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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.
The truth is, ebay has limited recourse against fraud. So they can disable an account or block certain users, or blast their karma.
Us ("we") customers want financial recourse (i.e. our money back), and they can only do that if they control the cash flow.
Right now they don't, so they can't.
Awhile ago (probably about 2 years), I was helping a friend buy a computer on ebay. Checked out the ratings and such, and everything was fine, so I went ahead with paying for it (she gave me the $ for it). The company apparently 'went out of business'. Right. Within a few weeks there were over 200 negative responses. And at about $500 a pop, that's a pretty good amount of cash that went to who-knows-where. And ebay did *nothing* about it. Absolutely *nothing*. I'm willing to bet that whoever was selling just changed their name and did it all over again. That's why I stopped using ebay. And I felt really bad about telling my friend that her money disappeared into a bottomless pit.
Maybe they'll actually get a nice swift kick. Or maybe they'll just turn the other way again. And aren't they in kahoots with paypal. Yeah, that should explain *everything*.
If a and b in c, and a can create b, and a can create a, and b can create b, and b cannot create a, then a created c.
Surely, Ebay would have to restructure their system for some better method.
I have avoided the fraud on Ebay by avoiding Ebay. I do use it to figure out the approximate worth of something, but have never gotten an ID there.
Ebay is a vendor, just like any other store they have no power to police, the only power they do have is over your account with them; Everything else product recovery/monetary reimbersement, has to go through the proper law enforcement channels. This gets even hairier when you consider different auctions in different countries quite possibly have a different set of laws that pertain to them. You complain to Ebay, they complain to the government; the government simply doesn't have the resources to pursue the mass counts of Minor fraud that ebay creates.
Remember when dealing with people; they lie, cheat and steal to get what they want, so anything that requires you to trust an unknown party is at your discretion. Work retail once and you will understand the lengths to which people go to steal that 2 dollar pack of baseball cards and the power you don't have to stop them.
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
Fraud? what... from Paypal.. I mean eBay?
I think they'll be pushing paypal and fight fraud through paypal's current policies, of course they will guarrantee if your transaction is ONLY through paypal.
It only makes sense to do it this way since Paypal has really got a good rep with folks.
I have personally vouch for the fraud dept at paypal, I was a charged $200 fraudulently, and paypal reimbused me for the charge on the debit card 5 days later.
Ebay on the other hand has a terrible reputation for following up on fraud.
I just hope they don't make Paypal have a rep as crappy as eBays by changing the policy at paypal.
Mabidex
Corporations by and large do not care about their customers. This is news? We have seen time and time again that corporations have no problem personally screwing customers, employees and investors, why should they have a problem letting one customer rip-off another?
Kickin' it self-righteous school.
It seems that this is the likly trend with a lot of ebay fraud. That person most likly already has another ebay account and is defrauding more people.
My idea of a way to fix the system is that we should have the money and item go through ebay. Sure this will add overhead and costs, but it protects both the buyers and the sellers. If either person backs out of the deal, the other person gets there money back.
There is another kind of fraud on ebay too, false advertising, where someone says they are selling x and give you y. This is a little harder to control even if the stuff goes throught ebay, as quality is subjective with much of the stuff being sold.
Medevo
Yes, the title is provocative.
How many people will read this article, or the posts on Slashdot byt the people that were ripped off, then go and buy something from eBay? Clearly, eBay knows that the majority of you will.
Your credit card provider doesn't help you, the small losses they get are covered by fees and interest rates. If it were a major problem, then Visa or Mastercard would close eBay's accounts.
Stores can prevent shoplifting by strip searching you all at the exit, but you won't go back. So, they tolerate a certain amount of "inventory shrinkage".
The fraud on eBay is tolerable to eBay, they're making tons of money......
You vote with your feet^H^H^H^Hmouse !
I've received dozens of the "U 2 KIN MAKE $$$$ ON EBAY" spams.
I've forwarded them on to eBay, saying "I know you didn't send this, but it is trading on your trademarked name, and damaging your credibility. You REALLY should serve this guy with a cease-and-desist order".
Every time, eBay has sent me the auto-ack message, and most of the time, a follow up saying <voice type="Goofy">"Duhhh-up Dis didn't come from us, No Sir, it didn't. Cain't do a thing about it, nope."</voice>
eBay likes spam like that, because it encourages people to buy and sell stuff on eBay, making eBay money. As long as they have plausible deniability, and will therefor suffer no ill effects from the fraud themselves, they will tacitly allow it to continue.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The posts you read about ebay being unable to police their auctions are totally incorrect. Amazon polices their auctions very well. If Amazon can do it, ebay can as well.
This does not surprise me at all. I, like many others, have been ripped off by bad auctions on the infamous eBay. Ever since they purchased PayPal I have refused to use the auction site. It is getting really rediculous. I will glady spend the extra bucks and purchase an item outright via Pricewatch or such, rather than deal with the hassels of bad auctioneers or just bad service.
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
Im surprised that story is by MSNBC considering everything M$ is instantly pulled from ebay for some reason they dig up. I have had so many legitimate M$ product auctions shut down.
THey just shut down my 2 celeron auctions because I said the bidder would have to pay the paypal CC costs if they used a CC.
They are uptight. But yes, they shut me down at the last section so I couldnt make the changes. THey must be too busy taking money to check the auctions...
In any event, yahoo auctions is the underground auction with nothing BUT fraud. I have NEVER had a fradulent auction on ebay. All 2 of my tries (to purchase) on yahoo were fradulent.
No way. There are heaps of tiny resellers on ebay who use ebay as a marketplace. I bought a digital camera at 2/3 of retail price and a laptop at 1/2 retail. The sites you link to seem good, but their range is nothing compared to Ebay.
His laptop, currently open for bidding, had been up to over USD 15000 when first listed. Now we see that because "We have received numerous bids that have had to be cancelled, because we believe them to be fraudulent." that more extreme measures are being taken by the lister this time around.
Did the guy (seller) have many positive recommendations? I have to ask because I've been wanting to buy things from Ebay and I never got around to it. Is there any way for me to avoid this kind of problem by only chosing the sellers with the highest ratio of positive recommendations?
On the topic of your credit card company, I recommend that you stop calling them and start writing them. Ask for a "charge-back" on the fraudulent charge you incurred. Banks don't like doing charge-backs, but it's within their powers and they'll do it if you ask in writing.
I've always understood that you bid exactly what you are willing to pay for an item. With the Ebay system, the winning bid is only enough to beat the next lower bid, not your maximum bid. Unfortunately, I see people constantly upping their bids as they watch the price go higher. If a shill bidder wins, then the seller is either forced to pay Ebay's commission(I doubt they would) or contact the next lower (non-shill) bidder and try to make a deal. If this happens to you, your last bid is non-binding and you can negotiate whatever you like. It's all a psychological game and it sounds like people are crying over spilt milk. I personally figure out what I'm going to pay and then use a sniping service. This cuts down on the bidding wars.
I know that to some it sounds silly to consider an escrow service, but IMO it's the safest way to do business with someone online... especially when that person is as anonymous as ebay allows.
Another option is to limit your bids on high priced items to local sellers. I'm a bass player and purchased a $1200 bass guitar amp from a person on ebay. The only reason I went for such a deal was because the seller lives about 15 minutes from me and agreed to make the exchange in person. I would have never gone for such an expensive deal had the seller lived beyond driving range.
The bottom line? Make sure you are 100% protected before you submit your payment. It's a shitty rule in life, but when it comes down to it... buyer beware.
--
[McP]KAAOS
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
It'd be nice if Ebay would run an escrow service, but that would be expensive.
An intermediate solution would be Ebay sellers being required to submit a credit card and a charge authorization equal to their auction's estimated price. Buyers who claimed fraud would get the money the seller put up to Ebay up front. This would be the equivilent of a surity bond.
Another option would be for Ebay to certify escrow houses and modify their terms of service so that any buyer, may, at their discretion, demand the payment and goods be delivered via certified escrow service. Seller pays all shipping to the escrow service, buyer pays all other costs.
I've bid on (and won) several things on ebay, and every single time, without fail, there is obvious shill bidding. I mean, do real people really bid $99.04 for an item? It's obvious that they are just checking to see if you've set your limit to $100. Especially when you see that the same bidder has bid on all of the seller's auctions but yet never seems to win..
I'd guess that shill bidding happens in nearly every auction, and while its illegal, its too much trouble to try to fight it. Instead I just make sure that I never bid more than I'm willing to pay in the first place, since it's a given that I will pay whatever I bid. For this same reason, I never bid more than 75% of what I consider a "reasonable price" for an item, thus giving myself a 25% pad for the other types of fraud that might occur.
-TomK
Irregardless of eBay's fraud issues, I take exception at the sincerity of this article.
Let's see.. an article on MSNBC.com (read Microsoft) about fraud horrors on eBay with no comparative analysis on how eBay stands up to the other major online houses with regards to fraud.
The "Advertising" gadget on the article's page has a link to MSN's (read Microsoft) auction partner uBid.
Sounds like FUD with a splash of advertising to me.
Speak truth to power.
The other fun thing, is that the people who do know where to get cheap older oddball computers, aren't bloody likely to tell you where they get em :-) Because they can pick em up cheap and sell them on ebay. I've picked up working SparcStation 20s for $5, called a friend to tell him there were still a couple SS10s left for $5 each. I have a friend that picked up an SGI Onyx for $35 and I've seen (but didn't need) HP 9000 D-class machines for $35 each. All this without shipping charges. I personally never resell the stuff on ebay, if i see something for cheap that I know someone is looking for (like 19" Sun Monitors w/trintron tubes) $15 or so, I call em, if they need it I'll pick it up and resell it to them at cost.
I'm a regular eBay buyer. I buy gem material, and ancient coins. I'd been having pretty good luck for the past three years, only getting a few items that were, arguably, not as good as described. However, in the last 6 months, things have changed, possibly due to the economy going sour.
I've seen the "shipping and handling" charges skyrocket, from about $3 on average before to over $5 now, sometimes hitting over $10 for something that could be sent UPS for $3. I've bought stuff that was mis-identified, and had a biatch of a time trying to get a dime back from the sellers. I've even had flat-out fraud - one seller took my money, and that of several other people, then voluntarily suspended his registration, so I cannot even warn future (like, six months from now) victims.
EBay used to provide a service, "Safe Harbour", to help mediate in these affairs. Recently, however, the FAQ on what to do about fraud has changed, and it's now totally out of eBay's hands. I've tried calling the seller who took my money and ran, to no avail. It's been consistantly either busy, or no answer. I did a reverse-lookup on the phone number, and it doesn't even belong to the seller.
I'm just out the $20, I guess. EBay doesn't care. PayPal doesn't care. And, as long as people can get a new email account from Hotmail and Yahoo, they'll be able to do this. And, as long as the per-person bit is small, fraudsters will continue getting away with it.
I no longer feel safe unless I'm buying from a seller with ***lots*** of feedback. Perhaps one way eBay could help prevent this sort of fraud would be to require a real email account, not some cheesy Web-based freebie. Perhaps they need to verify address information - make registration cost a dollar, then snail-mail them a temporary password. However, though either approach would help deter fraudsters, both would cut down on eBay's revenue while increasing their costs, so I really don't see it changing soon. What may help force the change is if more buyers just stopped buying things. When eBay's bottom line begins to suffer, *then* we'll see a real change take place. Until then, caveat emptor.
Lemon curry?
Shameless plug: I work for the largest B2C auction site on the Net. We warehouse most products and everything has a tracking number.
http://www.ubid.com
Cheers,
Slak
I'll add to your plug a little bit. Lots of people here order from ubid, and have had great experiences, including myself.
After about a week I received nothing, and the seller then accused me of fraud! Saying that they had sent a Cashier's check and that the bank said it had cleared (which made me suspicious, considering that from what I read it can take some time to verify cashing of a cashier's check).
So I got the person's contact from eBay. Luckily it was valid, I called up, and spoke to the bidder's mother! It turns out the bidder was a 12 year old kid, thus not able to bid/sell on eBay legally. Once I contacted eBay with this information, and they saw a trend in the users account, I was refunded all listing fees and final value fees, and the users account was suspended permanently.
I think I was lucky to actually receive total reimbursement in this case. How often does eBay actually refund everything, and how often are you stuck with paying for listing fees for items that the seller vanished?
What?
It's normal that a company will be nice to the users who give them the most ammount of money while screwing everybody else.
Personally, I've never been defrauded on ebay and this is how I do it.
Firstly, If its a big purchase (like 500 bucks or more) I tell the seller to send it to me COD but to only specify bank checks, not personal checks. This keeps everybody honest. In all cases, I offer to pay the added expense and have the seller just tack it onto the total cost.
If I'm selling something and the person wants to do it COD, the only way I do it is bank check. I've had people call me up and complain loudly how the person came to the door but wouldn't give them the package because they had a personal check. It's that old saying "Locks keep honest people honest"
Now for smaller things, I'm confortable with paypal, provided that the person is "verified."
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
There is no way you will ever get rid of the phantom bidders.
Most power sellers probably do not use phantom bidders. They probably have a network of people that are in the same business as them bid on the items. I have known several different instances of this, especially in collectibles.
I bid up your collectibles, and you bid up mine. If we win the auction, we just don't worry about it. If the item is worth enough, the vig to EBay is just paid, and the item is re-auctioned later, of it isn't worth paying the vig on, you wait several days, complain to EBay that the buyer never sent you a check, and offer it to the second highest bidder.
This type of thing is next to impossible to prove, and only gets harder as the web of associates gets bigger. That is why collusion is illegal, and you never hear about it. It happens all the time, but it is hard to catch, and harder to prove.
...is excellent for finding obscure not-really-collectible but interesting things. I've picked up a few pieces of old musical equipment there for cheap that I'd never seen for sale locally simply because there aren't many of them left and they aren't popular.
I've never had problems with this kind of merchandise, or the occassional cheap DVD/videotape/game.
However, I am constantly amazed by how willing they are to turn a blind eye to piracy of any kind. If you want a laugh, try finding an auction for a bootleg CDR full of ROM images for videogames, and notifying their investigations department. 99 times out of 100, you will receive a response that eBay has no way to know for sure if the seller doesn't really own the copyrights to all 5000 of those games.
The last time I checked, they had a rule against selling anything on CDR media, but as long as the seller calls it a CD (even if they have a photo with an obviously CD-Stomper-applied label), eBay doesn't care.
It's the same for VHS bootlegs. About a month ago I went looking for a British DVD that isn't available in the US. Along with the legit listings, I saw the same thing on NTSC VHS. I checked the auction, and it was obviously a basement pirate copy ("does not include cover art," "unlabelled tape," etc.). In addition, there were about thirty negative/neutral feedback comments along the lines of "crappy bootleg copy." I sent an email to their investigations department, and there was no action taken.
I can understand students and so forth copying things because they literally do not have the money to purchase them (it's not a *good* thing to do, but I understand the motivation behind it), but people *making money* off of it (particularly selling bootleg material to unsuspecting buyers) really grates on my nerves, especially since eBay could put a stop to it (and appear more legitimate in the end) if they would tell their investigations team to use a bit of common sense when they get a complaint.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman