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An Inside Look at eBay Security
daria42 writes "This in-depth interview with eBay's Australia/New Zealand security manager is fascinating reading for anyone interested in online security and how the online auctioneer interacts with law enforcement agencies. "Normal people don't get up in the morning and wonder how they can steal or trick someone. I won't rest until we can eliminate wrongdoing," says eBay''s Alastair MacGibbon."
On reading this it seems eBay haven't got a blue. Basically the whole thing can be summed up by saying:
:(
1) We work closely with law enforcement agencies
2) Less than 1/100th of 1% of cases are fraud
No new information. No techniques the rest of us can use to prevent on-line crime. No reason to read it
"I won't rest until we can eliminate wrongdoing," They'd best eliminate paypal (which they own) first then, if they're talking about wrongdoings. http://www.paypalsucks.com/ for the few who don't know about it. Taking the easy road out and getting money from the person they know is in the right just because it's easier then getting it form the scammer is the name of the game with Ebay and their wholely owned paypal.
One thing that you have to pay close attention to is the fact that the eBay buyer protection does not cover the first $25 of the loss. Some large number of items on eBay sell for less than $25, so eBay never has to cover for the fraud in those cases. But they have to make everybody feel secure so that they get more business.
My personal experience is that eBay does very little to stop the thieves. My girlfriend bought some collectables for about $26 (inc. shipping). The guy she bought from had a very good history, but about the time she sent her payment he decided to use all the money from quite a few auctions to go on a drug binge and didn't bother to send out the items. After a lot of correspondence and hassle eBay eventually banned the guy. A month later he was back on under his son-in-law's name trying to sell the same stuff he had failed to deliver the earlier time. The standard eBay response was that we had to wait for him to commit fraud under the new ID before they could do anything. Even though they had a name and address they didn't bother to do anything about her loss. Luckily she found a local police officer that took an interest in her case. He visited the guy's house and convinced him to refund the money. eBay never even reported the incident to the police... If she had relied on eBay she would have been completely out of luck.
"I won't rest until we can eliminate wrongdoing"
Sort of like how "we" (the US) won't rest until we eliminate terrorism?