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When Good Ebay'ers Go Bad
An anonymous submitter sent in: "This guy "Stewart Richardson" had over 6000 positive feedbacks on eBay, held a fake estate sale, and scammed around $250,000 out of people before disappearing. 'There seems to be little doubt among his would-be customers that Stewart Richardson pulled off one of the most remarkable con jobs in the almost seven-year history of eBay, and U.S. federal investigators agree.' Some other links: a messageboard and ebay itself. I was scammed on eBay for $3600 a while back. I was able to get my money back because I had a bank issued cashier's check. I had written "For Deposit Only" on the back, and that was crossed out by the recipient. The bank teller should have been suspicious, but was not, and cashed the check. The idiot who had it cashed wrote his bank account number on the back of the cashier's check, and also wrote his Dad's business bank account number on the back and stamped it with his Dad's signature. In the end, the bank reversed the payment, and took the money out of his Dad's account. When his Dad found out, the idiot was in some serious trouble, but I got my money back. There were a few other's scammed in the same transaction, and they recieved about half of the money back after the police started to put the pressure on these guys. The story is much more involved, so I won't go into the rest of it."
If it's worth spending $40 for shipping, it's worth spending a little more to ensure you're getting what you're _expecting_!
If the seller won't use an online escrow service (www.tradenable.com has worked well for me in the past) then DON'T BUY THE PRODUCT!
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Of course they do. Shill bidding and having other people you know bid on items is something very common, and has been even before Ebay. Ebay clearly prohibits it, and afaik, has a pretty good system for detecting when different accounts have a suspicious amount of cross-bidding or winning of auctions.
As such, I don't think this is the case here, I'm sure the previous legigimate business that this seller conducted was with real other buyers. You don't get your rating this high on fake accounts without getting caught, it's just not doable.
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You would have to put a huge amount of effort into doing this. The thing that keeps this from being a big problem is the fact that only one positive feedback can result from any given buyer-seller relationship on Ebay. In other words, if I buy three items as separate auctions on Ebay, I can only give the seller a net 1 positive feedback. I can certainly submit a positive for the other two transactions, but they aren't counted in the total. So, you'd have to go thru the trouble of setting up a separate ID for every single feedback point you got this way.
Terry
Ya, how about Operation Bullpen, the sports memoribilia bust that took on a whole ton of fake signature dealers on Ebay...
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
Escrow, Escrow, Escrow.
From eBay's escrow information page (the last link):
What is Escrow?
Escrow is when a buyer places money in the custody of a trusted third party. The money is then paid to the seller once a specified set of conditions, that both parties have agreed to, are met.
How does it work?
Very simply. The Buyer pays into escrow. The Seller ships the item to the Buyer. The Buyer approves the item. Funds are paid to the Seller. It's that easy.
Is the service only available for items that close over $500?
Based upon historical data, eBay recommends that buyers and sellers use escrow services for transactions greater than $500.
So, if you buy something over $500, and pay for it using escrow, the seller does not receive payment until you have determined that the item was shipped and works properly.
Use escrow for any serious purchases. Don't rely on eBay's fraud program -- it takes months to get them to do anything and they often want ridiculous amounts of documents "proving" that the item was faulty.
Informed consumers make these issues moot. Don't buy from a seller who won't use escrow, and add in the extra fees as a cost to doing business via eBay. If you don't use escrow, you assume the risk if the product isn't what you wanted (or doesn't arrive at all!)
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On rec.crafts.metalworking they talk about a guy they call Ali Babbin all the time. He apparently has stuck several members for big money. Here is an excerpt:
>
> His name is Allen Babbin. His current email that he checks is
> ranckoc2.hotmail.com. His address is 33 Stafford Ave. Bristol, CT 06010.
> He lives with an individual named Eddy Sczappa, whom to my knowledge is
not
> involved in Ali's business. The telephones numbers that he currently
> answers are: 860-584-9932, 860-583-7796, 860-584-9939. The typical thing
> that happens is someone else answers and says he is not there. Sometimes
> Ali will do this and sometime his roommate does this.
>
> Ali was Connique on Ebay, Although there really is a Connie Burgos. She
is
> Ali's niece and she may have been involved with the Connique scam to some
> degree. Her number is 860-747-6268. She is most likely under the age of
18
> and lives with her mother.
>
> I lost over $500 to Ali and I know he has screwed people out of a lot more
> than that. I tried unsuccessfully to get Paypal to cancel his account and
> never let him back, as he conducts most of his business through them, but
> they were very uncooperative. We need to keep close tabs on Ali and shut
> him down.
The bad thing is many of these people used PayPal for their transactions and they won't do anything about the guy either. (EBay doesn't apparently care to stop him)
I beleive that eBay has bid bots that work in the same way that the sellers do in an effort to pump the bids up to the max bid without going over. I will tell you why?
Several months ago a friend got suspicious when he won an auction for a no-name retro video game. He was suspicious because someone had bid against him with an "updated or changes username" and always bid some strange amounts at varying time intervals. The stranger would come on, bid, and then wait for some period of time to up the bid a little more. Then in a last two days the stranger bid exactly one dollar below my friends max bid, triggering it and getting all the money out of my buddy.
Most people would say coincidence. I thought so too, so we made another experiment with another seller. Another video game and we put $100 as the max bid on the game. This game wasn't rare or collectible in the slightest. As the auction went on, a similar activity occured. This time in the last hours of the auction the bid got bumped in the same way. The user knew that the game wasn't worth more that 10-15 bucks and probably wouldn't want to overbid and lose all the money,so it's unlikely in my opinion that it was the seller.
The auction ended and a $15 product was sold for $96 with this strange business described earlier.
My question? Who knows what the max bid is? eBay.
Who gains when the max bid is retrieved as the selling price? The seller and eBay.
So it's in thier interest that any max bid be reached, by hook or by crook. I don't trust them, so I bid at the last minute and get things at the price I want to pay for them.
Spongebob
Here's some things you can do to make your ebay purchase a safer experience.
1. Involve the United States Post Office. Once you involve them, you have them on your side becaues they really hate mail fraud. You can contact your postmaster and he can usually start the investiation rolling. Remember, mail fraud is a federal offence.
2. Contact the seller. If the person is not willing to talk to you directly on the phone about a high ticket item you are buying, do you really want to do business with him?
3. Not to be redundant, but ESCROW ESCROW ESCROW. If you are spending over $50, isn't the extra $5 or $10 worth it?
4. Use a real credit card and not a debit card that withdraws from you bank account. Discover is probably one of the best I've used. Any problems I've had, they have immediately put a hold on the money, and credit my account with the money in question, until they can get it sorted out.
5. Use your head. If something seems to good to be true, then it is, especially on the internet.
I just don't understand why people are having this many problems with online purchases. If you follow these simple steps you will not come accross any problems that you can't get resolved. Are you guys really this trusting? Come on now, it's the internet, don't trust anyone. If you're getting ripped off like this, to be honest, you probably deserve it. Maybe you should rethink this internet purchasing thing, it might not be for you.
SIG - I love you guys, mod me to +5 then bash me back down to +2.
They look for trends of certain users constantly bidding for other users auctions. You would need to keep creating users to do this successfully without getting detected.
Never been scammed on ebay, but...
.edu addresses. These are much harder to fake, and are generally pretty easy to track down. Most of the people on the newsgroup tended to be students or people affiliated with universities, so that wasn't too big a problem.
Back before the whole ebay thing, I used to participate in newsgroup based auctions for a once-popular CCG. Back then, there was no PayPal or online escrow services, so we employed other tactics to try to ensure that we didn't get ripped off.
First, many people would only trade with people that had legitimate
When someone did get ripped off, they posted to the newsgroup about it. Someone maintained a list of bad traders (both virtual and physical addresses) that people checked before trading anything. Bad traders were given the opportunity to defend themselves, but most complaints were usually legit.
Overall, there were supprisingly few scams. I conducted nearly 3000 trades and was only ripped off once (tho it was for over $2000). Many of my friends had similar results. I don't know what the ebay statistics are like, but I would imagine that they aren't as good.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
1. I've never been ripped off on eBay, but I never buy big-ticket items. The closest thing I've had to being ripped off was an old book from someone who forgot to mention he was a 300-pack a day chain smoker.
2. I've never had a problem with PayPal. Just lucky, I guess.
3. $700 for porcelain mice? I hope they were porcelain-plated gold or 300 years old or something.
4. The guy will be caught because a lot of people are looking and he didn't get enough money to really make a run for it, unlike the payroll truck thief here in CA who stole (I think) 7 million from moving trucks and no-one knew until it was over.
I'm anti-thievery on moral grounds, but even if you aren't, never steal anything as measly as a quarter-million, especially so publicly. This guy deserves to lose, no matter what your POV is...
You only need a credit card to register if you're using a "free" (eg hotmail) email account to register with. Otherwise, no verification other than a working email address is required to buy on eBay.
To sell, you need to register with a credit card although that wasn't always the case and there are quite a few old-timers who are grandfathered on this policy.
I was scammed when buying a highly collectable item from someone on EBay. He did have 0 feedback, but he was verified on Paypal (where I payed for the item.) I thought that was enough to be covered, but alas, it is not. His phone number got de-listed, email address is gone, etc. I recieved a total of $8 from Paypal and EBay's "Insurance" policies. If you ever get scammed, don't count on those 'insurances' to get you ANY money back.
In my experience, the 0.01% fraud rating claimed by the eBay rep is probably about right. I've only had one or two people who seemed out and out determined to screw me. That tiny number doesn't take into account the much higher clueless/careless seller factor, however.
More than 1 transaction in 10 has had a problem for me. The most common problem is bad packaging. I've received computers in boxes with no padding whatsoever. I've gotten CDs in half-opened cases with a scratch raked across the surface. I've even received cards in nothing but bubble wrap and a flexible mailer.
eBay, PayPal and the likes are absolutely worthless about helping in cases where something arrives, but doesn't work. Sellers who promise to ship with insurance usually don't, or aren't helpful about your filing a claim. They have their money, and so they want to be done with you.
You just have to figure out what the failure rate is, and be sure you're bidding low enough to compensate. Me, I won't bid more than 90% of what I think something is worth, and I won't bid on something I absolutely need soon.
The feedback system also isn't nearly as valuable as it seems. People are afraid to give bad feedback unless the other person has already left their feedback, otherwise, they're guaranteed to get negative feedback in turn. It's actually in a person's personal best interest to leave no feedback at all when a transaction has gone bad, and I suspect the scammers know this, and don't leave the initial feedback accordingly.
Not only do you need a credit card when you're selling, but you must now provide bank account information as well. Kind of a pain when you're setting up an account for a corporation to sell off old equipment and their form is only designed for personal users.
Those who will sacrifice Freedom and Security will get Windows...
Sorry but you get positive feedback very very easily. you just email the customers saying if you give me positive feedback I'll give you some.. well there it goes, you are guarenteed 1 feedback point on EVERY sale.
Sorry but praise is for when they went above and beyond... did an excellent job and made you orgasmatically happy. otherwist it's nutral.
this is why I put ZERO value on ebay ratings except for negative feedback. someone with 90,000 positive and 20 negative is a shady character to me compared to the guy with 20 good and no negative.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
> ...there was no PayPal or online escrow services, so we employed other tactics to try to ensure that we didn't get ripped off.
I'm not sure everyone would agree that PayPal is a safe way to trade. In fact, I hardly see how there is any security built into the service. If someone rips you off, how much work do you think PayPal is going to do to get your money back? For those who feel the security of their credit cards, think again. After all, PayPal made the charge to your card and PayPal upheld their end of the deal - facilitating currency exchange. I don't see what grounds you would have to stop payment on PayPal who did nothing wrong.
For large amounts, I would much rather use an escrow service.
I love PayPal and have never gotten ripped off, but I am also aware I'm taking a risk. That's why I only use PayPal for small to medium amounts (depending on a seller's rating) and direct credit card payments and escrows for large amounts. Too bad, in this case, the seller had an excellent rating.
> Why would I buy something from somebody I don't know, and can't get *real* info on.
Because you can't get it anywhere else, that's why. Ebay has a TON of stuff you can't find anywhere for great prices. It all depends on how averse to risk you are. Some people play the lottery, some people use Ebay. Personally, I've had much better luck with Ebay than the lottery.
The shipping invoice usually (but not always) shows how the shipment was paid for. If it was a credit card, it'd show the last four digits or something. Besides, wouldn't you be a little suspect if you were expecting a package from a private individual and instead got a package from "ABC Digital Cameras"?
But the trick is that using the system I described you pretty much can't overbid. Once your bid is equal to the persons max bid you stop. If you did go over then you just say it was a non-paying bidder and leave negative feedback for yourself.
Please know that I am in no way endorsing this and I have never used the bid to max method for evil purposes.
[of course its edited to protect the parties]
t ml).
l )
*the seller*,
I visited the local post office and had them verify the shipping cost. The US Postal worker said that shipped box which weighed 2.84lbs cost $5.20, from your description ("Insurance is included and required"). The US Postal worker also informed me that the item was not insured for any amount whatsoever, also when items are insured a "blue" form is attached with a tracking number. If you have the "blue" form, please send me the tracking number, to let me know that the US Postal Worker assisting me made a mistake.
[Note: After we talked on the phone, he admitted that item was not insured.]
If you have "lost" or "disposed" of the insurance
form, I am only going under the guides of the US
Postal Worker's professional experience, who has told me that this shipped item was not insured.
Futhermore, I hate to tell you that the merchandise is counterfeit as helped defined by ASUS (I reviewed ASUS's web site,
http://usa.asus.com/inside/Techref/right.h
[Note: I found this by accident, I had to flash the bios to support the AMD XP chip so I was surfing ASUS web site.]
Here's the evidence, I gather to define the Asus A7A 266 motherboard ("item") you sold is "Unauthorized" by Asus:
- There's no product serial number on the box
- Printed circuit board manufacture is not printed on the back of the board
- Bios label is square in shape
- Product serial number is not on the mainboard
The only thing that makes it "ASUS Authentic".
- Product wrapper stylizes in square shape
In response, to you posting postive feedback. The
auction ended "Jan-15-02 06:58:10 PST", I paid for the item "Jan 15, 2002 07:54:48", that is a same day payment and within an hour after winning. Of course, I should have positive feedback because I carried out my deal promptly. (Refer to PayPal #ID. #??????????????)
[Note: He was pissed that he gaved me a positive feedback and I gave him negative feedback.]
A resolution I highly recommend to completely
extinguish my legal persuit against *the seller*
would be a refund of my $107.92 and in addition $14.95 (for shipping and handling the item back to you) and $2.00 for insurance. The grand total would be $124.87, this amount maybe transferred electronically via PayPal or through a money order.
(I suggest reading eBay's User Agreement "Section 5.3 Fraud" http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-user.htm
If you are in the sales department or customer
assistance of *the seller*, I'd prefer to have a further discussion with your manager or someone in the legal department regarding this eBay transaction.
In light of this email, if you still need to resolve this transaction over the phone. I will be delighted to entertain a phone call which will be 100% recorded in its entirety.
*myself*
----
I sent the item back COD, he refused to accept the item. Thirty-days after the auction, I contacted eBay for a refund, I am still waiting for them to do something. Since he mailed the item via the USPS, I would have a nice case of fraud against him.
My pursuit isn't for the money, its actually against the idea that people use eBay to scam items. I have no problem spending $$$ in fraud case against him at all.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
Check it out.
eBay View User Feedback for rfenetquest
and then I was loosing auctions in the 700$ range.
I am uncertain how one would "let loose or release" an auction, unless perhaps you owned it. It seems more likely that you were failing to win auctions. The word you were looking for is losing.
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