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."

Comments

Anyone else ever been scammed?

[Computer!]

I always wondered why anyone would trust EBay auctioneers with large amounts of money. I mean, it gets to a point where a few negative feedbacks aren't going to make up for loss of any serious dough. Anyone else have scam stories?

Re:Anyone else ever been scammed?

[curunir]

Never been scammed on ebay, but...

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 .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.

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.

Just wondering...

[Archie Steel]

...since I am not an ebay costumer: is it possible to create fake identities and buy stuff from yourself in order to pump up your approval rating? Does ebay have any safeguards against this? I could see this type of fraud as very detrimental for online auctions in general...

Re:Just wondering...

[Maditude]

There seems to be little doubt among his would-be customers that Mr. Richardson pulled off one of the most remarkable con jobs in the almost seven-year history of the eBay auction site, the Internet's most successful commercial outpost. "The guy ran off with the money," says Gene Clark, a computer consultant in East Brunswick, N.J., who says he paid Mr. Richardson $700 for four porcelain mice that never arrived.

/me would consider this guy scammed even if he *had* gotten his porcelain mice.

Re:Just wondering...

[Grape Shasta]

...since I am not an ebay costumer: is it possible to create fake identities...

Misspelling, or clever pun? You be the judge.

Re:Just wondering...

[Waffle Iron]

/me would consider this guy scammed even if he *had* gotten his porcelain mice.

I can attest to that. Porcelain mice are heavy slippery and easy to break. They tend to aggrivate RSI problems. One of the worst things about them is that if you don't have a mouse pad, they make a screeching sound like fingernails on a chalkboard when you move them. I would never bid on one.

AOL redefines fraud

[RollingThunder]

Rather humorous, this feedback entry. I'll obscure the email just to limit spamharvesting on it, but you can see it at the EBay link.

-------@aol.com (25)
Jan-22-02 12:48:53 PST
1055398606
S

Praise : Complete Fraud! Took all our money and never received any product

So evidently AOLers WANT to be defrauded? :)

Re:AOL redefines fraud

[fobbman]

Why'd you remove the email addie? If they like fraud, then they'd LOVE home loan refinancing and penile enlargement mail.

Escrow, Escrow, Escrow people!

[Matey-O]

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!

Re:Escrow, Escrow, Escrow people!

[mosch]

Everybody is saying 'if the seller won't use escrow, don't do business', but in my experience nobody uses escrow, even when you offer it. If you can't afford to take the loss, USE ESCROW.

The second thing to remember is that even good users can "go bad". If you can't afford to take the loss, USE ESCROW, don't just see if the seller is willing to use escrow, use it. For As an analogy, look at slashdot, at all the high-karma, low-uid users who turn into useless trolls.

Lastly, if you can't afford to take the loss, USE ESCROW. Don't contemplate it, USE IT.

Re:Escrow, Escrow, Escrow people!

[yesthatguy]

No, the parent really had a good point. You usually can trust a large registered corporation, because they generally have good contact information and an image to keep up. Sometimes, however, large registered corporations *cough*Enron*cough* go bad. Perhaps a larger corporation is slightly easier to track down if it tries to pull a fast one, but it's not necessarily more trustworthy by nature. Say some employee at the escrow company is handling a $100,000 transaction for some rare artwork. There's not really that much stopping him from taking both, or sending the artwork and keeping the money - certainly no more than some guy with 6000 positive feedback points.

People trust their banks because of FDIC insurance. Before/During/Right after the Great Depression, this type of security did not exist, and (especially during/after) people did not trust their banks. There were many people who had their life savings in banks only to show up one day to be told that there was no way in hell they were ever getting any of that money ever again.

Re:Escrow, Escrow, Escrow people!

[miracle69]

For As an analogy, look at slashdot, at all the high-karma, low-uid users who turn into useless trolls.

Could this be foreshadowing from user # 204?

Re:Escrow, Escrow, Escrow people!

[pangloss]

you know what? tradenable is gone. of course you wouldn't know that just from glancing over their website, but if you actually try to register or use their service, you'll see this:

TRADENABLE SERVICES ARE ENDING SOON Tradenable is no longer accepting new registrations or escrow transactions. Tradenable will continue to facilitate completion of all Tradenable escrow transactions that are already in progress and paid for. Please continue with your existing escrow transactions and complete them as quickly as possible. Tradenable escrow transactions started but not yet paid for will be cancelled and other arrangements will have to be made between buyer and seller. If your payment to escrow is in transit to us at this time, Tradenable will deposit the funds and continue to process the transaction. If you wish to have your payment returned and not continue with the escrow transaction, please log in to the transaction page on our web site and cancel the transaction now. If you have initiated payment for a transaction via credit card and processing has not been completed, the transaction will be cancelled and your card will not be charged. We ap

I found this out a couple months ago when I wanted to buy a multi-thousand dollar projector for work on ebay a couple months ago. I thought it was kind of lame that eBay was still linking to tradenable given that they were no longer offering escrow services.

Not a lot of people understand/trust escrow. tradenable was great because it was effectively endorsed by eBay. Anyone know a good online replacement for tradenable? Anyway, the tired moral of the story is still caveat emptor!

Solution? More contact information

[SuperMallen]

I bought one very high ticket item on EBay once (admittedly this was a while ago), an expensive Sony video camera. Before I mailed off my $1900 cashier's check, I got the other person's phone number and actually spoke to them. In this way, I felt I had at least some recourse in case something went wrong. Fortunately nothing did, and I have happily used my TRV 900 for years now.

The point is that the more information you have about your seller, the easier it will be to go after them in case something goes wrong. People can hide via email, but by phone it's much harder.

Re:Others

[FortKnox]

IIRC, someone attempted to sell their kidney on ebay, that had past the $1million mark when ebay stopped the auction...

Re:Classic Move

[erasmus_]

These people were defrauded. I don't think it's very appropriate to "applaud his patience and cunning." If a murderer stalks his victim, and strikes at just the right moment, do you give him credit for such great planning?

One word: ESCROW.

[SlashChick]

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!)

How many fake-feedback accounts still exist?

[Snowfox]

In the old days of ebay, you didn't need to enter an auction number to leave positive feedback; only for negative feedback.

I used to leave positive feedback for strangers as a joke - "Cuba makes the best! thanks!!!" for a cigar seller, "you're right! your bowling pin trophy looks great on my headboard - thanks!" for a stylish furniture seller, "hang in there! FUNNY poster! poor kitten!" for a guy selling skulls and such, etc., etc.

Around that time, other people were too busy for such fun and nonsense, creating networks of accounts, all of which were leaving each other positive feedback. It was possible to have an account with a lengthy history of perfect feedback, even though a transaction had never been completed.

Many of these accounts were weeded out, some because they were used for fraud, others because people spotted ones with all the feedback happening in a couple days' time and asked questions.

But the requirement for an auction existing to match positive feedback left was only added about two years ago. I'm betting hundreds more bogus positive accounts exist and are sitting idle, waiting to be used...

What should be going through your brain....

[DaSyonic]

#define USEPAYPAL 0x01
#define USEESCROW 0x02
#define GOINPERSON 0x04

int whattodo(long price);

int whattodo(long price) {
if (price <= 60) return USEPAYPAL;
else if (price <= 10000) return USEESCROW;
else if (price > 10000) return GOINPERSON;
}
/* Code is protected free speech! Don't think otherwise */

Re:Classic Move

[Starship Trooper]

It's a classic scam. Build up a rep for being honest, upright, soforth. Once everyone trusts you, you can strike it big with little difficulty.

Right, there's a name for that scam. I can't remember. Hang on... thinking about it... oh ya!

Enron!

Why I won't buy til the last minutes of an auction

[spongebob]

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

Ebay

[jchawk]

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. :-)

Kind of Funny

[puppetman]

At the bottom of the article, his wife mentions that she found evidence that he had been gambling over the Internet, and may have gone into debt as a result.

What's funny is that when I closed the window to the story, there was one of those ubiquitous popup-adds for an on-line casino.

I find it amusing is that people shell out good money for those tacky little figurines. I find it not so amusing that some people may have lost upwards of $20,000.

Re:Why I won't buy til the last minutes of an auct

[mencik]

You should use Winning Bid Pro to do the last minute bidding for you. I use it all the time. Just set up the bid you are willing to make and have it send it in 10 seconds before the auction ends. That way you don't drive the price up ahead of time. Sometimes someone has a max bid higher than yours, or is using a bidding program the same as you and you get beat. But, you put in the max amount you were willing to pay, right? You win some, you lose some. With Winning Bid Pro, you'll win more.
By the way, the program is free, I didn't write it, and get no money for praising it.

Fool me once...

[switcha]

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Pay 700 bucks for four glass mice, kill me now and spare the gene pool.

The real cost & security of eBay

[Snowfox]

I've completed about 400 transactions on eBay. (My feedback is 222 because people only leave feedback about half the time if you don't actively chase them down for it.)

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.

Re:Why do they go bad?

[omarKhayyam]

"I don't think there is anything else on this Earth that would turn a normally law abiding citizen into a criminal any faster then a desire for money. "

Revenge.

-Adam

I almost hate to say it, but...

[Knunov]

...I kinda like this guy.

Not because he's a thief. That's despicable.

But to know that a person has it in him to act one, predictable way for years and fool even those closest to him, then instantly change into a completely different persona restores some of my faith in human nature.

He's not a robot. He's not a brick in the wall. He's a free thinker, even though this particular manifestation was lowly.

We read stories about Blackbeard, Jack the Ripper and The Great Train Robber. They make for some of the best stories. But we rarely consider what type of people these characters are.

Stewart Richardson was one of those guys, merely under different circumstances.

Best of luck to those that were taken at recovering your booty. And luck to Mr. Richardson, wherever he may be running, because the only stories as interesting as criminals pulling off the big one, are criminals getting nabbed by The Good Guys.

Admit it. Elliot Ness in The Untouchables was a bad ass :)

Knunov

I found someone the other day acutally ..

[RembrandtX]

before i bid on anything on e-bay .. i run a simple php script that searches their selling bids, and looks for patterns :
(it also recursivly checks any patterns of individuals found by examining their feedback ratings for patterns)
this is what i found on his last 4 auctions: all of these bids were placed on the last day of the auction .. and most we're less than 3 away from the final bid.

• in selling auction 1037815752:
  edster007 (19) $20.00 Nov-30-01 07:46:45 PST
  tennisdoc (416) $21.06 Nov-30-01 12:55:09 PST
  
• in selling auction 1037825538
  edster007 (19) $30.00 Nov-30-01 07:46:07 PST
  tennisdoc (416) $32.99 Nov-30-01 12:53:48 PST
  
• in selling auction 1037822796
  edster007 (19) $30.00 Nov-30-01 14:00:09 PST
  tennisdoc (416) $31.99 Nov-30-01 12:52:38 PST
  
• in selling auction 1037817680
  edster007 (19) $25.00 Nov-30-01 07:44:09 PST
  tennisdoc (416) $31.52 Nov-30-01 12:56:20 PST
  

while this doesn't mean this guy (whos account im not posting .. because it could just be an honest e-bay thing) a shiller on e-bay [and he assured me via e-mail that he wasn't after i told him i didn't want to risk bidding on his auctions based on my search] .. it certainly makes me wonder why 2 people chose to bid on each of his last 4 auctions, consecutivily, and in some cases .. the same exact amount of time apart on seperate auctions.

before people shout 'thats not what the article is talking about' let me point out .. that if this guy (who had over a 90 rating on ebay) WAS doing this .. he has been doing it for at least 6 months. its relativly cheap to win your own e-bay auction .. like 1% or so .. and build up false creadibilty.

Here's Why

[hendridm]

> 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.

Typical Scam

[romco]

It's easy to get scammed on ebay. This happened to a friend of mine.

A seller put a brand new digital camcorder on ebay. After winning the auction the seller said he wanted cash (cashiers check) but would take a credit card number for deposit and ship the camcoder for him to look at.

The seller orders a camcorder using my friends credit card from a online shop and has it shipped to him. The shipping information and the credit card billing information match so the online shop had no problem shipping it.

He got the the camcorder and was happy so he sent the cashiers check.

Imagine his surprize when he got his credit card statement. He could have returned the camcorder (it came from a legit business and it was what he wanted so he kept it.)

He lost the money he sent (~$800.00).

Be Careful

When the pioneers die

[Deanasc]

So this will only get worse when an ebay merchant dies and the heirs realize that his 9000 positive feedback is worth a quick 20grand on the black market. What's to stop that? Or a merchant themselves realize they can get a little extra retirement juice by selling their account to the mob.

Other Ebay "scams"...

[cr0sh]

Actually, I hesitate to call these scams - but more on the level of "selling an article to a person that could be had cheaper somewhere else". Let me show you a perfect example:

Look up electric bicycle motor on Ebay. Now, I am going to pick an auction that doesn't "die" until the 28th so that others can see what I mean - I am picking the last one on that list - click here.

Now, look at that picture of the "dual motor" at the bottom - seems pretty cool, huh? Pretty professional, get a little kit and convert your bike to electric. Cost doesn't seem too bad (if you have priced EV bikes before) - heck, "Buy It Now" is only $1.00 over starting bid - so this motor combo, a cheap bike from WalMart or a garage sale, and a cheap gel-cel battery - and I can have my own electric bike for under $200.00!

The motor only cost $93.00...

Now - go here, and on the left hand side select Battlebot Parts - or click here to see them. Now, go down to the fourth item on that page - look familiar?

MECI sells the exact same thing for $40.00! Just above it is the battery you need (actually, you will need two of them for enough amps to go far enough - and really, this isn't the best motor system to use, but might be fun to play around with).

So, here is an example of an eBay seller using their own ignorance against them.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the "way" of our capitalistic society - middlemen, etc everywhere always scamming for a buck. You see this on Ebay a lot - cheesy CDs of "info found no where else" (yeah right, just everywhere on the internet) - these I would take more seriously if they were selling the CDs as "fruits of labor for scouring the Net" - at least then it could be seen as an internet information gathering service thing. You also see it in the multitude of "plans" showing how to build a 100" projection TV with a special lens (but, you do get the lens - nevermind the fact that plans are everywhere to do this, it uses nothing new, and the lens can be had cheaper at the local Walmart).

These guys aren't typically shut down because they do offer a real product, and actually sell it - and people love it!

Another "scam" - I have seen sellers of SDRAM bidding for memory on other auctions - sometimes within hours of their own auctions - for the same type of RAM - they buy the RAM cheap from another auction, then resell it the same day for a profit to other bidders (and typically, for much more money than they could find it for on Pricewatch).

Many times I have wondered if I could pull these same kind of "deals" off - and each time I stop thinking about it, because it just isn't in my "moral fabric" to rip people off - I would rather tell them where to get it cheaper.

I guess that is one reason why I will never own a business - I am too honest for my own "good"...

bleh.