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eBay Fraud Vigilantes
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."
Reg Free Link
...and I couldn't find any "Viglanties".
I did get a super deal on my new compter, though.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =2795846600&category=52476
***Please note, this auction is not selling the electronics themselves,we're selling electronic book packages that get you listed on a revolving list at our website. For list information and any other questions please visit our webpage @ www.revbuys.com--$220.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =2795844320&category=52476
**You are not buying the actual item, you are buying a link to a website where you can obtain the item for around a $250 US dollars. Link also includes lots of other good deals on nice electronics** $5.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =2795281687&category=52476
Please Read Auction Carefully. Winner will recieve information on where they can buy an Alienware Area-51 Extreme for only 275$. This is perfectly legal and I am usuing mine right now. Only one Alienware 275$ computer per household, so you can see why I am not selling the computers, but I am working on that.--$49.99
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =2795708246&category=40176
Please Read Description Carefully Before You Bid! you are not buying any electronics in this auction. Here are some examples of the amazing deals you will get upon winning this auction:
Products:
JL Audio 10w7 Subwoofer: $100
Sony DVD/CD Changer: $100
Sony Motorized indash 7" LCD: $100
Exhaust Systems from $50
NOS Kits: $100
Body Kits: $100
Playstation 2: $40
Video Games: $20
Gateway 42" Plasma TV: $200
Sony DVD Dream Surround System: $100
Sony Digital Camcorder: $100
40GB Apple iPod: $115
Compaq iPaq PDA: $50
Panasonic Portable DVD Player: $50
Alienware Desktop or Laptop: $275
Sony VIAO Desktop: $150
Sony VIAO Laptop: $100
AND MANY MANY MANY MORE!!!!
Shipping is absolutely free!, If you have any questions, please feel free to email us at http://TankDoggSC@aol.com $3.00
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item =2795726979&category=52476
The item for sale isnt the real PC.the highest bidder will recieve the link to the site where you can purchase it for 160/275$.WHOEVER SAID ''THIS ISNT A REAL PC JUST A BUNCH OF LINKS'' MEANS THEY DID NOT READ THIS. $5.50-6 bids
C:\>
Following is my opinion only:
Don't use paypal's "withdraw from bank account" option. Use the credit card option. If something goes wrong and you go past 30 days - your are screwed. My experience is that Paypal (an ebay company) is the worst in getting problems resolved.
www.paypalsucks.com
About time somebody did something useful. Not like eBay has done anything. With problems like this running rampant over eBay, I wonder what kind of future the company has. Many users are already abandoning the service in favor of other means of purchase. I think people have realized that eBay, with scams, high shipping costs, and long waiting periods before getting a product, is often more expensive and less convenient than just purchasing the product at the store.
Every windows user is a sadomasochist.
...but more often than not, it's the banks that are watching out for suspicious things. The one time someone tried to pay me with stolen credit cards, it was the bank that alerted me (thankfully before I sent the laptop).
Really, what should be happening is that eBay should cooperate as much as possible with the banks/credit companies, and that would take care of a lot of fraud then and there.
libertarianswag.com
...the clever people who've sold things like "genuine air guitars" and "nothing".
Half the fun of e-bay is the really bizarre stuff.
The Dalai Llama .sig available for purchase: $100,000 USD -ebay auction #66666. Buyer pays shipping from Andorra.
This
My sig could be your sig!
How are these scams? They are up front about what they are selling, information.
the advertising is a little misleading, but that can be said about any advertising for almost anything. when was the last time you ate a burger that looked as good as it did in the adverts (or saw a girl that looked like an advert girl for that matter)
This is more in the category of preying on the hopelessly gullible and exploiting their stupidity, rather than scam. Less like nigerian 419, more like religion.
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.
Once someone was selling a car headlight modification they didn't have. The way they were busted was rather unique-- they posted pictures (hosted off-site, of course) of a car that wasn't theirs.
The person who owned the site saw the traffic coming from the ebay page. He then proceeded to change the images to one insulting the scammer in a very something awful-esque way, and photoshopped eyes over the car headlights. It was hilarious-- anyone have a link to it?
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Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
You make a very fair point, but unfortunately the sites they link to are near always scams run by the people eBaying the links. Several times at work people have told me they're on a list to get x, y or z item cheaper than we are selling it - I enquire what site the list is on and type it into the browser only to find it's mysteriously disappeared off the web. Having said that, if the person selling it doesn't own the site in question then they are not in the wrong since they may earnestly belive that all of the people will recieve their items at 5% of retail value.
You're absolutely right. So they should have their items moved to a section dedicated to sales of information, not actual electronics, and label their auctions accordingly. If the information doesn't provide the user with the ability to get a cheap system like these listings claim, then I would submit that it is a scam.
the advertising is a little misleading, but that can be said about any advertising for almost anything.
Again, you have a good point. These listings, when you see the item titles and parts of the description, are very misleading.
when was the last time you ate a burger that looked as good as it did in the adverts (or saw a girl that looked like an advert girl for that matter)
I can't remember when I ate anything that was as good as the ads.
C:\>
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.
Here I was auctioning off evidence/information on whereabouts of WMDs in Iraq when people got all huffy and decided to shut it down. I nearly got some dude named Dubya bidding oodles of cash for the info but got shutdown before bidding was over.
Why can't you vigilantes just mind your own biz, damn it!!!
Yo, it's a joke -- no need to start a super-secret file on me.
I have had to (more than once!) dispute a charge on a CC I used on PayPal because they were trying to screw me out of my money (or the product). The PayPal folks wouldn't return my calls or letters. I got a live body once and told them I was going to dispute the charges if they didn't stop trying to defraud me. They immediately transfered me to a guy that IMHO does nothing other than threaten to sue PayPal users if they threaten to dispute CC charges. I mean that's all he didn't. He knew nothing about the circumstances. He was just there to read me the riot act (from a script) about what they'd do if I disputed the charge. I told him just exactly what he could do with his business and called my CC company. The CC company credited me my $$ within a week and I never heard any more about it. Paypal, contrary to what many of the horror stories said, didn't freeze my account. It wouldn't surprise me if they did but they didn't to me at least. Always Always ALWAYS use a CC when paying via PayPal. In fact I don't have a valid checking account registered with them anymore. I closed that account nearly 8 months ago when I moved. They already verified the account and I'm not going to try and tell them otherwise. :)
I'm still suprised that eBay lets this go on. Having things like this around where the whole purpose is to separate a sucker from his money implacts the reputation of the whole site.
There's a difference between stretching the truth and making statements that serve no purpose other than to mislead and confuse the consumers. Everyone knows that the burger they see on TV is going to be nicer than the one made by some stoned highschool kid working for minimum wage, but it's going to be essentially the same thing. If a 'real business' consistantly practiced the type of deception that these eBay guys are, they'd never be able to stay in business once word got out. Why is it different online?
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
One reason why people are able to place a $2.5 million bid to try to kill off an auction they think is fraudulent is that it doesn't cost anything to place a over-high bid on eBay.
Maybe eBay should set some threshholds at which point bids require a deposit in escrow in order to justify a large bid, money that is returned if the bid doesn't win, but is lost if the transaction doesn't close because its withdrawn while being the high bidder.
Recently bought a router, the seller shipped a hard drive to me by mistake. After emailing back and forth I sent the hd back, but no router. Seller stops responding to emails. So what happens when I fill out the Paypal form to try and get a refund?
They have an item asking if you received ANYTHING in the mail. So I checked that off. Bad mistake! They classified the report as "misrepresented item"!!!! Then a few days later closed the complaint saying they didn't do anything in those cases!
Paypal = SCAM CITY
Lesson: accept Paypal payments for expensive items and mail a jellybean to the buyer. Paypal will support you all the way.
I've put faith in those online auctions and have not been scammed in over 150 plus auctions. Mostly sales, a few purchases. If you are careful with who you buy from and walk away from deals too good to be true you should be fine. As for readily exploitable mechanisms like Paypal its a fricking bank account. If you lose your check book, your credit card number or even your SS number you can get exploited. Its not like it is all that much easier through paypal. Email scams have been asking for bank account numbers and what not in addition to paypal passwords. Run and hide in a cave and have no contact with the outside world and then your "financial assets" will be safe.
You mean that Paris Hilton action figure is a fraud!. People auctioning off their life, and those imginary girlfriends are frauds! I for one am shocked. And awed too
MoFscker
These are the latest variant on a pyramid scheme. Basically, people are paying today for a wait list for a product that will be delivered whenever the waiting list gets long enough to have enough money to buy your item. Early people on the list will in fact get their items, but as the list gets longer, the wait gets exponentially longer until the world runs out of fools to supply and the list stops growing. The people caught "below the line" when the scheme colapses end up paying to wait in a line that has stopped moving... they'll never get their stuff.
I liked ebay when it was just people selling second hand items, businesses selling surplus etc. Ever since the ebay business model sprung to life ebay imho sucks. Sure they let something like a cell phone faceplate go for $2.00 that you would pay $15 for in the mall. ut then they hit you with a $8 to $10 s/h fee, and you get it in an envlope with 0.95 postage marked on it. They are just using the shipping and handling fee to insure their profit. And good luck if something is broken or incorrect when it comes back with these mega sellers of cheap crap, they glady will take the negative feedback point as it will be lost in the thousands of others were they didnt screw up. And the scams are unblievable. Instructions to build your own projection tv, wholesaler list. errr
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.
I've used ebay and paypal to buy and sell a lot of things, and never had any problems whatsoever. Then one day my brother decided to buy a computer on ebay (which I do regularly). He found a good system for a good price, looked entirely legit, plenty of positive feedbacks for the same or similar computers, my friend built a similar system for himself for around that same price. So it looked legit, but my bro is now out $1060 with no computer and the guy has disappeared, and the weirdest part is, the guy contacted my brother 2 months later, after fraud charges had long been filed with paypal, ebay, and the IFCC, and told him that he was embarrassed by this and promised to ship the computer the next day, which of course he did not. But WHY would he do that? He didn't ask for more money or try to sell anything else, he just promised to ship it after we'd already done everything we could think of to get him.
On that note, don't ever buy anything from StudentCompSolutions.com, Jeff Bellisimo, or jeffyjimmy@*.*
And if anyone lives near 5150 Argus Dr. in LA, and would like to pay Jeff a visit for me I'd be much obliged.
Frag 'em all...
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!
Vigilanties usually don't fix a problem. They almost always make things worse. If one person is saying an auction is real and another says they are fake then who should you believe? The answer is no one, go other to Yahoo! Auctions or somewhere else.
E-bay will have to restructure and get rid of these fake auctions or die.
So which will it be e-Bay?
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
Some of the schemes invlove selling of ebooks other are driven entirely like a pyramid with people entering at a low cost, below $50, and then relying on the "members" (fraud victims) marketing the scheme to get their goods.
Examples of schemes like this:
Electronicmatrix.com or Ezdeal4u.com
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
I've been on eBay for I think 5 years now (feedback rating of 530+), buying memorabilia for a particular marque of British auto. Like another poster I buy pretty small things and out of nearly 1000 transactions I've had only a couple items in my "Stiffed" file - 1 from a seller who (apparently) died, 3 or 4 lost in the mail, and a 2 from a seller that was woefully disorganized for their volume. I've paid by PayPal, US$ cheque and cash, and only 1 payment went astray and it was a cheque that I cancelled. I have sent money to various spots around the world that would make people a bit leery, but anything like this is a gamble. I deal in a niche, not in the mainstream consumer products market, so that's probably why my experience is so good. Nobody's wanting to get rich off the stuff I buy. People chasing "deals" on the same stuff everyone else is chasing will always be targets for the unscrupulous.
Full details on the event are in my advogato diary.
Basically the scam was that this seller puts a laptop model for sale on eBay, dozens of times. Dozens of people bid on the item and he picks the 'n' number of highest bidders to "win" the auction. At no time does he own these laptop models he is selling. He requires that all payment be sent to him within 5 days of the auction close.
After 4-6 weeks of delays, people start sending emails, getting pissed, and mad. "Brian Silverman" emails them back, with excuses about delays at the "warehouse" and other excuses.
Meanwhile, 2-2.5 months later, he purchases the laptop model, at quite a discounted price from the vendor (not being the "newest" model on the market anymore).
So he keeps hundreds of thousands of dollars in auction buyers' money in his account, accruing interest, and then he purchases the laptops, at roughly 30-40% less than his original auction price.
But wait, it gets better... Brian decided that the whole "send the item to the buyer" part of the scam was eating into his profits too much, so he decided to just not send any laptops to anyone.
I was the last person he ever sent a laptop to. I actually tracked him down, and called him at home one night to demand my laptop, or the FBI would be at his door in 30 minutes. He claimed he would send it out that night, and double the RAM "for my troubles". A week later, I did indeed receive the laptop.
But I posted all of the details in my Advogato diary entries. Hundreds of other people who were being scammed by Brian Silverman googled for his "electro_depot" name, and my diary entry was the only one to come up. They would email me directly asking for more details.
I then received a call from the NY Cyber Crime division, asking me if I had any details on the "scam" with Brian Silverman, and if anyone else had contacted me, because they had a "few calls".
I said I had 141 separate people who had emailed me to complain. 141 people!!!
The end result, was that Mr. Silverman was tracked down out of the country, and the FTC caught and nailed him. I even received a nice little letter from the FTC praising me for my efforts in catching him.
My diary entry was THE reason people were brought together, and the FTC and NYPD took notice in the matter.
Vigilante justice does definately work, but you have to be very careful about how you go about it. After people found my diary entry, they created all of those other websites to track and report on Mr. Silverman's scams.
(And that T23 that I "won" is currently at IBM repair, for the 6th time in 2 years, so it wasn't exactly a "win" in my case).
1. Email Ms. Houkom about having a fake item
2. Outbid her by $.50
3. Repeat 1-2 until winning bid is yours
4. Have a victory espresso from your brand new espresso machine
I sell Diablo 2 items on ebay. It's good money for very little work. Unfortunately, there's been a recent outbreak of fraud by users who buy items using stolen ebay accounts and pay with stolen paypal accounts. The items are virtual, so they recieve them almost instantly -- when the user reports their account stolen a few weeks later, the sellers have the payments retracted and get stuck with the bill.
These aren't just little kids trying to get items for free. There's a definate pattern here. People, who I imagine don't even play Diablo 2, have taken towards buying D2 items with stolen paypal accounts and on some legitimate account (which actually belongs to them) they resell the items. Thus they end up with money in their paypal accounts which is very cleverly laundered from stolen paypal accounts in a manner which is almost untracable. So all those people phising for paypal accounts have found a way to keep the money without having any sort of records connecting their money with the account they stole.
The only weakness of this plan is that, of course, is that the accoutn which does the actual reselling of the stolen items must be a real account. I have taken a couple hours of my time to track down the legitimate account of a person who ripped me off for roughly 150 dollars, and tried to bring this person to eBay's attention, but they don't care. After all, he's a seller generating seller fees for them -- they're not gonna do anything unless I somehow give them ironclad proof.
You would think would an overwhealming level of circumstancial evidence (he started selling the just a few hours after the first items were purchased using a stolen account, he sells the same items in the same quantities as were stolen by the two accounts I know to have been stolen by the same person, he even recieved his first seller feedback from one of the stolen accounts for his cheapest item) would be enough to convince ebay to even consider some sort of investigation. But they won't even respond to my emails anymore (and I'm a powerseller, supposed to be entitled to "priority support").
Let's face it, ebay is complicit in the fraud committed by these individuals. They do not act strongly to stop them. They do not actively monitor for fraud (if I can search completed listings and tell you who's a fraudulent buyer and who's not, then certainly ebay could).
So then it's not really suprising that ebay users would take to doing ebay's job for them -- someone has to do it. There's no real alternative to ebay at this point (yahoo auctions is a sad, sad shell of ebay) and people depend on ebay to make a living.
Heck, the thought of buying something from the legitimate account of the person who stole 150 dollars from me just so I could request the phone number from ebay and do a reverse look-up had crossed my mind. But even if I did get his home address, what would I do with it then? Show up on his doorstep with a baseball bat?
I'm at a loss for ideas. Now with all my auctions I'm forced to screen my buyers very carefully. Calling long distance to verify that the people using the ebay account are in fact the real users, checking bidding histories for suspicious patterns.
I want to treat my customers like customers, not like criminals. But I see no real alternative as long as eBay continues to drop the ball on halting fraud.
it's a pyramid scheme. They call it "a matrix"
Matrixwatch has a lot of info on how these scams work and are involved in bringing a lawsuit against one of the biggest operators.
They have instructions on how to report those annoying "free link!" auctions to ebay and how to get paypal to close the accounts of people who start new matrix sites.
There are a lot of people out there who are bad at maths and are unable to grasp that if they are the twentheth person to sign up for a plasma TV 50x matrix then they don't get their TV until 1000 people have join that list which will take years even if the matrix operator is not sued, shutdown by his card process and dosn't dissapear with the money or just not pay out when it's your turn.
If you are signing up for place 20 to get a TV the chances are that people 1-19 are non existant or shills.
Ebay is slow to remove "free link!" auctions but they are certainly monitoring for people offering to sell goods outside of ebay.
I doubt it a conincidence that transactions outside ebay reduce their income whereas matrix scams just annoy users.
I reccently bid for a computer. I got half a dozen email message sent via ebay saying "I have ten of those really cheap, email me!" followed by half a dozen warnings from "eBay Singapore customer support" (I'm nowhere near singapore) which began "We recently investigated the possibility that 'newoffretez@yahoo.com's account was compromised and used by an unauthorized third party. Our records indicate that you may have been contacted by this third party about purchasing an item off of the eBay site."
Sorry, I was was hurrying, that link should have been www.matrixwatch.org
It's a scary world when you have to include a disclaimer such as "Yo, it's a joke -- no need to start a super-secret file on me." in a Slashdot post making parody of the president. The Patriot Act has proven far too powerful and unjust.
On Kuro5hin, there was a comment during the anthrax scare about how to assassinate the president of the United States by infecting the vice president with an infectious disease.
The poster of that message received a visit from the United States Secret Service.
From the analysis of that tale, it seems that if you are flagged as a dangerous individual (through, presumably, religion, association with certain political groups, region of origin, etc) and make a nasty comment on a monitored website, the powers that be will investigate.
Scary thought indeed.
Recently, I was looking for a new stove for my kitchen remodel. Over the course of 2 weeks, I found 2 DCS 36" ranges. Typically around $5000. Both sellers had several hundred positive feedback. But their previous items were nothing like the stoves, little trinkets and crap. So I figured the accounts were hijacked.
I emailed the sellers, and both of them offered to end the auction early and sell me the item for $3k, and include free shipping. This thing weighs 700 pounds, and one of them said UPS would ship it and hold it until they get the Western Union money transfer. I looked at the headers in the emails, and every one of them came from somewhere different. A portscan of the originating machine revealed that it was an open proxy, and they were using this to use yahoo mail and hotmail.
Needless to say, I didn't send them any money. One of them wanted to use a specific escrow service. I looked at the domain info, and it had been registered only 4 days before. And they only took western union. Shady as hell.
This is why I propose someone start a site called thugs4hire.com. If you get ripped off, you can send someone over from a network of thugs to beat the living crap out of the scammer.
Need Free Juniper/NetScreen Support? JuniperForum
I have successfully purchased (and sold) many items on eBay. You can get awesome deals on some items, so long as you know what you are doing:
- Check feedback. Not just the number, but the comments. Read the negative and neutral comments and judge whether it was the seller's fault ("you never shipped") or the buyer's fault ("my notebook didn't have an OS" when the auction said so) or neither ("broken item, seller replaced, OK").
- Sanity check prices. A brand new Sony notebook on buy-it-now for $49 is a fraud. A used Dell CSx with a PIII 500, 20GB HDD, DVD/CD-RW, Windows 2000, good battery, and 256MB Memory for $350 is a stupid seller.
- Remember, prices on auctions often start low and go high. SET A HARD LIMIT. DO NOT BID MORE. It is easy to get into a bidding war and end up paying way more than you wanted.
- DO NOT PAY WITH A WIRE TRANSFER. PAY ONLY USING PAYPAL AND ONLY WITH A CREDIT CARD.
- Ask bogus questions. If you are buying a notebook, ask if it has the "hyperspeed math co-processor". If you get a "yes" answer, it's a fraud.
- Know what you are buying. If you have a question, ASK before you bid.
- Compare with similar auctions. Check completed auctions. If something seems off, ask about it.
- Know how much shipping is.
- Make sure you aren't buying pirated software. If it includes Windows, make sure there is a COA (unless you plan on loading Linux).
Ebay, Paypal, spam...all of it can be traced to the one inherwent flaw of the internet that, ironically, people continue to outspokenly defend: the anonymity of the net.
You cannot have a well-behaved global village without personal accountability for it's citizens.
I'm not suggesting anyone attempt this but I am curious if such a thing is possible.