the plus column. So what if the guy spends a few years in prison, eating free food and watching cable tv furnished at your expense. No matter how sincerely sorry he is, or how well reformed he is, or how many times he gets butt-fucked while he's in there, it still doesn't get you back the money he took from you, or your stolen computer, power tools, CD collection, etc. They all went up his nose or wherever. They are gone. All you get is the satisfaction that he paid his debt (not to you) to society. Whoopie fuckin doo.
Crime has been a problem throughout the history of civilization, yet we've made far more progress with problems we didn't even know about until the last century. Progress in the criminal justice system is measured in terms of the sophistication of investigative procedures. Things like DNA testing, chemical analysis, arson reconstruction. All brilliant stuff, to be sure. But the process you have to go through when somebody rips you off in some way is like rubbing two sticks together.
I know I am lumping the criminal system and the civil system together, so sue me, I'm not a lawyer. What I'm saying is that although our legal system is a hell of a lot more complicated than it was a hundred years ago, I don't think it has proportionately improved the world. If anything, it is now easier to fuck somebody up and harder to do something about it.
Imagine how much nicer life would be if the legal system had advanced during the 20th century as much as our knowledge of electricity or medicine. The system wouldn't just be more complex, it would work a lot better. AMAZINGLY better. After having all these thousands of years to work on the system, legal procedures should be as trivial as cash machines. Punishment and compensation should be as simple as committing the crime in the first place. Instead of assholes getting away with shit because it's too much trouble to stop them, what if it were the other way around? Now wouldn't that be a nice piece of progress?
I sure wish some legal genius or social scientist would think of something truly revolutionary, as revolutionary as inventing transistors or Stripe toothpaste. Imagine a patent like, "A system by which the effects of being screwed with can be nullified with trivial effort." Whoever comes up with this can have just about any reward they want as far as I'm concerned. Yes, this does sound like a complete fantasy, but no more so than television, artificial hearts or entangled photons. They happened, so what's the deal?
I've looked into the various options I have at ebay, or more specifically, how I as a non-us resident living in Norway can get money for the items I sell on ebay.
Paypal looked ok, except that it seemed like a hassle to transfer the money to my local account.
What is the easiest and safest way to 'get my money home' ?
Last time I checked fraud was illegal, and interstate fraud was a federal felony. It doesn't matter if it happened on eBay or at the local flea market (assuming one on the state border with you in one state and the seller in the other of course)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
What if e-bay did some sort of verification of accounts (like sending you a letter to your home address and forcing you to send it back)? Then, if they changed their system so that sellers could "only allow verified buyers" to bid, those buyers would be less likely to disappear - especially since e-bay would have more than just a hotmail or yahoo address to go on.
Three years ago I bought a nice movie camera through eBay. Then I bought a projector. It didn't work and I was ripped off. The seller changed accounts and then disappeared from eBay. I haven't bought anything from eBay since then.
Looking back, I'm glad I stopped patronizing eBay auctions. That was before they started censoring auctions and banning "politically incorrect" items like firearms, WW2 artifacts, satirical playing cards and whatever else it is that offends slack jawed, left wing, authoritarian dolts and overweight Jesus freaks.
eBay has a perfect right to enforce an anti-freedom political agenda on their website, but they won't do it with my money.
Oh, and just in case you were pondering the article's actual content: eBay doesn't give a sheeit if auction bidders are ripped off.
To paraphrase an old line:"They don't have to care- they're the auction company!"
Silly boy. He deserved to lose his money.
ALWAYS pay cash on delivery for strippers. That way you can send them away if they are ugly, or not what you ordered. Pay them half when they show up at the door, and then the other half of the agreed fee when they leave. Haggle the price down if they don't do what you want them to. Ask for a discount if they are late, either in the form of a longer show or cash off the top. Make them leave their bouncer in the car, and make sure they aren't armed.
Anyone peddling flesh for money is not to be trusted.
In addition to the various suggestions already posted, you might put a lien against their house or car. It may not give immeadiate satisfaction but you cannot sell something unless you have clear title to it.
I suppose you might formally report the matter to a credit reporting company, that could screw him up.
As a last resort turn it over to a collection agency. God knows what you will end up getting, but it will be better than nothing.
Personally, I'd talk to the cops again. Find a Detective that investigates fraud. Probably better than that, write a letter to the Chief of Police, send them copies of the checks, and politely ask for action. Make a formal complaint of theft. They cannot ignore it. Probably one quick visit by a Detective would solve it.
So many crooks, so little time. Besides, the DAs would rather spend their time on hate crimes.
Same deal in all the big cities, except the limits are somewhat lower.
The original poster has come up with about the best way I can think of to get back at some of the slime who defraud others through eBay - contact other victims and organize.
Example? My ex-brother-in-law, a complete slime, sold coins through eBay. The coins were either overgraded by him or not delivered at all. Eventually, through the tireless efforts of his ex-wife, my sister, a wonderful woman who you just don't want to piss off and who was determined to pay him back for his theft of several hundred thousand dollars worth of her property as well as his bigamy, the authorities in Texas began to take notice. She organized the victims, put them in touch with the detective handling the complaints, and prodded them to support the lengthy prosecution process.
He was eventually charged with 42 counts of felony fraud. Last week, he made a deal with the prosecutors. He made full monetary restitution to all 42 victims, got his charges reduced to class A misdemeanors for fraud, plead guilty to those misdemeanors, and was sentenced to 6 months probation. As a result, he's lost his precious license to carry a concealed handgun and his life will be tied to the whims of his probation officer for quite a while. For a guy like him who can't stand any structure in his life, that puts him just one slip-up away from a parole vioation and jail time. I'm looking forward to it. Timeline from first victim to final disposition: about three years.
My advice: The law can work. You just have to be patient and motivated.
There is always a trade-off. Why do you go to the auction sites? For the convenience and hopefully for saving a bit of cash. The trade-off is the risk of being taken. If you have particular expectations for the transaction, take it to where you know you can have those expectations met, like a reputable dealer or a well-known outlet. If those expectations being unmet is too much risk, don't do business on the auctions!
- Sig this!
Why not use the sellers credit as a bond? If need be the seller could offer a deed or escroe account to secure the credit card company against loss and the buyer would have relief from the credit card company if there was a fraud or failure to deliver.
Magius_AR
I really don't understand why people insist on buying common items from sellers across the country. If you want a cell phone, a TV, or a computer, go to WalMart. If you're cheap, go to an electronics show/flea market.
You can safely buy most rare and collectible items on eBay if you know your stuff and read the descriptions carefully. I buy and sell rare vinyl classical records, and have never had a problem. In fact, I've run into many very nice and helpful people. Scammers do not often sell esoteric items that require obscure knowledge, although there was once some guy in Hungary who tried to peddle a bootleg forgery of Szegeti doing the Bach Sonatas on Continental, a set worth $3000 if real. Nobody fell for it.
Now that guy with the Japanese swords, I'll have to admit he was good. But how many crooks are there like that?
If you must buy ordinary merchandise, you can always ask for real-world references. Who are you? Do you have a real job or store? Where do you work? Where is you store? Then call the place and ask about the seller--most businesses will verify employment.
I have paid between $.50 and $8.50 for these books. I haven't been ripped off once. I get brunt a little on the shipping - sometimes, but no biggie.
I would never buy a computer or comm eq or anything that I wouldn't be able to look at 1st - never. I know that there are some "great" deals out there - but I'll spend the extra 50 bucks for one from the store down the street to make sure I don't get nailed.
Point is - don't spend more than your willing to lose. That way you won't have any trouble.
FreeBSD: Nothing runs like a daemon with a pitch fork.
EXCELLENT choice of movies, my troll bretheren! You have given me reason to look foward to the weekend.
"Oh yes. All wisdom will die with you." -- Job
My other Slashdot ID is much lower.
>Mail is about the same as Internet from a strict legal point of view.
No. Mail fraud is a specific federal crime. There is also wire fraud, which may cover an internet experience.
Both, however, can be the basis for a RICO (Racketeering) complaint, civily or criminally.
hawk, esq.
I got in contact with my states attourny general, who apperently got incontact with the sellers state, and prosicuted the guy. It took two and a half years but I eventualy got the 800$ I had spent on a computer... and ended up with something much better! So I guess it worked out, I don't really like ebay anymore although I guess things are better with pay-pal then with the cashiers check I sent this guy!
> doesn't deserve to get my business anyway.
*he* doesn't deserve it? I don't understand *either* the merchant *or* the customer dealing with one another again after a dispute . . .
hawk
It was after the Earthquake, and another Irishman was subdividing what would become the block. He gave my great-grandfather the coin (family history has lost whether it was $5 or $10) to bid up the price on the first lot.
Cornelius built the house, my grandmother was born there and bought it after her mother's death, and now my father and uncle own it.
The return from nothing back then to a lot today in Menlo Park two blocks from SRI is staggering . . .
hawk
I know this isn't the same thing, but there are many different forms of fraud on EBay.
People also need to be on the watch for sellers driving up the prices on their auctions. Recently I got 2 accounts (they had a 750+ rating) kicked off of EBay because one account sold items and the other pushed up prices (and often received positive ratings when they won). People need to be on the watch for weird activities on accounts. Ashrael
I won an auction from Yahoo auctions a while back from a guy who had something like a 300 feedback rating. "Great!" I thought, "No chance of getting ripped off here!" I place my bid, win the auction, and then I notice, the guy had, I don't remember exactly, but somewhere between 80-100 negative feedbacks with about 400 or so positive feedbacks. he had ripped off 20-25% of his customers, but by sheer volume managed to obtain an incredibly high rating.
My auction was for a video card, and it was like, $35+$10 shipping. And my case wasn't all that bad, it was supposed to be "new in box" but it obviously wasn't. The box was cut up, will all UPC info, and even some of the specs cut off. The card was in an open static bag, and the "brand new" manual bad was taped back together. I complained, and the guy claimed he just opened it to make sure it worked ok, but it was obviously BS. But, the card did work, and it _was_ actually the right card and all, so I didn't bother filing any official complaints or anything.
Other people's auctions were things like "untested, as-is hard drives". Of course the guy had tested them, because among a lot of 10 or 20, not a single one would be good. The guy's responses to his negative feedback were things like "I said it's as-is, what do you expect?".
Here's another flawed aspect of auction feedback ratings though. I have a 118 positive feedback rating on ebay, with no neutrals or negatives. I have a 1 positive feedback rating on yahoo, 2 positive, 1 negative. What's my negative from? This guy. I, of course, left negative feedback, and the bad seller, in retailation, left negative feedback for me. I don't think I'd ever leave negative feedback for anyone on ebay, because I KNOW they'd leave negative feedback for me as retribution, and it would ruin my perfect reputation. That's a really crappy situation, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's dealt with it.
I love how this is Paypal's fault! You said "Paypal, pay this guy." They did. The guy didn't ship product. Just like if you handed him cash, he put it in the drawer and flipped you the bird. You need to take it up with the vendor. Not being able to get satisfaction from the vendor is no reason to blame Paypal.
You paid with US funds? Maybe you can complain the the Fed. AFter all, the money is "backed by the full faith and trust of the US gub'mint".
m00.
it was a 1979 911 I believe. He bought it from flordia and had it shipped to California. I have not herd he has had any problems. I think he paid about 11k for it. Dont know how he paid for it though.
.sigs suck, thus nothing here.
Check out their "About digibid.com" part:
Digibid protects both sellers and buyers . At the close of auction, the seller is notified to ship the item only after we have secured payment. The payment to the seller is released only after the item is accepted by the buyer.
This is exactly the way it should be... If ebay expects to continue as an auction house, they should act like one, or Visa and MasterCard should cut them off..
(Another part I like about digibid.com: Unlike other auctions, you can have complete confidence in your purchases because everything on Digibid is covered by a 100% money back guarantee!)
PayPal isn't a very trustworthy
I've heard of good experiences when you pay via PayPal with a CREDIT CARD, but don't even THINK of using "non credit card" PayPal funds (i.e., bank x-fer, or money from other auctions)... unless you want the big write-off from PayPal's fraud department
I've only had one fraud experience myself out of my hundreds of eBay transactions... someone selling a Palm IIIc from New York. eBay was worthless, as was PayPal (even tho the fraud was reported within 48 hours of it's occurance). PayPal recovered $0. They OBVIOUSLY don't freeze the seller's account at the time a complaint is filed... I think they don't even attempt to do so until the end of their 30-day period.
They should also make it VERY CLEAR not to send money to Non-Verified PayPal accounts... from people I've talked to, and my own experience, you don't realize it until you've already been defrauded.
I've been defrauded for 600$ buying a computer that was never shipped. I emailed him and he kept saying that there were problems and that he would get the shipment out to me as soon as possible.
I've closed a few auctions, and never heard from the person again, sometimes they email me a few times, but they never pay for it, so I never ship it. This leads me to feel that as a ebay seller, I will never ship an item before it is paid for.I've sent things internationally and then had problems with the shipping companies or with the customs in the countries that I've sent it to, which has lead me to stop selling internationally.
I've had a number of people back out of auctions, saying that they changed their minds. In these cases I try to at least get them to pay for the listing cost of the auction and the fees that ebay charges me for the auction closing. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.
But through all of these thing I still use ebay to buy things and sell thing. I follow some simple rules, which everyone here has already elaborated on (use usps, use credit cards, use escrow if its a high dollar auction).
If people stop using online auctions because they can't trust the sellers or buyers, then it is a real blow to what we geeks feel is possible. The change that online auctions brings, is worth a little hassle as we try to get the kinks worked out. Then then again I always felt that the internet was better before the www and before it was called the internet.. But alas for the good ol' days... when it was all geeks online before geek became THE thing and was no longer geekly... but a business Opportunity.
Screw it, I'm just going to post anonymously. I tried to write this post without giving away what agency I work for, and it just didn't work.
I see lots of E-Bay fraud complaints. Our office has an entire unit that deals with consumer frauds, and they're swamped in auction fraud complaints - thousands of them - involving auction sites. Yes, I have taken a few of the most egregious cases and prosecuted them criminally - and unlike most white collar fraud cases, I was able to get one guy sentenced to some jail time. The Judge commented at the sentencing that he was an E-Bay user and hated people like the defendant who preyed on the trust required in online auction systems. It was waaaay cool.
Ok, here are the tips, from a law enforcement perspective, to Ebay users. BTW, I've used Ebay on a couple of occasions to purchase stuff, and conducted enough investigations to know some of the tricks of effective scams. (Also, these comments apply to any auction service - I just use E-Bay for ease of writing)
Don't spend any more than you couldn't live without. E-Bay is the equivalent of going down to the swap mart or flea market and buying something based on it's apparent value. Except you can't actually touch it. And you don't know if those pictures are really of the item the seller has. And you don't know much about the seller at all. And the swap mart makes no assurances about the seller. You get my drift.
Escrow. I've seen it posted a bunch of times, but I'll emphasize it: USE ESCROW SERVICES If you are sending anything over a few dollars, you are crazy not to use escrow. Personally, I'm less inclinded to take a case where a seller has lost a large amount of money in an E-Bay fraud and has not used escrow. Government cannot protect all of those who do not make even minimum efforts protect themselves. [BTW, I take the same tack with corporate victims who whine about spammers attacking them, when the real cause is the fact that they ran an open relay. Why anyone would run an open email relay in the year 2001 is beyond me. Anyway, many credit cards offer the same protections. If your seller demands cash, checks, money orders (especially ones not made out to any particular person), walk away. Online payment services, like Paypal, also waive liability for your losses like E-Bay does - the only advantage they present is that they tend to keep records on the identity of the seller, which I can use to track him down.
Don't trust "feedback". Several posters have pointed out that feedback can be set up so that the seller has a high karma level based on a bunch of successful small dollar sales. I've found that a couple of my investigative targets used multiple accounts and shill bidders to make themselves look good, so they can't really rip you off. I like these cases because that's really good evidence of motive - fraudulent intent. But just like juries can see it, potential buys can see it too - if you look for it.
Don't complain about E-Bay not helping you. I've dealt with their small, ardent team of fraud investigators. These people are in the middle of a huge storm of complaining customers, and doing their best. In reality, it's the users who more often than not failed to protect themselves against fraud. More importantly, it's in the user agreement that E-Bay is not responsible if Joe Seller rips you off. They are very helpful to law enforcement who eventually pursue the cases, and I think they do a good job.
Don't expect 'infinite justice' over your $20 beanie baby. Oh, I hate those people who call and call and call demanding their $20 back because they bid on E-Bay on a beanie baby, and it was never sent to them. Arrgh. There are not enough prosecutors in the world to bring justice to all the auction fraud. Look, file your complaints, and then forget about it. Consider your loss paying your 'Stupidity Tax' for the year, and learn from your mistake. Even if I know who the guy who stole your $20, I'm not about to whistle up a team of jack-boot search warrant guys to go kick his door - unless I have a bunch of other cases against him that aggregate to a potential felony charge.
Don't expect the FBI to help. My personal pet peeve is this statement, which I've seen so many times in this story: The guy who ripped me off was in another state so it's a Federal Crime and the FBI will help me! WRONG! The FBI is a little busy with Al Qaeda right now, and even before Sept. 11, they didn't care about auction frauds on E-Bay. The reason - auction frauds from online auctions rarely add up to enough loss to meet the US Attorney's prosecution guidelines. You have to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the US Attorney's attention, and the FBI does most of its work with the US Attorney. In fact, the Internet Fraud Complaint Center, run by the FBI, is essentially an information gathering service - they aggregate all the complaints about specific individuals, looking for the next big case so they can prosecute it. Everything else sooner or later gets farmed out to a state or local agency, usually in the municipality or state where the target lives.
Use the IFCC. The only successful case we built on auction fraud before the IFFC sucked. We used a team of investigators who tracked down the defendant, all the victims, and put together the case. In agency terms, it sucked. Why? It was a resource hog - it took up lots of valuable time and effort that could have been going to what the public views as more serious crimes - all to prosecute a guy who ripped off a bunch of people who arguably should have protected themselves. Want more police and prosecutorial resources devoted to auction fraud? Take your argument to your state legislature or city council. But back to my point - the IFFC provides a tremendously valuable service to the FBI, state and local agencies. It aggregates the losses as to each potential defendant, and helps me decide which cases merit prosecution - the defendant who rips off the most people for the most dollars in the most egregious way is the most likely to draw criminal charges. But I can only charge your loss if you let me know you've been ripped off. The best was to do that is to file a DETAILED IFCC fraud report.
Prosecuting the cases takes time, and you may not receive constant updates about the progress of the investigation. Look, I have lots of cases. Investigations move very slowly, as do most things in the legal arena. I mentioned above that the IFCC is an information gathering service, and it takes time for that info to filter down to people who can actually act on it, and then those people have to find the time to pursue it. The statute of limitations varies from state to state, but mine is seven years for felonies. If I can put together a case showing a pattern of small-dollar fruads over a span of months or years, I can put a guy in jail, possibly prison. If I take your $20 beanie baby case, I can maybe get him on a petty offense, a trip to city court, and a fine similar to a parking ticket. BTW, getting your money back is my goal in fraud cases, but it rarely happens because the defendants often live large with your cash and have no way to pay you back.
I'll watch this thread to see what responses pop up.
Hey, do you know how hard this was to join a group of 55 potential victims? It's a way to earn a living out of it! Four victims per month, that poor guy lives better than me, working maybe 3 hours a week!
What happens to american people? Sometimes I think that only 33% of the crowd works for the other 66% that are *by far* brighter than the rest. At least brighter than me.
I've done 75 or more transactions on Ebay, up to buying an $1100 laptop, and I've used Paypal, money orders, and personal checks. I've never once been defrauded. Guess I'm lucky or something. I do always pick sellers with several hundred positives or better, but I guess one of those could still screw you over. Too bad for those people who have lost money.
Great information on what reality is.
good point.
the simple explanation for the described trust metric reputation system is "your reputation is based on your total sales volume as well as the reputations of those who left feedback for you"
or for buyers:
"your reputation is based on your total purchases and of the reputation of those who left feedback for you."
the word "negative" should be scrapped at that point though. trust metrics require positive numbers and you don't want people to think that someone with a bad reputation leaving you feedback could harm you (it can't, it just "won't boost you" which is the current problem).
some issues that eBay would need to deal with are who the seeds of the trust metric would be (existing well established 20000+ ebay reputation sellers would be a good starting point, a legal contract could be drawn up between ebay and them even).
IANAL, and generally unclear on the law, but if you ended up snail-mailing your payment to the seller, you might be able to call it "mail fraud" and send the USPS after them.
If you paid through credit card, aren't there other inherent protections? Or is that only with unauthorized transactions?
There you go...
-------------------------
As easy as herding cats!