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FBI States Online Auction Fraud Biggest Source of Complaints
dipfan writes "The FBI says internet auction fraud was the biggest source of complaints last year, according to the annual report by the Internet Fraud Complaint Centre. The Nigerian bank scam still remains popular, even after all these years. Quote: "During 2001, Internet auction fraud was by far the most reported offense, comprising 42.8% of referred complaints .... Non-deliverable merchandise and payment comprise 20.3% of complaints, and credit and debit card fraud make up 9.4% of complaints."
The report is a 27 page PDF file while the Washington Post
wrote up an article about it." Just ask CowboyNeal about some of his fun with dealing with dealers in Hong Kong.
I have been messing around in the online auction business for several years now. I can say that you seriously have to do your homework on the person you are bying from.... look at their past ratings by other buyers... of course even with that you never know. Unfortunatly, sometimes you just get burned. It's happened to me a couple of times. Luckly with enough harassment and some "legal looking" documents sent to the seller I was able to clear it up. I know of others not as lucky.
I've found that the online auction world is rewarding, but sometimes not worth the effort. For the most part I've have fine dealings. But I won't buy items that are very expensive ($350+) unless it's from a reputable dealer or in person. Ironicly the most of my problems that I've had on Ebay and others have been from the trusted sellers with tons and tons of feedback. They are slow to ship and have lost my money in the past.
ahh, the egg in the basket..
Isn't there some way to work out a reliable escrow service that can act as a middleman for these types of transactions (if desired)?
Otherwise, I don't see a way that this could improve. There's scam artists out there. The Internet is the ultimate place for anonymity. Even a smart consumer could get tricked.
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
So this is the greatest number of complaints, rather than either the most people committing criminal acts, or the most damage incurred. Not so much of a big deal, ultimately. i'm almost sorry for the FBI, with so many other important demands on their attention.
Okay. So 47% of consumer complaints to the FBI were about Internet auctions, and 20% of that was complaints about merchandise that was never shipped or paid for. So, out of all the complaints, 27% of them are people that, I will assume, paid for items but never got them, or had to complain to get them or get a refund.
This is all IFCC data, which pulled it's data from a pool of fewer than 50,000 complaints. This should tell you why percentages are bad and misleading. They don't state in the article anywhere (save for the very bottom) that these percentages are based on a sample of the total data, not the sum of the data itself.
Maybe it should read, "Of a pool of 50,000 complaints from the total number, the percentages read..."
[soapbox]
Statistics are misleading. Just like those auctions you never take any precautions on. 5 steps back for eveloution. And for this, we keep euthenasia illegal in the U.S.?
[/soapbox]
Why is this news? "Oh, gee, you mean this person I'm trying to buy something from, whom I've never met before, have no idea what his real address, phone number, or even his name may be, might be trying to rip me off?" You know, if people were conducting this transaction over the phone, or by snailmail, everyone would say, "Well Duh" and laugh at the person's stupidity. But it's on the Internet, so suddenly it's a major catastrophe and the FBI has to step in and save us.
It's like all common sense flies out the window whenever any issue deals with the Internet in any way.
It hurts when I pee.
Dealing with idiots is not worth the $$$.
Join the club. One of the problems with Ebay is all the newbies and the people that will hide behind a computer screen. I had a laptop up for auction a few months ago and someone bid $3,000 for it. It was not worth that. When I did a search for all the bids from this person, I saw that he was overbidding on about 25 electronic items just making a nuisance of himself. His account was shutdown a few days later.
The biggest problem is the lack of accountability. These people aren't going to go to a live auction in their towns, bid up on a bunch of auctions and walk out the door without paying. But they'll happily do the same thing on Ebay? Of course. What's the worse that could happen? Their account/email address will get banned. And 5 minutes later, they have a new Hotmail/Yahoo account and a new Ebay account to continue to cause problems. Ebay themselves are so slack when it comes to handling abuse that it's almost as if they condone it.
The only solution I've come up with is to ban people with feedback ratings less than five or ten. It's not easy on legitimate new users trying to get a start, but I handle that by telling them to email me and discuss the problem. Also, Ebay doesn't allow you to automate it...so you have to watch your auctions like a hawk, especially towards the end. Best solution to deal with scumbags...