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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
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 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?"
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
There are good reasons for that.
First, ebay's much hearalded feedback system is constructed to discourage negative feedback. The text on the feedback page pleads with you not to leave negative feedback. If you decide to leave negative feedback anyway you must go through an extra confirmation page that is not required for positive feedback.
Second, it opens you to retaliation from the other party in the form of negative feedback. The only negative feedback I ever received was retaliation from the only seller I ever left negative feedback for. Investigating his feedback history I discovered that he only ever left negative feedback, and most of that was retaliation for negative feedback he received.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
CC companies are not white knights many make them out to be. In my experience, anyway.
We had a dispute with a moving company once. They were a load of late, lying, box-smashing bastards. They had all our stuff, couldn't tell us when it would get to our new place, and had charged our credit card a huge amount, including last-second things we never agreed to. The moving company hadn't even made us sign a contract.
We called the credit card company to see if there was any way we could stop payment or apply pressure to the movers. There wasn't. Since it wasn't a broken piece of merchandise, but a SERVICE, they utterly refused to get involved. They said that if you paid a company for a service, and that company then altered the terms of the arrangement -- charging more, delivering less, whatever -- that the CC company would not take action on your behalf. Period.
Maybe it was just one brain-dead rep. I dunno. That is the first and last time I have ever tried to get help from a CC company.
(Luckily my employer was paying for this move, so I had little motivation to go to court or something like that, and it worked out in the end. Except for the hassle of not having my stuff for 3 WEEKS when they said the move would take 4 DAYS.)
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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'.
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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
Exactly... You can use http://four11.com to search for names and addresses and MapQuest for directions to the address as well as aerial photos. Terraserver is another example. It's a little scary, really.
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.
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?
What's the big deal with a/c numbers? You can't actually DO anything with them you know! It's not like I can just walk into a bank with someone elses a/c number and empty the account, strangely enough they will want ID! All knowing someone's a/c will let you do is pay IN, and if anyone wants to pay into my account, just let me know and I'll tell you the number
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
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
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.
>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.
> 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 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.
Mine happens to have a $50 liability limit, per the same rules as the credit cards.
But there's also a clause that says they offer it as a service and they can change the rules at any time.
GTRacer
- Thank God for Credit Unions!
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
I've been defrauded for 600$ 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.
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?