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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.
I got nailed by a fraud auction (guy was selling items he didn't have in stock. Promised next day delivery...that was 3 months ago.)
Neither my CC company, nor PayPal (now owned by eBay) or eBay were overly interested in dealing with this. Yeah, they suspended his account, but because he didn't pay eBay, not because he ripped me (and hundreds of others as well) off.
I'm still in contact with the jerk, and I will have justice done, either by the proper authorities or.....
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
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.
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
This is hardly a surprise, one would think it obvious that the resources it would cost Ebay as a company to have to keep track of, let alone take action upon, the constant fraud cases would be immense. As long as a high enough percentage of trades are legitimate and involve satisfied customers, no legal organization is going to bother holding Ebay responsible.
I would have thought that reporting fraudulent users and such would be more the responsibility of the end users anyways, since its not much different than having people make purchases from someone at a flea market or something like that. You dont hold the owner of the building responsible if the "antique" you bought turned out to be a cheap knockoff.
Or do you? I'm not entirely sure of all american small courts laws.
Ice Cream has no bones.
I kinda thought ebay's whole attitude was Use An Escrow Agent If You Don't Want To Get Ripped Off. Now, if the escrow people are defrauding you, then that's a different story.
I have a bunch of stuff I'd like to sell, like a guitar and a mountain bike and a computer, but I'm not going to bother putting it on ebay because my rating is a big fat zero, and I doubt anyone will want to buy from an unknown quantity such as myself.
Ebay has a profit motive to have as many auctions as possible. They also make more money when the price gets higher. They don't make money when they have to investigate fraud claims, and kick power sellers off the system.
Let's put it another way: Let's say you're a power seller, and you sell a $1000 item. You give ebay their cut ($150 I think) and pocket $850. Ebay is happy, you're happy, the only one unhappy is the "little guy."
Where is ebay's motivation to change the system? Libertarians and free market economic darwinists, start flaming now.
These guys have a superb rating on ResellerRating , so why deal with some amateur / potential crook at Ebay?
Help fight continental drift.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This article is actually part of a series on online auctions. Here they are:
Part 1- The above linked story
Part 2- Cautionary tales of two auctions
Part 3- Auction fraud on the rise, some say
Part 4- Confessions of a scam artist
Part 5- Auction scam hits plasma TV buyers
Part 6- Auction fraud victims fight back
Part 7- eBay vs. the fraud police
Part 8- 'Deadbeat bidders' dog eBay sellers
Part 9- Fake escrow sites lure auction users
Who is John Galt?
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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
As if things are bad enough under the surface, eBay just finished its business absorption of PayPal. PayPal has it's own fraudulent problems, especially with credit card fraud. Check out PayPal warning. The stories on this website scare me because I use PayPal regularly but now I tend to withdraw all but $1.35 from my account just to be safe.
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.
To a certain extent, I can understand the problem of having hundreds of thousands of auctions...
This is a reasonable statement, and quite easy to agree with. (and yes, I know that Hemos went on to negate this phrase)
Don't.
It is unquestionably a massive and difficult undertaking to deal with fraud when you're operating on an eBay-like scale. It is also a primary purpose of their existence. eBay MUST deal with fraud at whatever cost (create a whole infrastructure for it if necessary--remember that only a few short years ago there existed no online auctions at all!), or they're simply not doing their job.
Not intended as a rant or finger-pointing here. I just don't want to see them get away with sliding if they're trying to.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Other may have said the same thing (I haven't seen any comments with it yet), but if you don't want to get burned on eBay, use escrow.
It will cost a little more and be a little more of a pain, but then your money will be safe until the product is legitimately coming your way.
Or if you don't want to pay for escrow, at least ASK the seller if they will use escrow. If they say they won't, then don't go through with it. If they do, then you can go through them and just don't use it. If they were bluffing, well, you are screwed... but you have a better shot.
That said, I never use escrow. And I have never gotten burned as in, never had the item shipped, but I have gotten things that don't work as advertised, and some other sub-par stuff. Not to mention that people will boost their own bids through the roof by setting up multiple accounts and bidding on their own stuff, if they think you want it. So I try to avoid eBay whenever possible.
Mark
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.
Let's put this into perspective... There are thousands of power sellers yet only a few are mentioned in the article where the evidence strongly suggests...not conclusively finds fraud occurring. EBay is no different than the For Sale section in the newspaper. If I get ripped off by some guy selling his car in the newspaper, who am I gonna sue? The guy or the Daily News?
The only liability I see is the whole Power Seller rating system. This kind of implies that EBay deems this person a good seller and thus is promoting the seller above others.
Why isn't this looked upon the same way as an ISP and someone trafficking illegal material over the Internet?
Read the articles. eBay does have the power to do something about bad sellers when evidence is presented to them. They are allegedly not always doing what they should when those bad sellers are also power sellers. You did read the articles, didn't you?
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
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.
In a feature last week about eBay, the Raleigh News & Observer quoted Kevin Purseglove, identified as senior director of communciations for eBay, as saying, quoting the paper, "eBay's policy is to let the buyer and seller sort out any differences among themselves. According o Purseglove, "Ebay will never evaluate the merchandise, we never receive it, we never review it, we don't ship it, we don't vouch for it."
Ebay apparently will refer you to an independent dispute resolution service if you wish.
In other words, caveat emptor.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Ebay is a vendor, just like any other store...
No, they're a service company and they make it quite clear that the sales are not under their control. They simply put interested buyers in communication with corresponding sellers. Unfortunately, because eBay makes money from the sellers there is no real incentive for them to protect buyers. However, the vast majority of scams are pulled on greedy people who are trying to get something for nothing. As long as those people exist (and they're willing to accept the business model) eBay will have no incentive to change.
Their rating system isn't perfect, but it's decent. I've sold some stuff on Ebay and bought a couple things. I got screwed once by a seller, but I've been screwed by brick-and-mortar places, too. Such is life.
Ebay can and should cooperate and contact law enforcement agencies. Fraud is illegal. Really, it is.
Just take the stamps, for example. The criminal penalties of messing with the US Post Office are insane! Don't suspend people, just drop a note to the feds. Yes, the feds... E-Bay is interstate commerce, so it's easy. Then, simply have ebay indicate whether a seller legitimately falls under US Federal Jurisdiction.
This is exactly what most internet commerce sites are unwilling to do. They have the impression that they have to do all the policing themselves. A large portion of the US government is devoted to consumer protection. As screwed up as I often feel the US government is, I shudder to think of big business completely running the show.
He's hunting down the people that fucked him via eBay. I'm considering the same! (not)
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.
Every so often, we put up some auctions for networking equipment. Lately there has been a trend of people bidding on Cisco auctions (see this article) and never paying.
One Ebay user bid a Cisco 3640 router I was selling up to $2550. This same user created his account two days prior, and was the high or winning bidder on over 80 auctions. Here's this user's Ebay winning bid history. Now, I'm not a mathematician, but this A-hole ruined over $64k of auctions. Sure, you can relist and file fraud reports, but what's to prevent someone else from doing this again and again? There's no accountability.
If they would require some type of user verification to buy and sell, wouldn't you think twice about fraud? Furthermore, why can't Ebay red-flag suspicious bidding patterns? I think everyone agrees that a new user probably will not bid on over 80 auctions worth over $64k in a couple of days.
Just my 2.47 yen.
What would you have them do? Open a federal investigation everytime some kid screws another kid out of a Transformer?
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
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.
I had a perfect example of this.
A couple weeks ago I bought an older HP printer of eBay, the seller didn't return my calls or emails, after I sent him the money, and was doing the same for a couple other people who had bought products from him. Well I filed a fraud complaint with PayPal, and they put the money on hold along with his PayPal account. This got the guys attention, so he called me, saying he would send the item only if I dropped the compaint, I told him I would only drop the compaint once I saw the item. In communicating with the guy I found he had at least a couple other eBay id's he was doing the same with (fake auctions), so I tried to contact eBay to let them know. I was refered to some consumer groups and webpages and such, I had a list of the ID's the guys was using and some background, statements from other people who were defrauded, and the guys location (or at least the one the number went back to that I was called on), along with the various aliases the guy was using. Just boggles my mind that they would ignore this.
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?
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...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
I love it when people try to insult me and make spelling mistakes. Obviously you aren't a genius either.
Ass.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
But isnt every Ebay'er eventually doing it?
Fraud is part of Ebay's culture, just some people take it to extremes more than others.
Anyone who uses ebay for more than 3 months knows about sniping, then they sign up to auctionstealer or other sniping site to join the fun. Then they snipe on the newbies and give them a start on the bitterness ladder. Okay it's not Fraud but it starts people thinking of ways to 'beat the system'. Anger leads to hate, etc...
Others start selling becuase their co-workers are selling. Before you know it, they are shill-biding on each others auctions once they see someone biding passionately and wildly. Its common practice.
Then there are other sellers that take poetic license and describe goods using vague but attractive terminology, 'virtually new', or 'must be seen' to be believed. They know that some gullible people are afraid to leave negative feedback, because a evil seller will retort with the same. (Oh, the shame of having a minus on your record!)
Most people who use Ebay for long enough, learn the tricks of the trade. It polices itself, which implies Fraud must be committed before it can be reported.
You can only prevent fraud by controlling auctions tightly, then the whole 'neighbourhood policing' aspect of the software goes away, which is worth more to Ebay in goodwill than losing a few customers over fraud.
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.
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.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Thank-you! I don't know why your comment wasn't modded up -- but I suppose it's still the minority view here for some twisted reason.
The fact is, eBay shouldn't be held responsible for the actions of the users, any more than the local grocery store should be held liable if people post fraudulent sales on their cork boards near the entrances.
If eBay isn't even bothering to cancel/disable accounts after multiple frauds are reported, well - that's irresponsible on their part. But honestly, I don't think that's the crux of the issue. I *often* see accounts that are suspended, when I look back through user info on bidders of my old auctions who had negative feedback.
More than anything, this is a case of "kill the messenger" - because people get angry when they're ripped off, and look for someone to point the finger at. It's easier to pick on eBay (who has lots of $'s) than it is to hunt down and prosecute the person who actually scammed you.
I auctioned off a web server on eBay, fetching a high bid of about $1,100. The high bidder promptly contacted me and submitted payment via eBay Payments (aka BillPoint).
The buyer also asked me to ship the server via overnight Saturday-delivery FedEx, using his account number. This is a huge "red flag" for fraud -- only the account holder can get proof of delivery, and the account holder can ask to redirect the delivery location. When somebody says that rush shipping costs are not important, shippers should worry that the buyer's primary goal is to get the product in hand before they are "discovered" (e.g. fraudulent credit card payment).
Since I was suspicious, I checked the online payment information carefully, and was surprised to find that my payment record reflected the occurrence of a "bypassing event" on the same day payment instructions were submitted. That sounds pretty bad -- like maybe it's a dispute or other problem that will cause the payment to be reversed (my bank confirmed that a transfer was initiated but had not yet been completed, whatever that meant).
So I called eBay, and got run around in circles before being allowed to leave a phone message (I left several messages, none of which were ever returned). And I sent email to the official eBay Payments (BillPoint) support addresses, and got autoreplies promising a response within 24 to 48 hours. After trying several strategies, I called the buyer, disclosed my concerns, and advised him that I could not ship the server until eBay Payments (BillPoint) confirmed that the payment was complete and that the "bypassing event" was not a reversal. He said he understood.
Over the course of the next two weeks, eBay responded to each email I sent, about 48 hours after I sent it, but although they quoted back my question to me, they would not answer or even discuss the issue of what is a "bypassing event." I suspect my responses were coming from a collection of boilerplate replies. Each time I received a reply, I wrote back, repeating the single question, "What is a bypassing event," and citing my transaction number and other data. Each time, they replied after 48 hours without answering the question.
Finally, after two weeks, I confirmed with my bank that the funds had been transferred and they could find no record of any attempt to cancel or reverse the transaction -- and so I shipped the server to the fellow via FedEx Express Saver (3-day delivery), using his FedEx number.
The next day (after the server was already in transit), eBay Payments finally wrote back answering my repeated question: they informed me that a "bypassing event" simply reflected that the buyer had forgotten his BillPoint password and had manually re-entered his credit card payment information.
I have closed my eBay Payments (BillPoint) account, and I will not accept payment through their payments scheme, ever again. Since eBay has acquired PayPal, I will also cease accepting PayPal as a payment method, since I assume the same inept customer service will apply there, too.
-- http://www.MarkWelch.com/ Pleasanton California
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?
Some tips I wrote up for someone else who got ripped off on ebay -- this applies mainly to computer hardware, but the principles can be adapted to any type of merchandise.
I've spent a LOT of time digging around for hardware (and other stuff) on Ebay, following various auctions and dealers, and have read a lot in and asked around in many of the user forums there, and have reached several conclusions
about sellers:
ALWAYS read ALL of a seller's NEGATIVE feedback before bidding. (If you use ebay a lot, you may want to subscribe to http://www.vrane.com's feedback checker service.) Good vendors won't have more than 0.15% negative feedback. More than 0.3% negative feedback is a redflag; more than 1.0% is usually a bad dealer or a con artist.
Positive feedback numbers and content CAN be rigged via the "penny auctions" loophole, so positive feedback in itself is fairly useless.
ALWAYS read ALL of the "NEGATIVE FEEDBACK LEFT FOR OTHERS" *by* any seller you intend to deal with. How they respond to their own bad deals is a *VERY* good indicator of how they'll be to work with in the event that what they send you is defective or is not as represented.
Sellers who use *L00K* and/or bogus phrases in their item titles (just WTF is "emulator friendly" anyway??!) are the ebay equivalent of spammers. I no longer even view items with such titles.
ALWAYS check regular online vendor outlets, Pricewatch, etc, first. Typically, used computer hardware sold on Ebay winds up going for 150% of the new retail price, just because most people have no clue what components really sell for. (I've seen used HDs go for 300% of retail, and used memory going for TEN TIMES the local new price!!)
Sellers who start every auction with "$1.00" or "$0.01" prices are more likely to be cons than those who start with something realistic. People who sell hardware *regularly* on ebay are MORE likely to be cons than are people who only sell hardware here occasionally.
ALWAYS email the seller prior to bidding, and ask some question about the item, even if you already know the answer. The tone of the response you get can tell you plenty about how they'll be to deal with. If you get NO response, "go look it up yourself", or a CANNED response, or if they dodge any of your questions, DON'T BID.
If they take ONLY cash or money orders for computer hardware, DON'T BID.
When in doubt for ANY reason, DON'T BID.
BTW for categories other than hardware, the above all apply except that there are good sellers of other stuff who do it all the time.
(This material is public domain. It's already been posted in the ebay discussion forums, where several of the GOOD hardware dealers came out of the woodwork, and applauded the concepts.)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
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]
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
I've had phantom bidders try to get me to pay more than I bid for an item. The seller contacted me after the auction and said "Oh, I just happen to have another of these items, would you like to buy it at the winning price?"
I told him I knew he'd been phantom bidding, and he could go eat the eBay fees. If fewer eBay users were gullible idiots, phantom bidders wouldn't be such a problem--they'd end up losing money.
Having said that, there's clearly a problem in that eBay makes more money the higher the final bid--so it's in their financial interest not to act on charges of (successful) phantom bidding.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak