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eBay Fraud Vigilantes

Posted by timothy on from the more-power-to-'em dept.

firstadopter.com writes "New York Times (free registration needed) is reporting that users are sick of internet fraud on eBay. With lack of help from the company, they are taking the law into their own hands and closing down auctions they think are obvious scams."

4 of 357 comments (clear)

  1. Ebay has let users work to close these fakes down. by Graemee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Many forums have a link right on the post that allows reporting of improper material. Ebay could use this feature.

    I've found questionable sales, usually someone asks me "Hey, look at the deal", but when I've looked for a way to report it. Zip nothing. They did not list any contact in safeharbour for this.

    Hell, it took way too much time to find the link to report the phish emails I got last year.

    Yes, it will mean more overhead, but that's what it's going to take if Ebay expects people to continue to use the site. Allowing a group of moderators that can flag obvious problems will help.

  2. I used to vigilante too by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I got sick and tired of the acution frauds so i started finding them and bidding them up to inifity. Its not like you have too look hard to find them. Basically any high priced commodity item proably has frauds. One day while looking at apple powerbooks I notcies that over 90% of the auctions were definite frauds. Most of the other ones, probably real, maybe not.

    its usually pretty easy to spot: only takes western union, item is new in box for absurdly low price, eithe rmultiple auctions or a "private auction". You used to tell by low feed back but its getting so that can be a misleader. You send them an e-mail and it gets answered during romanian daylight hours.

    My favorite gambit is to ask them some absurd question that makes no sense like is this the power book that had the DVI fibrulator? They will answer "yes". Ask them if they take paypal and they dont answer.

    I have to say that for all the problems and accusations about pay-pal, it is a hallmark of an honest seller.

    E-bay claims a low fraud rate, but I think that is on a per-sale basis (most fruads dont result in sales, and there are many many honest auctions for $1.99 baseball cards, etc...). On a per dollar basis I'd bet it looks bad for e-bay. And certainly if you restrict the search to high vlaue commondity items i'd bet they average around fifty percent. E-bay needs to get sued and sued hard for knowing letting this go on.

    Some lawyer should go get a job ther coverty, find out what they do internally to prevent this, then sue the shit out of them for negligence.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  3. Re:Ebay has let users work to close these fakes do by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    eBay could very easily design a "Click here if this looks bogus" button for registered users, and then place the auctions that are reported in a queue for moderator review, with additional trust given to those who have successfully reported violations in the past, and less value given to those who false report.

  4. No problems with lawnsale-ish junk. by dpbsmith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've been buying and selling low-value items on eBay for some time with nothing but good results. It's fun.

    The other day, I remembered an LP I found fascinating when I was a kid, called "Hearing is Believing." RCA put it out--I believe they gave it away for free--in the early fifties. It was an introduction to hi-fi. I suddenly "I'd get a kick out of hearing that again." I went on to eBay, there was a copy up for bid at a starting bid of $3.00, nobody else bid, I got it for $3.00 plus $3.50 shipping, and experienced a intense burst of pleasurable nostalgia at hearing it again.

    Nobody can make a fortune scamming people $3 at a time, so most of the low-value weird junk items are legit. And if they aren't--so you're out a few dollars, who cares?

    I won't say there are easy answers, but by far the largest number of horror stories seem to all be about one specific category: people that believe they can get new or practically new electronic gadgets for substantially below the new price. Indeed, no doubt you sometimes can, but that is the kind of item where the risk is high.

    Of course, trading junk doesn't appeal to everyone, but I think it is one of eBay's highest and best uses.

    --

    "How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!