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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.