EBay Letting Fraud Slide?

joebagodonuts writes "MSNBC has an article charging that EBay's tough talk on fraud is just that. Talk." To a certain extent, I can understand the problem of having hundreds of thousands of auctions, and not being able to adequately police them - but ignoring fraud, when you have a policy stating otherwise is a Bad Thing.

Comments

Re:I'll vouch for that

[cscx]

You have his address -- solve this the old-fashioned way: go kick his fucking ass and cut off his balls.

Maybe that's a little overkill.

Re:I'll vouch for that

[slow_flight]

It is overkill. Skip the ass-kicking and just go for the balls.

Re:Been there...

[hondo77]

...I felt really bad about telling my friend that her money disappeared into a bottomless pit.

How did your friend feel when she found out that there were escrow services she could have used for big ticket auctions and that you didn't recommend them to her?

Re:I lose $1000 per month because of ebay fraud.

[SoCalChris]

I lose about $1000.00 per month on ebay due to copied software. I produce Video tutorials on CD, nerdmaker.com, and have to compete against $5.00 per CD copied software. After working with ebay for over 16 months, no changes have occured. Why would ebay want to change? They are, by a very wide margin, the number 1 auction site. Ebay makes money on a transaction weather its legal or not. The only motivation for change would be competition, and I don't see that happening soon.

It's the video proffesor from TV! Don't you give away the first copy of your CD free anyways?

Re:I'll vouch for that

[paul.dunne]

But how will that help the guy get his money back? I mean, is there much of a market for balls?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Maybe that is the sniper link in Maryland

[BoomerSooner]

He's hunting down the people that fucked him via eBay. I'm considering the same! (not)

Yes there IS!

[cybercomm]

If you sell the balls on e-bay... Heck if the guy could get 4 pounds of Na off e-bay, what difference would 2 measley balls do...other than set a precedent to other "illicit" sellers

Just my 2

Re:I'll vouch for that

[JonWan]

You could always sell one to Tom Green.

Re:I'll vouch for that

[BlueUnderwear]

What ebay needs to do is set up some kind of interface with UPS, FedEx, and the USPS' tracking systems and then require that all auctions have a tracking number associated with them. Of course then you have snafus with "virtual" items such as Everquest accounts...

Actually, even tangible items can turn "virtual" quite easily under this system. So you have a tracking number... and 3 days later, you also get a nice FedEx package full of rocks...

Re:Hard to enforce?

[unicron]

What would you have them do? Open a federal investigation everytime some kid screws another kid out of a Transformer?

Hi, my name is Oliver, and I'm an Ebayaholic...

[Oliver Wendell Jones]

I've purchased many, many items on ebay. I have also sold several items on ebay. I've had one bad experience with each side.

Buying - I ordered some of those 'breast enlargement pills' for my girlfriend. It's not something I wanted for her, but she was planning to buy some of the more expensive ones from a TV advertisement and I told her we could save money by using ebay. I ordered four bottles (to get the free shipping offered) and was told I would have them within 3 business days. Two weeks later, still no pills. I wrote several times and called and left phone messages. I eventually got an e-mail stating that they had been shipped to the wrong address and a new shipment was being sent out and that I would be receiving 6 bottles instead of the 4 I had paid for. One and a half weeks later they still hadn't arrived, and I left negative feedback for that seller. In less than 2 hours after posting the feedback, the seller used PayPal to refund my money. I then turned around and ordered the same pills from a different vendor, my girlfriend used them for a couple of weeks and said that they were making her fat and so she threw them out. :-(

Selling - I had an old Sega Genesis system and about 20 games for it that I never used any more. Posted it for sale, one guy kept bidding and rebidding and drove the price up high, won the auction and then never sent any money and never responded to e-mail. Within one week, his feedback dropped from around +10 to -5, so it was obvious that someone was abusing that account, no way of knowing if it was the true owner or not. I notified ebay and was allowed to re-run the auction a second time for no additional cost and ended up selling it to a legitimate buyer for about $20 less than what the first auction closed for.

Since I first started using ebay, I have purchased 3 computers (all the same), 3 digital cameras (all different), a digital camcorder, jewelry, perfume, children's toys, software, hardware, flashlights, those glow-chemical bracelets, lockpicks, magic tricks, universal remote controls, more stuff than I can even remember, and those are the only two incidents I've ever had.

I don't think using ebay is any more unsafe than most other forms of shopping, I'd worry more about buying/selling stuff through a newspaper classified ad, because you never know what's going to happen when you get to the other person's house, or worse yet, when they come to your home.

As a side note, my two greatest ebay deals involved Bob & Tom albums. I had a fairly complete set of their CD's, a total of 17 discs, one autographed, and one autographed poster. I sold the entire collection for $420 cash to someone living in the same town. A year later in the back of my closet I found a copy of Bob and Tom, A Day At the Race, a very limited edition cassette (only 500 copies made) that I listed and sold for $450... not bad considering I'd only paid $10 for it when it was new, which wasn't all that long ago...

Re:Lock funds system

[Vicegrip]

I love it when people try to insult me and make spelling mistakes. Obviously you aren't a genius either.

Ass.

Re:Fraud?

[JWhitlock]

That'd be why a search for "paypal sucks [google.com]" on Google turns up 25,000 results, right?

Oh, that's a great measure of how much something sucks. Let's see...hmm, "Linux sucks" has over 208,000 hits. Geez, it must really suck major to get that many hits.

Instant Research:
Windows Sucks: 225000 hits
Linux Sucks: 178000 hits

Conclusion: Linux sucks only 79% as much as Windows.

Further Research:
Windows sucks: 225000
Windows suxs: 534
Windows sux: 24300

Linux Sucks: 178000
Linux suxs: 287
Linux sux: 20800

BSD Sucks: 24900
BSD suxs: 59
BSD sux: 4680

Conclusions: BSD sucks 11% as much as Windows, and 14% as much as Linux. BSD suxs 11% as much as Windows, and 20% as much as Linux. BSD sucks the least. BSD sux 19% as much as Windows, and 23% as much as Linux.

BSD's market comparisions should be based on how much is sucks. Microsoft, however, should focus more on how much it sux, since it sux only 17% more than Linux, while it sucks 26% more.

A good laugh

[SomeOtherGuy]

I always find it a good laugh to see people paying MORE (or the same) for items on ebay (in some cases used items) then it would cost to go to the local Best Buy or CompUSA and plop down the cash for -- and get to enjoy instantlly. You go the Ebay route and it is just like Russian Roullette. You not only pay megabucks + shipping, you are not even sure when and if you will get the item. And if you do get the item -- it may not be as advertised. I had a friend who saved 40 bucks on a robotic lawnmower. The only problem is, when he got it, it was 3 firmware releases behind and had recalled tires. Since he did not purchase it from the company, he had to pony up over 100 bucks for firmaware upgrades and new tires. The company never would have sold him such an outdated item.

Re:I'll vouch for that

[mgblst]

So you mean that guy telling me I can get free computer/Mobile Phones/Cars by just sending him $10 is trying to defraud me??

i was scammed

[unger]

about 1 1/2 months ago i purchased some software for a client's digital audio workstation.

unfortunately, when it arrived it turned out to be warez.

so, i contacted the seller to tell him the warez wasn't going to work for me, and that i needed the $110 refunded. he didn't like that much, and said i was being a jerk. that's when i realized there wasn't going to be any reasoning with him (not that that was a huge surprise).

i tried contacting ebay a number of times, but they would never get back to me. so much for help from them.

the seller lives in Miami. unfortunately, i live on the other side of the country. anyone in Miami want to do me the favor of going to this guy's house and and getting me some collateral worth at least $110? i'll pay you half of the $110 for the job. contact me for the seller's address. ;)

really, what other choices do i have?

I'm upset about eBay's policy

[Flounder]

I'm a small time seller trying to make some money through fraud. I am incensed that the "Power Sellers" are allowed to commit fraud with no repercussions from eBay. Yet, the small businessman like myself is screwed out of millions of dollars of stupid buyer's money. It's favoritism! It's nepotism! It's discriminationism! It's alot of other -ism words!
[/sarcasm]