Slashdot Mirror
eBay Slammed Over Levels of Fraud
Dynamoo writes "The BBC is reporting that companies and law enforcement agencies are becoming increasing frustrated and concerned at the high amount of fraud at eBay. There are reports that it can take two months for eBay to pass details to fraud investigators, and that even for companies with a 'special relationship' with eBay it can take 5 days for fraudulent auctions to be shut down. From the article: 'With all the amount of profits that eBay makes, then there is ample scope for additional staff. Frankly, it is totally unsatisfactory.'"
What did ebay do? At first, nothing. They kept telling me to wait in automatically generated e-mails. I only grew more upset when I learned that I was one of the last people to try to buy a laptop. The other 48 people had already voiced concern to ebay yet ebay did nothing to stop this man's other auctions.
A month passes and I recieve a phone call from a detective in Detroit where the store was based out of. Ok, so it's a police matter. I eventually got all my money back in two payments 1/2 and 1 year after the incident.
Was I happy with how ebay responded to this problem? Absolutely not. They never spent one minute trying to resolve this. They recognized it as a serious problem and handed it right over to the police. Do the police profit from this? Hell no. Ebay profits while the general public is forced to pay for the clean up of any messes.
I now only buy things for $20 or less on ebay. One thing I bought where completely fake Oakleys. I knew they were fake but I didn't care. I got the glasses and had them in my car for a month before I got an e-mail from ebay warning me not to buy the product. The auction had been over for 40 days. That's some quick action
It's a hell of a racket they got going. I tell you what, the second Google launches their ebay knock off, I just may boycott ebay.
My work here is dung.
Yes, it's ebay's responsibility to do something about this, but if you're making a big purchase it makes sense to pay a little more and use their escrow service. You should instantly be set on alert if the seller has a low feedback and it's an expensive item, or has never bought something etc. but noone does this. There's a certain level of responsibility to fall upon the consumer. That said, ebay aren't doing enough, but it's not ALL their fault
~HTP~ Hug that tux
With the fees eBay charges, and with little or no crack down by government, why should eBay care? Between their listing fees, closing fees, and the unprecedented fees they collect on the resulting financial transactions through Paypal, it's in their best interest to continue allowing frauds to operate. eBay doesn't care about abuse until the frauds stop paying them; only then do accounts get cancelled and investigations are launched.
I'm sure there will be a ton of stories posted here about individual instances of fraud. Personally, I have never been seriously ripped off, but I have definitely purchased from some shady sellers who have clearly misrepresented their products. I don't buy from eBay anymore, but I am a seller, and an honest seller, so I feel I'm at least doing my part.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
I was just scammed out of $70 or so buying some DVDs. No big deal, really (I don't buy really expensive stuff on ebay), but it was frustrating to see eBay do absolutely nothing. This particular seller had multiple ebay accounts, multiple email addresses, and multiple paypal accounts. They switch from account to account and close accounts as they get negative feedback. Fortunately, I used PayPal. I know paypal doesn't have a good reputation around here, but they are actually getting me my money back, and took action right away, unlike ebay (paypal is owned by ebay now, but they still operate independently).
--- witty signature
eBay, and their whore company, PayPal, are a breeding ground for Fraud, since they both care more about money, than they do about the common user. On one auction, where I was the seller, someone bought an item, paid with paypal, then turned around and left negative feedback, then had paypal give them a refund, even though I never got the item back, nor had my side of the problem heard. I cant wait til an ebay killer comes out and "does no evil".
Mod my comment up or I'll leave you with negative feedback!
I, for one, welcome our upcoming Google Auction Overlords.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Rember our friends priceritephoto.com? They are a full fledged eBay dealer. Though not as obvious as most other eBay scams, fraud companies like them are operating on eBay.
"eBay blames its account holders for not installing proper security on their home computers and for replying to so-called "phishing" emails."
Agreed. Users must protect themselves. In the non-cyber world, leaving sensitive information lying about is inexcusable, so in should be in the cyber world. However, eBay should be more aggressive in dealing with these security breaches. I am not suggesting eBay does this out of altruism, but instead for self preservation.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
There are loads of auctions there which are obviously pirated games - you know, things like "5000 PSP games on one DVD, these games are public domain, honest". Even when these get reported to eBay they do nothing about it, because they make money off of the illegal stuff and the fraud just as much as they do on the legit stuff. And no-one really presses them on it.
Game dev and music blog
I caved in since I knew from other sellers experiences that would never get my 100% positive feedback back. Now I use registered express mail for all my auctions to avoid simular experiences in the future.
It seems that criminal scum gravitate to areas of the internet where anonimity and laxx administrative controls are in high supply.
When the fraud has a sufficient effect on profit they'll change. The reason they haven't is any fraud reduction measure will cost more than it makes.
Ebay has 2 things going for it.
The number of people in the ebay network.
They're good enough with no singificantly better competitor in their key market.
There are a number of fraudulent actions on eBay... but there are also quite a few scammers posing as buyers. A few ways to avoid them include:
* Do not be tempted to end the action early if they ask.
* Don't ship abroad - at least not to 'certain countries' in Africa.
* Don't accept moneyorders, WU, MG or the like - card is king, and PayPal (while evil) is also decent.
* Definitly don't accept a deal going like I'll send you a check on a higher amouth, you send me the item and the money left over. The check WILL be false.
* Educate yourself:
** www.scampatrol.org
** crime-online.info/blog
** www.fraudaid.com/index.htm
* Don't expect everyone online to be as honest and upright as yourself.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
I have been lucky...I got screwed on one deal for about $20.00. That's it. But when you look at the way eBay operates, on kind of an "honor system" and you have millions using it, you're bound to get dishonest people more and more, and you're bound to get the honest people getting tired of it.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Make certain things about accounts operate only through telephone or mail. E.g. once you have sold more than a certain amount through eBay (say, $1000, or 100 transactions, or whatever), then some changes to your account (including new offers, perhaps over a certain value) will result in issuing a mailed note to you so you know something is going on with your account.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Serously though,
Whatever happened to consumer responsibility? I personally never buy anything unless the price is pretty low and the seller has lots of feedback. Our society has become so dependent on the government and law enforcement to take care of our problems that we have been totally ignorant of how to protect ourselves. If eBay gains enough of a reputation for fraud, people will stop shopping there and they will loose enough business that they will have to do something.
It may seem like ebay doesn't care, but that could be because policing their network manually would be very expensive, even if they could find cheap enough labor to do it. So the question is, what technologies are out there that could help detect fraud? I imagine if someone could come up with something that would be a great VC opportunity, but obviously it's a very hard problem. You have feedback, but what scammers tend to do is to start new accounts, win a bunch of really small items, get good feedback, then go off on a big scam. Can AI really help solve the problem?
Monstar L
This looked incredible - that a new user should join and the very first thing they should do is to bid up the price of an automobile over the BiN price - all the moreso, since the registrant information (location) was clearly outside of the USA which would make delivery of the vehicle...costly to say the least.
I used eBay motors' instant chat and explained that I thought this was a "bum deal". Personally, I speculated someone at the delearship had done it, because they thought I would keep bidding and not 'notice' the irregularity.
I had resigned myself to keep looking when, 15 minutes later - and before the auction had completed - the "new user" was deleted and so was their bid! "Kudos to eBay" I said, and have enjoyed my Black Toyota Avalon ever since.
An interesting take on this is that, like a lot of business dealings, timing is everything and the incentive for eBay motors' to resolve a conflict prior to the auction close (and ensure their auction fees) was paramount.
Like a lot of incentive, time-based systems, I imagine it would be a challenge to get $500 back from eBay after I had purchased the vehicle and then began complaining. Kind of like asking me to take out the garbage after we have sex!
I would say that most of the 'eBay Fraud' is actually PayPal fraud.
This story caught my eye because I've literally just today been defrauded out of 250 GBP due to a PayPal chargeback. At least PayPal have a phone number (more than most internet companies do) but the employees I talked to said they're not doing anything about it - the buyer instructed his credit card agency to cancel the transaction, leaving PayPal 250 pounds out of pocket, so they deduct it from my account, which automatically charges my credit card 250 pounds.
What frustrates me is that it is so obvious what has happened and who is at fault, but PayPal are only interested in recovering their own money - they couldn't give a sh*t about which of their customers has been screwed over.
All I can say is roll on Google - there's a big gap in the market of guys like me who have been stung by eBay/PayPal and want a RELIABLE, SECURE alternative.
Regarding hijacked accounts, why don't places like Ebay implement two-factor authentication? IMO it would cut down drastically on the amount of fraudulent auctions, and it might even put a dent in the number of shill bidders.
I was conned on the 10th December 2004 by a company who had a feedback rating of several 1000. I am still in the process of trying to get my money back through Ebays Fraud protection department.
They spent the first couple of months denying that I had bought anything through Ebay, despite me supplying them with my user ID and the item number (how hard is it to look up on their system). Then I had to fax details to them of my bank account. A month later I emailed them and they said that I had not put my bank details on the fax, despite their original email saying that if I want to be paid into my PayPal account to give this and leave the bank details blank.
Then we entered the 'we have already paid you' phase, where they are stating that they have refunded my money on a specific date, but my bank statements do not show this. So far, I have been paid on 5 different dates, each one I have queried and each time they have had to go back to the Accounts Department to check (and come up with another rubbish date).
The last I heard from them was a month ago when they said that they had ordered bank statements to show the payment. The whole process has taken over a year and been like banging my head against a brick wall. I can not understand how incompetent the staff are, in particular Toni Tylor of the Fraud Protection department, who must win this years Darwin Award for being born with a genetic defect of having no brain.
You would think that by the nature of the business, Ebay would be better prepared to handle this type of thing. I have never been defrauded by the website as I don't buy anything from it for that very reason.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
I've got a better suggestion:Don't use eBay
I haven't used eBay to buy or sell anything, *ever*, and I'm still alive. Can you believe it? Not only am I alive, but I'd consider myself a happy, relatively well-adjusted individual. You should also try it! I've *never* been scammed at all!
I don't respond to AC's.
Buying autographs on ebay can definitely be a tricky business.. But one of the HUGE things that annoys me, and several other professional autograph collectors, is the PSA/DNA.. They are Ebay's RIGHTHAND man as far as autograph authentication is concerned.. Ebay highly promotes these guys and trust their opinion as far as buying non-fraudulent items.. The problem with this, is that all the little guys are pretty much up shit's creek since ebay figuratively says, "If its not PSA/DNA authenticated, then don't buy it!"
The PSA/DNA I agree, is good with sports autographs.. Because they do in fact have access to a huge DNA database of athletes, and can physically tell wether or not an autograph is real.. However, these guys have a shitty reputation for authenticating Hollywood memorabilia, political, and presidential.. I have a problem with this, because some customers that buy autographs from us, try to get those autographs authenticated by the PSA/DNA, just so they can have that nice sticker of authenticity, Ebay's word, and the potential to resell the item at a higher price..
When an item we sell, gets denied from the PSA/DNA, it really is bad business for us.. Because you have two groups of so-called professionals, that disagree with the authenticity of an item.. Its nothing but an opinion.. Being that they started off as a athelete authenticator, I can trust their opinion with those types of autographs, however I cannot trust them on historical items since they have a mere 3 years of experience with that genre of collections..
basically, i think its FUCKED up that this company is allowed to be the MAIN most TRUSTED authentication of Ebay, and they're also allowed to SELL items at the same time!! Talk about a freakin' monopoly.. Its bullshit.. Give us a chance you bastards..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
1) Ebay increase their fees to cover additional costs of the new system
2) Ebay has payment details of its customers and bank details of its sellers
3) When an auction ends the customer is contacted and asked to authorise payment; the seller is requested to dispatch the item to a central ebay depot
4a) The item does not arrive at Ebay and the transaction is cancelled; the seller is given negative feedback or banned
OR
4b) The item arrives at Ebay and is inspected for authenticity.
5b) The item is deemed authentic, the customer is billed and the item dispatched by Ebay to them
OR
5c) The item is deemed fake or defective; the transaction is cancelled, customer notified and item sent back to the seller who is charged Ebay costs.
6) The customer is happy
7) Ebay makes even more profit
When the police showed up, he blamed "his nephew" but it was obviously him. Anyway, good news: I got my $$ back so he could avoid jail.
The bad:
I knew something was fishy less than 24 hours after payment. I called paypal, and asked them to cancel. They convinced me not to put in a complaint by saying "don't worry, you're covered." A day later, I was more sure of fraud, I called back.. AGAIN they said "Don't worry your covered!" I said "Are you sure? Completely covered?" and they said YES!
Two weeks later, when I file the claim, guess what? Not covered. Only $175 out of my $1000. In no way could $175 of $1000 be called "covered" I had names and numbers for each rep who told me not to stop the transaction. I asked them to look up the recorded phone calls. I spent an hour on the phone with a supervisor who promised me he'd look into in to it and help me, and to call him back at a certain day/time. When I did, he wasn't working. I haven't been able to reach him since.
When this is totally settled, I am going to launch a formal complaint at the FTC. If everyone who is mistreated by ebay/paypal complains to the FTC by writing, faxing, and calling, we can get some action. In the end, I didn't lose money, but I did lose 20-30 hours of tracking this guy down and calling the police, FBI, and even the Secret Service.
I'm lucky, I got my money back. Most aren't.
Ebay/Paypal could do A LOT but they don't, and they make hand over fist as a complicit party to fraud.
It's time to change.
It may suck to be a victim of fraud, but it's not because of the money - it's the fact that someone used a system to outsmart you, and got rewarded for it.
If you want the government to care about it and handle it for you, go shop at the mall, where you pay a sales tax for them to do so. This is why you can return things because you don't like them, and you can abuse retailers ridiculously just to have them offset what you cost them in the price of the things they sell you.
It would be nice if everyone played fair when it comes to making money, but they don't.
Strange how the BBC is prepared to carry reports on fraud at Ebay, whilst at the same time its annual charity is likely to benefit from the sale of invisible Xmas trees delivered personally by Santa Claus at: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&it em=4426980554
How responsible should ebay be for fraud. Well lets see. Their main responsibility is profits. If they didicate some of ther staff to persuing fraud, that will affect their bottom line negatively. If the staff they allocate to persue fraud does a good job eliminating faud, they will lose money again because of the loss of fradulent business. Thus illustrating that if eBay effectively tackles fraud, it will be a lose/lose proposition for them. Now, considering that eBay has no moral obligation to anyone, why should eBay be compelled to do anything about this?
http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/
...on eBay, which was just resolved last week.
I was shopping for a rare imported U.K. movie from the 80's which a particular vendor sold for not too expensive. I purchased the item (under 20$ for the item + shipping) immediately, paid via Paypal, and waited. The vendor emailed me a week later, asking how I'd like to pay for the item. After some 3 weeks of trying to get the very apologetic vendor to respond to me, I decided I wasn't getting anywhere, and submitted a complaint. Turns out, from the time I paid for the item, to the point that I submitted the claim, he had acquired numerous negative feedbacks. I guess I was just unlucky, as the item was not of exceptional value to anyone, nor was it high in demand. I just happened to be victim of an irresponsible vendor.
This was in October. Last week, Paypal issued a full refund for the item I bought. Maybe it was due to the negative response I gave on the feedback form I submitted, or maybe it was happenstance. But with the robotic-overlords (whom I don't welcome!) responses gotten from eBay and Paypal both, I never felt so utterly helpless in a sale transaction as in this one!
They have THOUSANDS of people working at eBay already. And I have *no* reasonable idea what they could *possibly* be doing. I'd like to imagine a company like eBay could easily work with only 500 employees. 1000 internationally. That includes lobbyists and lawyers, too!
(Disclosure: Thankfully, I am not a stockholder.)
In example - when you're selling do not mention any insurance/postage cost and after the auction hit the buyer with something ridiculous - let's say something like $50USD for ins and another $50 for postage. If the buyer complains to Ebay, their reply would be something like "You should have asked about postage/handling price before the end of the auction". No involvement whatsoever...You just gotta be reasonable...
As to Ebay's credit - well at least they actually do something about Nigerian scams. Even though it takes them like 2-3 weeks..no matter how obviuos the scam is.
I don't know if it's available now, but when I bought my last two computers over eBay I used escrow to ensure fair dealings. It saved me a lot of anxiety and I didn't have to worry about fraud. Yeah, some sellers were pissed off that I wanted to used escrow and did not agree to it. ("My feedback is clean man, no escrow is needed") If they didn't agree, too bad. I was happy to pay the escrow fee to ensure that I didn't get ripped off.
TANSTAAFL
Of course, it works like this: if you leave negative feedback for a scammer, he leaves it for you. Sure, if you're lucky, the scammer will be de-registered and your negative feedback will disappear. However, you have no guarantee of this. Hence, you play it safe and do not leave negative feedback for fraudsters, and everybody loses.
And I shudder those few very few instances I'm forced to process a credit card through Paypal which of course is just another tax because credit cards work fine without PayPal.
You're just asking and waiting to get robbed on eBay. It's just matter of time.
I've had over 100 transaction on ebay buying and seeling everything from video games to lawn flamingoes. I once had someone complain that a hard drive was dead on arrival and refunded them the price even though they never sent the item back. And I once received a fake GBA game, though it plays fine and looks exactly like the real thing (the suspicious packaging gave it away). I consider that 2% rate pretty acceptable considering the money I've made through sales and the money I've saved through purchases. This is a success rate way over my expectations and I've been so pleased overall that I consider ebay to be evidence that surprisingly many people are honest.
Over the years the following eBay auctions really happened (and lots of people bid on 'em): - Unknown Windows user selling brand new empty folder (unused). - A Hacker selling Excel zero-day bug. - Kid being auctioned to be punched in the face. - Someone tried to sell a "real" mind reading machine. - Man is bidding for your money to do absolutely nothing.
Don't ship abroad - at least not to 'certain countries' in Africa.
This is crap. If you are the seller, you have the advantage. You have every ability to ensure that the payment you recieve is genuine before you ship the item, so there is literally *nothing to lose* from shipping abroad. The only excuse you could have for not shipping abroad is laziness because you don't want to fill out the extra customs declaration.
Don't accept moneyorders, WU, MG or the like - card is king, and PayPal (while evil) is also decent.
Definitly don't accept a deal going like I'll send you a check on a higher amouth, you send me the item and the money left over. The check WILL be false.
See my above comment. There is nothing wrong with accepting money orders or cheques. Just make sure you wait until they clear at your bank before you ship the item. Anyone who sent a legitimate payment will understand this, and it only takes 3-5 days.
If the transaction goes sour, there is no problem re-listing the item for free. It has happened to me a couple of times in the past (not fraudulent payment, just no payment at all), and eBay was very easy to deal with.
There is ample reason to be suspect of *buying* overseas, but rarely is there a good reason for not *selling8 overseas. All you are doing is needlessly constricting your customer base.
...they try to protect the bottom line. Saying "With all the amount of profits that eBay makes, then there is ample scope for additional staff" just ignores that fact. If they make more money (or lose less money) putting better security in place, they'll do so; you might as well ask them to donate to the poor and needy if you expect them to spend money that doesn't affect profits.
Step 1. Have an easy way to report a suspect fraud auction at the top of each and every auction. As it is now you you have to spend a fair bit of time going through menu after menu just to submit a form that will be reviewed by somebody three to five days from now. That is deplorable and inexcusable. Ebay claims to be a largely customer self policed market, fine, than let the community easily report fraud when they see it.
Step 2. They have pattern analysis data that many companies can only dream of. When some lady with a high feedback selling garden trinkets suddenly develops an interest in selling high end laptops, that should sound alarm bells.
Step 3. Require an original picture for any auction. This would cost ebay nothing since customes are chargeed for pictures anyways. Give people the ability to see what they heck someone is claiming to sell! They can easily compare existing pictures against previous ones for the same checksum.
Step 4. Minimum auction time. Fraudsters take advantage of ebays failure to give a damn in any meaningfull timely manner by posting 24 or 48 hour auctions on seized accounts. They then offer a high demand bit of hit at a too good to be true price for that time period. Since it takes days before ebay even reviews a fraud claim 99% of the time the fraudster can very safely operate in that time window.
Step 5. Acknowledge that fraud occurs in some areas more than others and act quickly in those areas! Buying a highend laptop without encountering a fraud postings is very difficult. If they put the same level of vigalance on these types of auctions they used for "unlicensed software" ebay wouldn't have half the fraud problem they do now.
Step 6. Fraud auctions often post an email address in several auctions for different hijacked accounts because that is where they really want you to send the money. Simply track email addresses used by multiple accounts and flag anything that pops up.
Bottom line is that if ebay wanted to cut fraud dramatically they could do so easily and with minimal cost. The only explanation I can think of is a deep rooted sense of denial on their part that they have a problem. Why they haven't been sued in a class action lawsuit for turning a blind eye to fraud I don't know.
I really don't understand the majority of posts on this topic. Since I think that generally you're more likely to hear negative experiences instead of positives, since most people can't be bothered if everything went smooth, let me offer my experiences.
I have been dealing with eBay ever since it's inception (both as buyer and seller). It has been great. I've done a couple of hundred transactions during that timeframe, and I have a friend that is an eBay merchant that has done probably a thousand separate sales. I have several friends that have bought stuff on there as well, including a couple of cars. Know how many times we've all been scammed? ZERO!
Oh! And we all used Paypal too. Guess what? Everything worked as advertised.
The reason that eBay works so well is that it's cheap, and accessible to anyone. Fraud exists everywhere. I don't think that it's eBay's sole purpose to make sure that every sale is legit, in fact I think it's damn near impossible to guarantee given how much traffic they have. If you start saddling them with these "protections" it will break the system.
BE A SMART CONSUMER! As some have pointed out, there are several things you can do to protect yourself:
Check the feedback rating! If it's a big ticket item, and someone hasn't been selling for a while and has a poor rating or a low rating, guess what? It's probably not wise to bid.
If you do feel the urge to bid on that big ticket item from a seller with little or no track record, USE AN ESCROW SERVICE! This is protection for you, the buyer. You get a set amount of time after receiving the package to inspect the goods before releasing the money to the seller. Don't like what you got, send it back and get your money back. Costs more, but worth it in some cases.
Check the shipping costs!
Paypal works! Safer than a personal check. If you don't trust PayPal, there's always escrow.
If an item seems too cheap to be legit, it probably isn't.
Use your brain, as you do with any purchase.
...to police fraud on its auctions, when they have to bear the costs of the fraud.
Those costs will come in the form of greater governmental regulation, or people not using the service.
"This news comes after a reporter at the BBC paid $611 for an XBOX 360 on eBay, only to find out that he had not read the item description, which clearly explained that he would not be getting an XBOX 360 console, but a cardboard box with the numbers '360' written on the side of it in green marker..."
I opened an account many years ago on ebay and I only used it when I had to find a special part or item in a hurry, so I logged in perhaps 2 or 3 times a year. So I attempted to log in to my account at one point and my password had been changed. I looked under my account, and apparently I was running an auction for expensive photography equipment!
Obviously a fraud, correct?
Well, I sent email to ebay's fraud department. I heard nothing after 2-3 days. I sent more email. Nothing. I was getting concerned now because items were selling for thousands of dollars and it looked like I was committing fraud.
I sent more emails, and I heard nothing for several weeks.
I finally tracked down a phone number (do you know how hard that is?) and left messages. I left a lot of messages.
Finally, someone called me back and told me "they needed more information".
Two weeks later, they shut down my account, gave me a new account and blamed me for the whole episode telling me that "I must have given out my password".
I was non-plussed by that suggestion.
Anyway, what I learned is:
1) Ebay was not very interested in investigation real fraud, even when people are telling them about the fraud
2) It's impossible to reach Ebay in an emergency
3) When they have security holes in their infrastructure (and that's how somebody got my password), they blame their customers.
Its too bad nobody has set up a successful competing auction site.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I bought a phone off eBay about a month ago paid with PayPal. I got an email from the seller saying he had shipped the item, but I never received anything. After a couple of weeks, I sent an email to the seller asking him what had happened, and he claimed that his PayPal account had been frozen and any email saying the item had been shipped had "been sent in error". He was no longer a member on eBay. This was quite obviously a scam. I am currently using PayPal's insurance scheme, which is waiting for a response from the seller. It will be interesting to see if I get anything from this. This seller is probably going to register again under a different name and keep on selling. What can eBay do if he registers again using different details?
Like Craigslist-- oh wait.....
... that it was a scam?
Surely you don't think that *nothing* is *ever* lost during transit?
It happens all the freaking time, this is why shipping insurance exists. Nearly ever hand that touches your package on route from source to destination is making a below-average salary. Wouldn't you be tempted to swipe that laptop-sized box once in awhile? After all, you *know* it is insured, so it is a victimless crime, right?
Now, maybe you do know for sure you were scammed somehow, but if you don't, I wouldn't be so quick to blame the buyer.
From our side of the fence, the side where we actually feel the effects of fraud, nothing could happen quick enough to stop it. We are the victims. We are the investigators and policemen.
They are on the other side of the fence... (funny how the word fence and eBay are used in the same sentence) They have to field and judge and arbitrate for countless amounts of problems. Whether it's a simple mistake or a deliberate deception on the part of a seller OR a buyer.
As my my personal experiences? I thought I was burned once... this one seller sold a bunch of whatever it was... I can't remember any more but it wasn't more than $20 as I recall. Suddenly, an avalanche of negatives rained down on this guy... I waited for my item which seemed to take forever too. Eventually, I left a negative against this guy myself. One day after I left the negative, the item arrived... and before I could attempt at apologies, his account was closed.
Was he a fraudster? Did he just screw up? Was there a back-order problem? Who knows what it was but I did get my item and I felt pretty crappy about leaving negative.
That said, I find myself invariably comparing with PriceWatch.com and Amazon.com before making purchases. I suppose everyone should. And I find that prices on Amazon and Pricewatch are way more "in line" with what I'm willing to pay than on eBay much of the time.
eBay has its problems to be sure but there's still a lot of good stuff going on there as well. So what would fix eBay's problems? ESCROW. Let them be a REAL auction house! Let them hold the item in question until it's sold. Let the shipping cost be the ACTUAL shipping cost. (Ever pay $1 for an item that has a $27 chipping cost?) If eBay had posession of the item, there would be (almost) no chance of an item not shipping once it has been paid. No one should be allowed to operate an auction with 0 overhead meaning that they should not wait for someone to win the auction and then order the item to be shipped to the buyer after he pays. That practice should be banned because it's deceptive too!
A seller should not be paid until the buyer receives the item. This gives plenty of leverage if there is a problem with the item. As it stands, the leverage is almost entirely on the side of the seller. It should be balanced better.
Date of Contact: 08/29/2005 Contact Information:
Dear Sellers, I'm writing to inquire about bidding on your G5 powermacs: I am curious though, how is it that two different sellers have identical description headers? The following description, "Only used once for mixing down an album and returned to the box. FULLY LOADED!! Tons of software (contact for details) The computer and monitor were purchased at the same time (end of March 2005), so both the computer and display are eligible to be covered under AppleCare. Both the computer and display are in new condition, and are in the retail box," seems too unique to be authored by different individuals. One Mac is in NY and the other in DC, which should decrease the probability of duplicate descriptions. Please explain. Also, I know this a strange request, but please bare with me, would you mind registering for a free gmail account at google and using that for email correspondence? I am serious about a G5 powermac purchase and I'm excited to place a bid or to buy-it-now.
Hi the buy it now price it is 2200 us dollars included all shipping taxes and insurances and if you are interesed to close a deal with me , email me back soon best regards .
Dragosi, It is a pleasure to contact you again. Is Atlanta close to Queens? I prefer to send money-orders, where should I overnight the payment to. http://cgi.ebay.com/PowerMac-Dual-G5-2-7GHz-with-2 3-Apple-Cinema- Display_W0QQitemZ5803902299QQcategoryZ51036QQrdZ1Q QcmdZViewItem http://cgi.ebay.com/PowerMac-Dual-G5-2-7GHz-with-2 3-Apple-Cinema- Display_W0QQitemZ5803952896QQcategoryZ51036QQrdZ1Q QcmdZViewItem
Hi , right now i am located in London, UK and the best way so we can close this deal is : for the payment and shipping we will must to chose the fastest way and secure way so : for the shipping : UPS express and for the payment : Western union services because it is the fastest way to send money worldwide so if you are interested to close a deal with me , please email me back with your full name and address for shipping so i can give you my payment address i will finish the shipment in the same day with the payment and in 24/48 hours after the payment will be made you will receive the package in your hand so if you are interested to close a deal with me , email me back soon with your details regards
Dragosi, I'm really excited about the new G5. I live in Ash Fork, Arizona. My street address is 704 Pine Ave and the zip is 86320. We don't have western union here. It is a small town in the desert, we do have a post office though, so I can overnight a money order. The closest place that has western union is Williams about 20 miles away. I have been saving up to get a car, but I figure with a new computer I might be able to get a real server up and running and start a small online business selling the local crafts. There are a lot of native people here and they make crafts but have no way to sell them online.
Hi Ok i am glad to close a deal with you here it is my payment adress : First name : Dragosy Last name : Allin Adress : 82 Morley Avenue City : London Country : United Kingdom Zip code : N22 6NG all you have to do now it is to find the nearst western union office and make the payment there ( to locate 1 please go at www.westernunion.com http://www.westernunion.com/> and chose the option FIND AGENT LOCATION ) after that you will have to send the payment from your name and adress to my name and adress after the payment will be made , please email me the payment details : sender name , receiver name , and MTCN and if it is posible the scaned copy from Western Union after i will verify the payment i will shipp the
I bought a time machine off ebay. I loaded the crystals and turned it on. The damn thing just zapped my nads. WTF!!
You may find this article (which I wrote) interesting: http://www.bepress.com/ev/vol1/iss2/art4/ It compares the fraud threat to eBay to the collapse of Enron.
I'll play devil's advocate for a moment... if eBay acted very quickly on fraud complaints, we would be in a situation like DMCA copyright takedowns, where anyone can "suggest" that there *might* be *something* wrong with an auction, and it gets taken down immediately. If they're being lazy and slow, shame on them. If they're investigating things before just acting without knowing the whole story, then perhaps there's a better reason for the delays. Still, though, the lengths of time they're taking are excessive anyway. Just be aware of the other extreme.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
i've been shopping on eBay since they started the thing. i've spent thousands of dollars at the site. i've only had 1 or 2 mishaps in all that time. the one time i had to get eBay involved, they PROMPTLY refunded my money, even before investigating. so go easy folks, they do a GREAT job 99.9% of the time. now everybody go back to bashing MS and playing with your linus POS, i mean OS :-)
You should have called your credit card company and cancelled the payment *to paypal* citing the fraud. Paypal has a horrible history for this (see http://www.paypalwarning.com). *Never* use your bank account to fund your paypal transactions, no matter *what* they say abot their so called "coverage". Your credit card company's coverage is much better (read: 0 liability), because it is required by law to be so. Paypal operates in a weird void between a bank and a credit card company, and as such, they weasel their way out of being covered by many laws. I use paypal all the time, but I never ever fund it from my bank account (I have one registered with them, but it is a special paypal-only account I opened at my bank and I keep a $0 balence in it, and only use it for withdrawls from paypal).
Wow. Listen, I grew up on a farm working in the sun all day, picking rock and bailing hay.
... hell, I remember arc wielding without a shield. Not very bright but sometimes you don't have $180 to blow on glasses that protect my "pretty little eyes" from the sun.
Do you think I cared about "UV" protection for my eyes? I didn't
Oh, one more thing, I don't think eBay was sending me that late e-mail out of concern for my eyes. It looked to be a petty token of compliance between them and Oakley.
My work here is dung.
Most of the comments Ive read so far debate where the responsibility falls. The consumer, the corporation or the government.
Much like Kazaa, Ebay is a service which allows legal and illegal activity to occur.
So I ask, ethics aside is it the corporation, the government, or the consumers responsibility to see that services / products offered by a company are used legally?
have even auctioned off John F. Kennedy letters to Ross Perot while he had a bid-war with Bill Gates..
How could JFK write letters to Ross Perot when he's having a bidding war with Bill Gates? Bill Gates was eight when JFK died, and I don't think he was pursuing government contracts at that young of an age.
Stop blaming others... you might have a better chance if you used clearer grammar.
"We currently authenticate autographs,"
That's easy to do. They're all fakes. Almost every one. Particularly sports memorabilia. Its fake. F-A-K-E. Unless you saw it yourself. Even then, I don't believe you.
Here is a funny story about eBay "fraud". Somebody did not read the whole text and paid that much money for a picture of the xbox 360. I did put fraud in quotes, because it may not be fraud, since the item was correctly described.
of it, becuase...lets face it, you're nerds, not fashion mavens. Electronics is the highest fraud area on ebay, womens apparel is next. They already pull auctions reported for copyright infringement, or selling counterfeit merchendise. Lots of sellers, just go around reporting every single one of their competitors auctions..in order to knock out their competition.
I submit that your time is worth something, even at minimum wage. Not knowing what you do for a living, I can't say what that something might be. But, in my case, 20-30 hours would be worth significantly more than you were at risk of losing due to PayPal/eBay malfeasance.
Don't sell yourself short and don't convince yourself that you haven't lost money. On the other hand, if you're into volunteer work and have the right skill set, maybe I could subcontract to you. ;)
It's also good for things that are too expensive to ship. I sold a bed, a laptop, and even my old car. (The dealer only offered me $11,000 for my car, but I sold it to a private party for $14,000. I just had to write a simple free ad, take some photos, and I saved $3,000.) It's faster than eBay too. Each time, I received a response from the buyer within 24 hours.
Craigslist makes a lot more sense for items that are expensive or hard to ship.
"The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
Often jus the threat of involving the credit card companies will convince a fraudulent seller to start cooperating.
First, my experience:
I've noticed the amount of emails targetting paypal and ebay to grab accounts and then to list very expensive items at a "deal" price. I was in the market for a L-series lens for my canon camera (read: expensive 1500+$) and I've noticed there was a 600mm fixed high quality lens for 900$ buy it now. Now this specific lens retails between 3000 and 5000 used, and unless it's seriously damaged, it wouldn't go down to that price. So I've sent an email to the guy, and the response left me puzzled, so I did a wide search for the serial number of the lens he posted, to find out that there were 10 listings from 5 different users with the SAME auction, using the exact same description, they've all listed their items with all the bell and whistles (gallery, bold, etc). When you see something like that, it becomes quite obvious that it's fraud. Some could argue that the listings are always copied from one to another when the item sells well, I agree, but if you get a hit on specifics like a serial number, or everyone selling the same price, or the person accepting only western union, c'mon... oh, and there's no such deal as getting a popular item at 1/5th of the price, if you see that there is no one jumping on it, you should look elsewhere. Also, for expensive items, make sure that you can reach by voice the person that you are buying from, make sure you can track him down.
For more advanced users, Save the emails, in the header you can get the originating IP. If you're buying from someone listed in USA or Canada, and you see romania in the header packets (use something like www.whois.sc/###.###.###.###), well you have your answer.
Finally, if you see a user with 40 feedback and search for "other listings from this user" and see 15 items of 1000$+ listed with all the features turned on, get suspicious, again, a mix of suspicious conditions and good judgement will make your transaction aborted or safe.
What ebay should add is a flag that signed in members with 98%+ feedback could click for suspicious listings, when ebay gets a X number of hits on a specific auction, they could review/investigate it. You can't ask ebay to look into every single auctions, this would be insane and cost-prohibitive and it's already expensive enough as is; they would pass the cost on the users for sure so you don't want that. But better cooperation with authority and a simple system like this would reduce potential frauds drastically. The ideal would be 0 frauds, but this is utopia, on such a big system, with hacked accounts of good ebayers, it makes the process much harder. What is needed now is to cut down 90% of the frauds, and they are obvious to track and shut down.
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
The market doesn't always pick the technically best solution.
They pick the best solution for the current situation.
MS Windows & Office is currently leading because it works well enough, and it isn't worth the trouble of switching, in the opinion of those making the decisions.
you are at a mall and have a choice between 2 stores. Store #1 has a security guard posted at the door, you look inside and see a customer service department that is fully staffed. The merchandise is clean and orderly.
Store two's front door is held open by a brick. Some dude is selling watches from the inside of his jacket at the entrance. You look inside and see a telephone with a "customer support" sign over it. Hundreds of greasy looking dudes are selling things -- their merchandise resting on recycled boxes.
Now ask yourself-- is ebay more like store number one or store number 2?
deal goes bad, call the cc company and they take care of it
wow that takes all of 5 minutes
What, the sell said cash or money order only? Only scammers say that you fucking idiot.
The only rule for online buying is to always pay with a credit card, if you do that you can't be ripped off. This is easy, you guys are idiots.
Lets face it. eBay is a HUGE site. We cannot expect them to hand-hold every auction and make sure its followed-through with. However, we can expect them to be able to do something in the event of bums that won't cough up the item or the cash. Granted, there isn't a whole lot they can do, they could at least send out an aggregated report to certain police agencies to alert them of the scammers.
I've bought many items up to $100 and one was $200. All of them went without a hitch except for one. And that was because they shipped to the wrong address, even after I told them the correct one. The seller was very helpful and paid to re-ship it to me.
On the other hand, I have a friend that has been scammed three times. For a total of about $800. Mainly from bidding on something like NEW REAL CAR LQQK $0.01 NO RESERVE NOT A SCM!
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Personally I wouldnt let myself get taken advantage of.
There are a lot of idiots on the internet, and sooner or later you are going to run into one of them while perfomring an eBay transaction.
Of course, a 100% feedback rating would be nice, but I'm not going to bend over backwads for someone who is tryint to abuse the feedback system to get more out of me.
I'd stand firm in my assertions, and if they left a bad feedback rating I'm sure that my feedback rebuttal, plud the other 100+ positive feedback scores would be enough to convince future traders of my trustworthyness.
If you are too scared of losing the 100%rating then you'll end up giving far more away.
I have no sig yet I must scream.
How many of the ebay and PayPal ripoffs do you suppose are the result of people responding to this simple phishing scam?
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Internet itself is rampant with fraud. eBay does have alot of fraud cases but its every where else online. The key is knowing how to protect yourself. And if fraud does occur, where to go from there -- FTC and Consumer Affairs (businesses).
If there was a Google Auctions, it would also have fraud cases.
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idiot! That is the only rule of buying online. How stupid are you?
Before people bash e-bay to hard, this is not unique to e-bay. Many online Auction houses have fraud, some worse than others. Yahoo certainly does, I was burned for 15 bucks on a faked shipment. oh well. The few times i did use e-bay and genuinly wanted something (used game) I e-mailed the seller when it was obvious he was bidding as well and made a equivilant offer: If he agreed to cutting that out, and not work for darth vader I would bid another two bucks, but he had to pay half of shipping the two bucks were to cover my half. 1 minut latter I won, and got the game. Also bare in mind that flesh and blood auction for better or worse are as bad or worse-human nature I think. My point is that on craigslist you have not recourse. E-bay at least makes an effoft for us to complain about. Try getting Amazon to admit they need to screen their used seller a bitt more carefully, hell how about their regular ones? I'd gladly give an extra 2% on a sale to amazon if they didn't have such a sucky history on their used/and "sponsored" retailors.
Once again, ignorance is about to mess with the free-market. Let ebay screw up as much as it likes. It just means that MS and google and other players have an opportunity to enter market and make it better. Lets not have some stupid governemtn bullshit be created to try to manage this.
I agree, ebay should do what is reasonable to help out, but, isn't one of the basic concepts behind it that the actual transaction is NOT ebay's responsbility? It's up to you to make sure you are not paying someone for junk; there are escrow services, etc. You know who the seller is, if they defraud you, you take them to court.
A couple days later, I got an email from the seller to send another $6. I told the seller that I couldn't pay anything other then what the invoice charged. We went back and forth on this for a month until the seller agreed to a refund, once the supervisor authorized it. I waited, and waited, and waited. No refund. I contacted the seller saying I hadn't been refunded, and got a response saying that he would check to see if the supervisor sent it.
I contacted paypal. Because the transaction was more than 45 days old at that point, paypal would log the complaint, but not do anything about it. SO I contacted eBay. If ebay investigates a fraud and finds in the buyer's favor, they will only refund the auction amount, not the shipping, and they take a $25 cut. So ebay won't even bother to investigate a fraud unless it's at least $26
Free MacMini
A lot of my friends and colleagues who know I've used ebay a lot have asked me if eBay is safe. I've had to be honest and say "no not really". You've got to be an expert user to spot some types of fraud and even after having done over 100 transactions, I still nearly fell for a scam quite recently after the seller had quite obviously gone to some lengths to fabricate a lot of feedback using many hijacked accounts.
On another day, my friend sent me the link of an auction and asked me to check it out for them. The seller had only ever been a buyer for several transactions, and then all of a sudden, the next 10 feedbacks were from sales to people with usernames ALL starting with "an". I'm not quite sure what was going on there, but I'm pretty sure the chances of that happening naturally are billions to one.
If you report these people to eBay they do NOTHING. They take days or weeks to respond, and in the meantime, you see that the auction ended in a sale to someone who obviously hasn't used eBay very much. They probably sent the money and got nothing back.
eBay is a FINANTIAL website. It should have an online-banking level of security. It should not be possible for any old script kiddie to hijack several accounts with weak passwords in one evening. It should be an SSL sign-in only site which never asks for your full password and forces you to use your mouse for part of the login process (to defy keyboard recorders and trojans). After all, a hijacked eBay account is just as good to a criminal as a hijacked bank account. The user/pass system just doesn't cut it.
eBay does not seem to CARE one bit about the level of security or fraud on their site.
aww. loads of people getting scammed in a vast marketplace built on the free flow of ideas and information? schock. who, WHO, i ask, would've thought that the unscrupulous, the poor, the criminal and the stupid would ALL be attracted to such a wondrous place? well, suck it up. enjoy. find your own goodamn way to fix the problem, or shut up. "wah! i got ripped off in the market becuase i was greedy/stupid/inexperienced!wah!" "we, the officially vested, suited, trousered and mackinawed authorities, feel frustrated that we can't finger every crook in the market square. we suggest high walls, gates, and tattooing every buyer, seller and gapejawed passerby. it's only right." "well, we collect the rent on all the stalls in the square. and, we just bought the bank you keep your money in. but, hell, do whatever you want. we don't give a rat's ass; we're rich! HAH! jeezus, talk about buyer's remorse, you pansies. and i don't mean Ebay I mean the internet. by the by, in the better part of a decade, i've NEVER been ripped off on ebay. and neither have the GREAT MAJORITY of its users. and, inevitably, when i do, will i go running to mommy? no, i'll take it as an object lesson; hunt the fucker down if i can, and consider the erudition well worth the price if i can't.
I can tell you that I almost never bid on an item on eBay unless there's a way for the seller to receive the payment directly via American Express.
Two reasons here: first, the Amex merchant account is a tougher one to get. Not impossible to fool, and certainly not fraud-proof, but I've heard way too many instances of fly-by-night merchant account setups which take MC and Visa that disappear in 30 days. If the seller takes Amex directly, it's probably a legit business.
Second reason is that Amex seems to have the absolute best policy for disputing charges. Broken item? Use Amex product insurance. Never received/not as advertised/fradulent seller? Dispute the charge. Here's the thing: Amex is on the buyer's side! They want to keep the buyer as a customer, and they don't want to have to pay the seller if they don't have to!
Sadly, though, eBay is yet another case of Buyer Beware. If I were to go to a flea market or to some sidewalk sale, it'd be Buyer Beware there too. Not to excuse eBay for not doing their part to crack down on bad sellers, but as in life, your first line of defense is to be responsible for yourself.
The surest sign of intelligent life in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. -- Calvin & Hobbes
Go figure that E-Bay owns them.
They are insistent in getting their hands on my checking account. They will not allow me to be verified any other way. My bank stated that in no shape or form would they reimburse me should I get defrauded this way.
I tried to work a solution with Paypal to no avail. My suggestion was, to allow them to verify the existance of the checking account and then to immediate forget it exists. No go, they want access. They claim I'm protected yet completely ignored a fraud report I had against another of their customers. Their claim was since I did not pay their "optional" insurance they were not responsible for any losses.
Yet they want into my checking account?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
eBay has traditionally worked well because of the level of trust between buyers and sellers.
;)
Due to some level of user stupidity, the trust system has been compromised.
For example, if a user signs up for an account on a website of ill repute then it will be child's play for the Administrator of said site to get access to this information. When you sign up for an account somewhere, you can only assume that they are encrypting this information, but it's difficult to verify. Just because there are stars in the web form, doesn't mean it's encrypted
Now - what if this user uses the same username and password for an eBay account. After all users aren't that bright and use username and password combo's for several sites across the internet - because let's face it, passwords are just too hard for users to remember.
The administator of the site just trys username and password combinations until they get one that gets them into eBay. They look for an account with a positive feedback score that hasn't been active for a while and start posting items.
Additionally, combine the Phishing schemes that were mentioned in the article with the types of users that were just discussed and you have perfect opportunity for fraud.
Now - How is any of this eBay's problem? eBay sends out regular emails trying to educate users about the dangers of Phishing schemes. eBay suggests to use a unique username and password. eBay tries to protect both buyers and sellers.
My recommendation: YOU should implement personal policies about using secure and insecure passwords on trusted and untrusted sites. And for the love of everything good... Why would anyone ever respond to a Phishing email?
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
I no longer need to punish, deceive, or compromise myself. Unless, of course, I want to stay employed.
... that eBay does do quite a bit internally to find these things. I still don't quite get why people haven't grasped the concept that eBay is just a very fancy classifieds ad section, NOT an auction house.
If I was roaming the streets of Beijing, would I give my credit card to a street trader selling copied DVDs?
Do I really want to transfer money to an IBAN account in Yugoslavia?
I'll give you an example. Xbox 360s just came to market, although people were selling them well before the release date. You can of course do this, internally I can't tell if John Doe owns a small video game store, or has a brother who works in Microsoft. The policy is you have 30 days to come up with the goods. Beyond that, it's fraud. This policy is fair, it gives sellers the opportunity to sell and buyers the opportunity to buy. The problem is that the one guy who's doing this honestly is copied by twenty-nine who don't. The problem is this. What right to eBay have to make a prejudgment on the integrity of it's user base. I mean, apart from the fact that eBay is in a constant battle between creating true free markets, morality, and legality.
I personally worked on cleaning up the UK site from Chinese MP3 sellers. These guys owed us a lot of money; I'm talking nearly £500k. I was with the company 5 months and my actions were going to cost eBay a lot of money. What did eBay do? The created even tougher policies and implement new rules. The result? Difficult. The group of Chinese sellers got warehouses in the UK, and just walk the line again, without doubt they'll keep pushing it until we push back.
eBay's a victim of it's own success, and I'm of the firm belief that eBay takes a protective stance for an intelligent, trustworthy and capable user. Use of PayPal gives you a second layer of protection behind your credit card.
eBay's biggest error? The belief that people are basically good.
PS. No more cash, Western Union, Moneygram, Stormpay or instant cash transfers are allowed on the site, so hopefully whatever payment solution you use will give you the cover you need. My number 1 tip? eBay is not Amazon, you're dealing with another person, not a commercial entity, so if it looks dodgy, dodge it.
EBay intersperses themselves between the buyer and seller via the environment, PayPal, etc. and favors the fraudulent person who does a lot of business over the honest one who simply wants the other to abide by the law, listing, ebay rules, etc. every time. If Merchants likewise feel they are somehow defrauded, they should offer their merchandise elsewhere and the buyers will quickly follow. They seem to benefit from the EBay lax attitude on their fraudulent behavior, which is why they stay there. Sure they complain too when anyone asks. But a simple transaction for a competetive price with a credible instrument of payment like a credit card is too much to ask of them.
There are a number of things that are particularly prone to fraud on eBay. The most common are laptops and cameras, followed closely by cellphones and cellphone accessories. Unfortunately, the particular genre I have chosen (musical instruments) is also full of fraud (and borderline ripoffs). No way I would buy a laptop on eBay, if for no other reason than most commodity items are not really suitable for the eBay auction format anyway.
BTW, there is already an eBay-killer lurking in the wings. It's Froogle. Froogle hasn't really hit it's stride yet, but the Froogle business model has some significant advantages over eBay -- and is inherently superior for about 90% of the stuff you find on eBay now. The eBay auction format is well-suited for one-of-a-kind items with high personal value-add, and little else.
In addition, eBay doesn't scale worth a damn. In order to get twice the sales, you have to work at least twice as hard (assuming you are actually an honest seller). I have recently scaled my auctions way back (from 90+ active auctions to fewer than 20), and watched my sell-through percentage more than triple, and my workload cut by 90%. For a net reduction in eBay-linked profit of about 40%. I consider that a pretty clear indicator that I really need to change my approach to de-emphasize eBay.
eBay *does* have other competition besides Froogle. One of my favorites is Blujay, which is mainly a fixed-price aggregator listing/classifieds service. Blujay.com has grown large enough to show up on the watchlist at PowerSellersUnite.com (a forum of mostly disgruntled ebay sellers). Blujay.com also leverages listings with Froogle, which has definitely helped their traffic. I sell about 1/10 as much stuff through Blujay.com as I do on eBay, and it accounts for more than 1/4 of my profits -- or it did until this month (I just made a large volume sale to a school directly, without eBay or PayPal), mainly because the cost of selling there is much lower.
Craig's List was also a viable alternative, but since they have sold out to eBay, I expect that to change.
Unfortunately, in the Internet world, there is a strong tendency for the market leader to completely dominate, and #2 is way down in the noise. The #1 position can change, however... If GooglePay ever becomes reality, eBay and PayPal are going to be in serious trouble.
For now, eBay is still the place to get some real bargains -- if you are careful. That's because the typical eBay seller has no clue what her/his actual costs are, and is often selling at a loss. The vast majority of eBay sellers last about 6-9 months before the clue-stick smites them in the form of running out of money. Just stay away from the really huge ripoff-potential items like laptops and consumer electronics sold at ridiculous prices by people you have never heard of. And do some research on what you are buying; in particular, don't get in a hurry and skim through the auction description, and take some time to read the negs and neutrals in the feedback log. Check out the history of the seller. Use PayPal if you can't use a credit card directly. Don't even look at auctions with private bid lists or one-day limits (the one-day auctions with private bidders and private feedback are roughly 100% fraudulent, and there is no way that eBay can be unaware of this).
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I happen to design statistical models for a living (happy), and I know that eBay could, if they keep their data and it's nicely stored, produce a statistical fraud detector. It would look for current listings that have values similar to listings that were labeled as fraudulent in the past. Of course, it won't find listings when the fraudsters have changed their strategy.
Chargebacks are your friend! If you paid with a credit card, make the fraud eBay/PayPal's problem, not yours.
If you paid through the mail, there's these friendly people. Nobody knows they exist until it's too late.
They back up fraudulent sellers to the hilt, and never take credible action about completely clear seller violations of law, their policy, the listings, etc. If you bug them enough, they may eventually remove the strike they awarded you completely ignoring the facts of the situation, but the seller will still be out there selling under the same fraudulent terms.
This reminds me of something I see almost constantly. See, I have pictures of my PowerMac G5 being unpacked after I first received it. It was one of the first ones shipped, and friends of mine wanted to see the photos, so I took them and upload them. Fast forward two years to now, and I am constantly seeing referrers in my logs from (clearly fraudulent) eBay auctions selling PowerMac G5's using my photos. Typically by the time I see the new referrer the auction has been taken down, but it really makes me wonder what someone is pulling. The only thing I can imagine is your aforementioned stolen account type scam. But, I really don't know for sure...
Has anyone sold a laptop on Ebay? I've sold two used, working laptops on Ebay and had what I would call inordinate interest from Eastern Europe and Hong Kong. I received multiple emails from different buyers asking if I would ship internationally. I said no because my gut was telling me something was wrong here.
What I think is there were one of two things going on:
1. They're buying used laptops and recovering data on them to steal bank account numbers, passwords, etc.
2. They're buying them with someone else's Paypal account or some other money that's not theirs.
I wipe machines using Boot and Nuke but still it creeped me out.
I've spent 3 years on eBay's help forums, and in that time I've stopped a few shillers, and helped to warn a few clueless individuals of phishing scams, and worse. eBay does jack squat, and they have about 1 person with a handful of people officially dealing with fraud. The rest is automated and farmed out to India where they send form letters in reply and toss the mountains of reports of fraud to the side.
If you want something done on the WWW, you have to do it yourself. It's the Wild Wild West.
It's why there are sites like http://419eater.com/ , people get to "play" detective.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I learned long ago that on eBay, your positive feedback rating is *only* worth worrying about in a general, overall sense. The more items you sell, the more "immune" you become to the jerks who leave you negative comments without a valid reason.
One of my former bosses was very concened about keeping 100% positive feedback on eBay, because his eBay seller ID was his business name, and he really wanted his feedback to reflect his business in a good light. Because of that, he got completely screwed over by several people he bought and sold things from. (EG. One guy sold him what he claimed was a 1GB stick of SDRAM memory, but after exhaustively testing it in all the motherboards we had available to us, were never able to get it to be recognized in any machines as more than 512MB. Of course, the seller insisted it was our fault because we simply "didn't have one of the systems that was able to see all of the memory". But no... After a close enough inspection and looking up the part numbers stamped on the individual chips making up the DIMM, it was obvious it really was only a 512MB stick. Upon trying to return it, my boss was threatened with "If I accept this for return, I'm leaving negative feedback for you, but if you keep it and accept that it's your problem - I'll leave you a positive.")
On my own account, I've always just "stood up" to these individuals, and gladly accepted whatever negative feedback they wish to give me. I, in turn, always reply to it with a comment that attempts to counter their arguments. And despite all this, I've always managed to keep at least a 93-97 percent positive rating. The fact is, if you use it fairly regularly, the number of good, honest people still outweighs the bad (assuming you use a little common sense when buying and selling too!), so you'll turn out ok, feedback-wise.
The funny thing is Ebay's problems are trivially easy to solve. In fact the solution has existed for years and is standard finacial pratice.
It's call Escrow. You give you money to a nuetral third party and it isn't released to either side until both parties are satisfied and sign off. You can annoy the other person by tying up the money in Escrow, but you can't really cheat them. For most minor purchases an automated Escrow system would probably even be sufficient (with of course the promise of human intervention in the case of a dispute).
I recently had an issue with eBay and here is a rundown.
- Stood in line at local walmart and managed to get 2 xBox 360 platinum bundles
- Went straight home and listed the auction before I went to bet (it's like 1am now)
- Woke up and someone used buy it now on my auction for $1500 for 1 of them (I kept the other and never listed it). Payment was made immediately.
- I called paypal to verify that large transactions had come out of this guys account as it seemed too good to be true. This wasthe norm for him.
- Shipped xbox overnight before lunch
- Got back from lunch and my account had been suspended...no emails from ebay or anything like that
- Fired off an email to several ebay email addrsses
- Winning buyer gets his 360
- Got a generic reply about 2 days later saying my account was suspected of fraudulent activities dirctly related to the selling of the xbox and asked me to fax/send some information (receipt for xbox, front back of licence, ebay billing CC statment showing first & last 4 digits of CC, and signature that I acknowledged the ebay TOS). Yes, that is alot of BS to go through
- I could just open a new account but I like my feedback so I really want this one back and besides....I did nothing wrong.
- Fax all that BS to ebay
- About 3 days later I get a form email saying something could not be read.
- Called their 800 number and pressed the option for an operator thinking I would talk to a human. I did and they promptly transferred me to a recording.
- Guessing it's my licence I blow it up really big and refax evreything
- About 3 days later I get a form email saying something could not be read.
- You can see where this is going...repeat sevreal times lasting about 3 weeks
- During this time eBay promply charges my CC for the $100 it cost me to sell the xBox through their site...while my account is cancelled.
- Eventually got motivated and called their 800 number, pressed option 1 (enter extension), then I started typing random 5 digit extensions. HAHAHAH...first try I get a human...wrong dept but a human none the less who I can now annoy until I'm fixed
- Puts me on hold, calls safeharbor, then transferrs me to them.
- Lady says she'll look into this and call me back in 2 hours.
- Hour later I get a call back saying the receipt was completely legible and that was all that should have been necessary since that is the reason for the suspension.
At about 3pm on 14 Dec 2005 my account is reactivated.
Eat more bacon!
If eBay started using escrow, the amount of sellers and auctions would drop significantly almost immediately. If I'm a person who uses eBay to sell things from my house once in a while that I no longer want, why would I want to use escrow? I'd be shipping my item to an Internet company before receiving any money, running the risk of the item mysteriously disappearing. And if my item doesn't sell, it's an extra hassle for nothing. In addition, there could be no pre-orders. And it'd be very expensive for non-American sellers to list items if they had to ship an item to an eBay escrow address in America, only to have it shipped back to the original country.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
"Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound."
And they are very careful *not* to do much about fraud.
Their position is that they are *just* a middleman that connects buyers to sellers. The rest is up to you. If you are defrauded, they want you to go to law enforcement, *not* to eBay.
They actively *do not* work to shut down fraudulent sellers or auctions, because to do so would be to assume liability, which is precisely what they don't want to do. So they are careful always to say "eBay is just a forum, we take no responsibility for what is posted here, that is up to you..." and to make clear to users that they are not liable for anything -- the veracity of any buyer or seller or deal is up to those that *use* eBay to research.
I think this position is a little weaker now that they also own PayPal, but back in the day they would claim to be just like classified ads or like cut-rate real-world auction and liquidations houses: buyer and seller beware, they're just the cheap man in the middle who holds no responsibility for either party.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
1 completely ripped off (never buying out of the country again, except for Canada)
2 somewhat ripped off (not the product I wanted although equivalent)
1 pleasant surprise (video card had 256MB instead of advertised 128MB memory)
40 decent deals (enough to keep me coming back)
the sellers on their site. As long as they make their commission they are completely happy. You can't even report copyright voilations anymore unless you are the copyright holder. Even if they are so obvious its sickening.
I recently stumbled across a website that was using paypal for purchases... Interestingly, they required their customers to agree that they would never reverse the charges, in any circumstance, and some other shady stuff... Basically abusing/violating Paypal rules and possibly Federal Trade regulations.
And the website appeared to be a very-thinly pyramid scheme.
I sent a detailed email to Paypal voicing my concerns.
The response from paypal?
Thank you for contacting PayPal.
Unfortunately, we are unable to assist you with your account specific
question. To guarantee the security and privacy of your personal and
financial information, you must log into your PayPal account. To submit
your question securely, please click https://www.paypal.com/wf/f=default
and enter your email address and password into the Member Log In box.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us again.
Sincerely,
(name withheld)
Protection Services Department
PayPal, an eBay Company
WTF?!?!?!?!? I'm trying to report that criminal fraud is going on and they want me to login first???
"Definitly don't accept a deal going like I'll send you a check on a higher amouth, you send me the item and the money left over. The check WILL be false.
See my above comment. There is nothing wrong with accepting money orders or cheques. Just make sure you wait until they clear at your bank before you ship the item. Anyone who sent a legitimate payment will understand this, and it only takes 3-5 days."
If a check looks real, it may very well post funds in 3-5 days. If the check is fake, it will eventually be found out and it make take 15-30 days for the bank to figure it out. Guess what? Those funds are debited form your account. That's right, the bank will tell you the funds are good, then determine they are not and take the money back. When dealing with international money orders or checks this can be especially true. To top all that, the back may even charge you a fee for depositing a check that is fake. Therefore your accepting a bogus check can cost you money even if you dont sent the item.
Shipping overseas is doable, but be sure you have your money first.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
I've made big purchases (motocross bike for $1800 as well as bikes for my kids) as well as small purchases and also sold quite a few things. Here are some tips for sellers:
1) Change your "buyer requirements" to the following:
Block buyers who:
Are registered in countries to which I do not ship
Have a feedback score of -1 or lower
Have received 2 Unpaid Item strikes in the last 30 days
Are currently winning or have bought 1 of my items in the last 10 days
and have a feedback score of 0 or lower
2) Cancel bids with 0 feedback
3) Check the buyer's history to see if it could be a hijacked account. You can usually see a trend in the types of things they buy. If they buy nothing but dolls and then suddenly a IBM X330 server it should be a warning flag. Also, a hijacked account usually only has very old transactions. If the user has bought items recently and they are very small things be wary. They do this to get good feedback and then screw you with a chargeback.
4) Use PayPal and ONLY SHIP TO A CONFIRMED PAYPAL ADDRESS USING A TRACKABLE METHOD. I know it sucks, but it is the only way to get seller protection. I state in my auctions that the buyer must have a confirmed paypal address and I only accept paypal. I've had no problems since doing these things.
I tried to sell a motorcycle and the damn auction kept getting "bought now" by a scammer. I stated in the auction that I would not ship and a buyer from the UK bought it. I knew it was fraud immediately and put in a dispute which I won because the buyer unregistered. I tried to sell the bike again with the "I don't ship to other countries" option checked and some A hole from California bought it even though I said I WON'T SHIP!!! I knew it was fraud again. The kicker is that Ebay will only let you relist an item one time after a successful dispute. After this you have to pay the insertion and listing fees again. Ebay SUCKS in this regard but what can you do? They have all the power. Total monopoly. I would love to see them get some competition. I'd jump ship in a second. I can't give up on ebay though because I do make some cash there and also find great deals. It would be heaven if not for the scammers.
I've seen a company who puts out an "auction" that is basically just a public service announcement about scammers who sell items simlilar to theirs. These fuckers hijack an ebay account and put up an auction for $5,000 electronic drums starting at $.01 and when it sells for $1,200 the buyer gets scammed. Ebay totally knows about it and does nothing. The legit business owner who sells these drums puts up the auction just to warn people about the other auctions. What he is doing is great but Ebay sucks for letting the scammers rule the roost.
Here is a link to the warning auction
I'd like to see ebay lose a shitload of money over this stuff in a class action lawsuit. That would be AWESOME.
I've had this idea for a while. How about if I mined Ebay and used variables like postitive/negative feedback ratio, average value of good sold, number of years operating, and on and on, to predict the probability of an auction being a fraud.
Assuming this was possible, how could I make money with this? Does anyone want to partner with me? I'm pretty good with the machine learning stuff so I think it can be done.
Definitely. I have tracked a significant percentage of the traffic to some of my websites to Froogle, either directly, or via Blujay. As I mentioned, and you have also observed, Froogle has not yet hit it's stride, and (from the buyer's perspective) if you are really persistent, you can sometimes find better pricing elsewhere. But I believe it has enormous potential, and is just now reaching critical mass. The process of getting listed is still a bit of a hassle, but it's definitely worthwhile -- and at least for now, there is no cost other than a little time and effort. And since Blujay.com does that for its users, I don't even bother with a direct listing anymore.
I just wish that GooglePay would become real... Google isn't really taking over the world; they are just seducing us into giving it to them :) Eventually, Google may become the evil empire (displacing Microsoft), but for now, I even participate in Orkut.
Concealed Handgun License Courses in Plano, Texas
I won an auction about 3 weeks ago where the seller never sent the items. I am out $90 so far with hopes to getting it back. So far if the seller doesn't respond to ebay by the 20th of december they will rule in my favor and I should get my money back. I gotta give ebay some credit here as it seems the process has moved fairly quickly.
firestream.net
What raises eBay fraud amounts? Paypal, Paypal and Paypal!
with eBay, i've mostly had good experience altho, but then again i get only stuff there is not much demand for AKA not good for fraudsters. I acquired only mainly specific style clothing, and mainly pants only. These are very low demand items, there is only few to choose from at any given time.
From about 10 purchases i had these:
1 Fraud -- never got my money back (no answer ever from neither paypal, ebay, and their dispution never worked)
^^ Was really bad!
Doesn't matter much:
2 Product not upto specs -- these were clothes. one pants came with unbelievably BAD smell, like glue or something, and one time a shirt had this someting brown on neck area which is i ahven't still gotten rid of completely. also small ones, buttons missing etc. for clothes advertised as new, or like new, that's odd, right?
With paypal, i got hosting orders, 70-80% were frauds. Paypal also took away the 5$ for the verification which NEVER worked! and i never got that money back nor an answer from Paypal!
using eBay kind of forces you to use Paypal. Paypal is the way worst service EVER!
I must say that most of my experience with eBay has been good, but with Paypal most of bad, so i'm not suprised of these 'news'.
with eBay, i wouldn't touch any high price electronics with a 5meter long stick anymore!
The only time i was going to acquire some higher price electronics from there was a Cerwin Vega car amplifier, i paid, item never arrived, i never got my cash back.
Paypal is the promised land for scammers & fraudsters! Their fraud prevention etc. is inexisting, even they say they have, you can be assured that they won't care.
I tried reporting fraudulent orders i got to Paypal: I never got ANY answer at all, until the real account owner contacted them, then
with a small chance, i'd say about 50% chances that Paypal actually does something.
Fortunately: the worst never happened to me, i had some high amount payments in the past (web design project payments), so perhaps they
noticed that i'm more valuable to them in the THEIR long term (1year or so) than the pennies i had extra on my paypal account on the
largest fraud.
Just look at http://www.paypalsucks.com/
and yes, i understand that big services will always get some 'high noise' complaints, but those complaints are VERY bad sounding and
tip of the iceberg on that website. All are true in atleast one point: they don't have anykind of customer support.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
A simple solution to the fraud would be to keep the transaction proceeds in escrow (Paypal) for some period and allow the buyer to opt out if not satisfied. This way shipping costs are the only risk item. Those can still be disputed if the buyer receives shoddy goods, but usually would be kept by the seller. Problematic buyers can be stigmatized with the regular rating system. Paypal would make even more money because of the increased float, just like an insurer.
an ill wind that blows no good
Huh?
From what I've seen sellers virtually never leave feedback until the buyer has left theirs.
They are waiting to confirm a positive feedback.
If they don't get one, guess what, you don't get a positive either.
The guy was just being honest - brutal - but honest.
All of the fraud problems that Ebay has been slow to handle are opening the door for smaller, more innovative companies to fill their niche. Ebay still only offers text-based searching, which seems a relic in the age of the AJAX and Flapjax stuff that sites like Etsy.com are offering.
I think I'm in the process of being ripped off for a measly $70. Item said would ship within 48 hours priority mail after receiving payment. I paid him via PayPal 9 days ago. 5 days went by before he answered my multiple emails and said he was shipping the item on Monday and would send me a conf number. 4 more days go by no item no conf number. He finally replies to more multiple (now me threatening to dispute the paypal payment) and says he's really busy and will now ship on Saturday which hopefully he does since it's Christmas gift. He knew it was Christmas gift and I specifically bought his because of the will ship in 48 hours priority mail in his listing. Saturday will make 10 days. He hasn't left me feedback yet because I'm sure he knows I'm going to leave him negative feedback and he'll do the same to me as revenge. First bad experience buying stuff on Ebay, now I will be more hesitant in the future.
So how should law enforcement deal with this? You can't check a serial number unless someone lists it, and I don't see local departments paying staff to surf looking for the 0.001% of listings that represent stuff from their jurisdiction (which they can't identify anyway). And many commodities (e.g., cell phone batteries) probably have no identifying marks anyway.
It is a puzzlement.
.. ever since they sent me a nasty letter telling me my account (which I hadn't used in a year) was being used for fraud.
The fraud? Well, a guy I worked with three years earlier (but who hadn't worked there two years ago) had bid on some items and won. But he didn't contact the seller because he was in hospital in a coma because of a car accident.
Apparently, as this guy and I both had items shipped to us at work three years earlier, that meant to ebay that we were the same person (never mind that the other guy had won several dozen auctions since he left the company, and had them shipped to his house.)
I told ebay to go fsck themselves.
It seems to me that Ebay does nothing to sellers, but goes out of its way to nail "fraudulent" buyers who haven't actually done anything wrong.
Here are my rules for successful purchasing on Ebay:
1) Make sure the seller has at least 99% positive feedback.
2) Make sure the seller has at least one feedback for every dollar that you plan to spend.
For example, if the item is $100, but the seller only has 10 feedbacks, you're taking a risk. Even if he has 100% positive feedback. Similarly, if he has 30,000 feedbacks, but only 98% positive, that's also a risk. 2% of 30,000 is a lot of negative feedback.
"Crude and slow, clansman. Your attack was no better than that of a clumsy child."
1. The case has nothing to do with EU. Does EBay expect to cite EU law to contradict US law, Visa policy, and EBay's own policy? If ignorance could be presumed in such a response, it would be laughable. 2. As I said before, I sent the email with the headers on multiple occasions following the instructions on the website to the letter, which claimed a response within 48 hours, but that was also fraudulent, as they never responded to any. You are lying, ignorant, or both about EBay's response. The EBay web site was also lying. They do not respond to the normal factual complaints of buyers like myself. 3. When I have followed policy and have lots of email to back it up and there was no improper action by me, there should be no question. There was no question for the credit card processor and I only sent him a fraction of the evidence I sent EBay, but they are a credible business whereas EBay is not. 4. Only a coconspirator would so-completely ignore the preponderance of evidence. As others have said, why would we expect EBay to behave otherwise, when they apparently have no interest in ever siding with a buyer against a fraudulent seller.
Actually, the big issues many people have with paypal stems from being on the receiving end of a complaint. They will often reverse transactions or freeze accounts without legitimizing a complaint. Good if you're the one getting screwed by a bad seller, but bad if you're getting screwed by a bad buyer...
it's not a "hard drive," is it? It's just a blob of matter which used to be a hard drive.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Sure, Ebay has fraud, but that is not what this is about. Go to your local flea market, swap meet, etc., and there too will be lots of bootleg designer clothes and DVDs, cheap brand consumer electronics with expensive brand stickers on them, people selling stolen goods, people selling things that don't work, etc. ... Go to the camera stores in any big city tourist area, and the camera shops will pull all kinds of scams (bait and switch, or selling you the included extras for high price, etc., etc.).
If the police and government were really concerned about fraud, they would immediatly stop those things, which would be WAY EASIER to stop. And if it was something customers were really worried about, they could use an escrow service.
The real reason for going after Ebay is because too many individuals, small buisnesses, etc., are competing with large established companies, or effecting their buisness model (people can buy used stuff instead of purchasing it new, effecting sales of new items... You can see if "rare collectors edition" items are really that rare by doing a quick Ebay search... There is the possibility you could buy a CD, rip it, then resell it, evecting the record companies "buisness model"). So of course a few big corporations are going to lobby the government to "take action", and cripple ebay and online auction sites. People will once again be forced to buy things from big companies. And the sad thing is, all they have to do is say "this is to protect the consumer", and all you suckers will buy into it!
Feedback, for the purposes of spotting fraud, is, believe it or not irrelevant. On MOST of the transactions that I've seen that are fraudulent, the seller is using a hijacked account. This means, you could have a seller who is +10000 with 99% positive feedback, but find that it's just a hijacked account and the next 10-20 feedbacks are all negative because none of the users ever got their items. Between hijacking an account and receiving enough negatives to have his account shut down, a seller could have easily duped dozens of people who thought that the +10000 actually meant something. It doesn't. Once you get above about +10 with no negs, the feedback really doesn't make ANY difference to how likely you are to not get ripped off when you buy.
..and I think, why the hell has a user with +14000 feedback been chucked off ebay. Answer: account hijacking. It can take weeks or months to pursuade e-bay that your account was hijacked that they should reinstate it.
Feedback can also be totally faked - by creating lots of accounts and then automating circular feedback between all the accounts. I've seen this twice on ebay and both times I managed to get eBay to remove ALL the accounts used in the process, but it took WEEKS and dozens of e-mails.
There is pretty much no security at all on eBay. You can easily hijack an account just by guessing the password or performing a dictionary attack. Tools are out on the internet to automate this process so any old clueless script kiddie can do this in one evening. In fact we were even shown in a security lecture at university how easy it is compromise simple user/password login systems and they used eBay as an example.
The problem with hijacked accounts is rife. Often when I'm checking out feedback, I notice several lines of feedback like this:
greatsoundingseller(14682) (no longer a registered user)
My advice if you use eBay is to use a very strong password. Do NOT under any circumstances use a known word (that includes names, places and non-dictionary words). Pick a completely random set of letters and numbers. Write it down if you have to! It's not like they're going to break into your house to try and find it. After a few logins you'll have remembered it anyway - no matter how weird it is. If your password resembles a word: eg "h4x0r", "spyder" or "a1rplane" - chances are it's no more secure than a dictionary word.
I am in the unfortunate position of being a proprietor of an eBay consignment business. As we continue to do business, we see how we are constantly at the mersey and exposed to eBay's bad business practices. Not only does afforemention problem (which is very real) have a negative impact on the perceived value of our products, but we have actually been on the receiving end of frudulent transactions where we have lost money due to fraudulent credit card use, etc (in addition to instance of fraud experienced in buying products).
The worst part about it, is eBay response. Each time we have lost money in cases of users using fraudulent credit cards, eBay/Paypal points out that there is some technicality in their contract which allows them to take back the money (despite their assurances of transaction safety). After trying persue the matter on my own, I have asked for more information about the transactions (whether it was a stolen credit card, etc) - and each time, the response has been the we need to acquire a subpoena to find out any more about the allegedly illicit transaction!
If anyone from the media would like to pursue this further, I would be happy to correspond beyond the 5 minutes that I spent typing here. Doing about $300K a year in transactions on eBay, I have a lot to tell. If you email me at junk at clash dot org, I will get the email.
If you read TFA (what heresy!), you may note that the entire discussion of buyers being ripped off is anecdotal. By contrast, the section on counterfeiting claims that there are 12000x40%=4800 counterfeit Adidas auctions per day in Britain alone.
I submit that this article is being driven by the corporate interests. Absent some actual statistics on the volume of ripoffs, why should we believe they're a widespread problem? Anecdotal evidence is decried for a reason.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do you really want to fix your fraud problem? I know - not really!
But eventually you will, and when you do, here is what you need to do:
Hire private investigators in every big city. Anytime there is evidence of fraud, build cases against fraudsters - get them prosecuted. Make it known that eBay doesn't tollerate fraud, and if you commit fraud an eBay, you are going up agains a company that has 4+ billion dollars a year in revenue that that is at their disposal....
Once eBay has a reputation for being tough against fraud, people won't commit fraud. Think about it. Would you mess with the IRS? Getting in trouble with the IRS can be done passively - to commit fraud, you must be active. How about the USPS? Who would have thought that the post man was packing some heat - but if you mess with USPS, you could be talking about jail time in a fed prison. In the same way, if eBay develops a reputation for being tough on crime, criminals will avoid it. As it is, if I were a criminal, eBay is the first place I would go.
This from someone who does $300K a year in legitimate eBay sales.
email junk at clash dot org for further discussion
As far as fraud, if you're buying anything over eBay, you should be buying it with a credit card. If you can't pay with a credit card, don't buy it. The credit card is the giant on *your* side when it comes to a fraudulent transaction.
As far as eBay's poor response, it would be interesting to see them get sued under antitrust. It's obvious that eBay *does* have a virtual monopoly on online auctions. There's simply too many people selling and buying there to make it economically possible to survive anywhere else. When Amazon and yahoo first introduced auctions, I used to check them; I knew people who auctioned stuff on Amazon. But eBay's mega-majority of shoppers simply made it economically infeasible to do business elsewhere. Not that I'm sure what you do. Splitting ebay into mini-ebays doesn't seem like it would be real effecting; they already have an API; having an auction service as a public utility sounds absurd... but they're effectively a monopoly nonetheless.
You're absolutely correct. I only get positive feedback from about half the sellers unless I give them positive feedback. The whole feedback system is so flawed because ebay does nothing about the content of posts. Once I bought a item from a 0 seller (I know, bad idea but it was relatively cheap). The seller had about 10 items listed, I paid for mine, other buyers paid for theirs. It turns out that the seller goes on vacation without sending my item. 2 weeks I try emailing, telephoning, etc. It turns out that there are 2 women running the same ebay name, and they dont communicate with each other.
I was very disappointed by their poor service and unprofessional conduct, so I gave them bad feedback. What do I get in response? "user left wrong feedback" in my profile. It's explicitly against the rules to give vendetta feedback, but ebay just dropped my case without any notification from me that everything was ok.
In the end the problem is that to find a sellers bad side you have to dig through hundreds of butt-kissing positive comments (gotta get that + in return). In short nobody really does that. I can't look through hundreds of auctions and count tens of pages to determine if a particular auction is legit. I end up just looking for one I like and checking the top few feedbacks to make sure nobody has reported the seller as fraudulent in the past few days. Of course with ebay's lame dead sloth method of dealing with fraud, it could be 2 months before a negative feedback shows on a sellers account.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
sunglasses without UV protection are worse than no sunglasses at all - because they block visible light your pupil dialates letting in more UV and doing more damage.
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God forbid someone should step into the marketplace besides google...
Please help metamoderate.
Interesting story. What I don't get is why anybody would do something like that? What does the reverse defrauder get out of his screwed up purchase? The only thing I can think of is to back out of a done deal.
its funny because you don't know a fucking thing about autographs or historical memorabilia.. so i really don't quite understand what even gives you the right to post a comment about my grammar.. is this a fucking article on Grammar?? No you fucking twat.. -100 Offtopic fucking flamebait anonymous coward..
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
I hate fear mongering but my biggest problem with this fraud is it funds terrorism. Maybe only a little bit of it but it does. My other problem with ebay is people use the deaf relay services to order goods on the phone using stolen credit cards. these items are then fenced on the street and ebay. once again funding terrorism. companies like MCI provide these deaf relays services and claim impartiallity in the process.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
I'd agree money orders aren't bad, provided you have the local WU (or whichever) office pay them to cash. Checks (by whatever spelling you like) are another matter. You are NOT safe when your bank has "cleared" the check, and in 3-5 days marks the funds available. You are only safe when the issuing bank has validated the check, which may take up to two weeks, even for a domestic (same country) bank. Overseas banks may take up to two months for validation, especially from "certain countries in Africa". Furthermore, finding out whether this has happened from your bank is very difficult, because most bank tellers or telephone customer account representatives these days don't understand the difference between "issuing bank validated" and "funds marked as available" — which is not the same thing at all, at all, at all.
While the risk of this happening with checks or cashiers checks IN GENERAL is low, situations (as described) where the check recieved is for more than the amount of the transaction, and the buyer want the difference returned, it is much more probable than not that this type of fraud is being attempted. And since most sellers don't undersand this until AFTER they've been bitten, it becomes difficult to re-list an item after the funds are marked available, the item is shipped off... and then the issuing bank bounces the check.
It is possible to avoid this, if you are careful in advance. First, find a small locally based bank with a nearby branch, that provides free checking with a low minimum deposit. Make an appointment with the local branch president. Explain that you plan to set up a separate checking account for working on EBay, and make sure that the LBP understands the difference between "funds available" and "issuing bank cleared", and that this distinction may be a major concern in some cases. (If not, find another bank. Tellers not understanding the difference is one thing, but a branch president is entirely another matter.) Set up the account, and use that for the EBay related buying and selling. (I'd also recommend tying that to your Paypal account, rather than your main household checking account. I don't trust Paypal with my primary checking account information.)
Whenever you are handling a check that raises your suspicions (IE: issuing bank from out of the country, not for the correct amount, etc.), let the branch president know as you deposit the check. After the funds are marked as available, check with him (or her) by phone about once a week to see if the issuing bank has cleared the check. Don't ship anything until it he says it has. If you're deeply paranoid, get permission to record the phone call when he says it has cleared at the issuing bank.
Obviously, your terms of sale should clearly specify to buyers that you reserve the right to delay shipping until your local bank president verifies the check has cleared, yada yada yada. (And doing that should deter most would-be fraudsters right there.)
As an additional aside, the increase in shipping costs overseas (and thus end buyer price) should (using basic microeconomics) mean that far fewer people overseas will be as willing to buy, so not doing international business won't have that big an effect on your Ebay sales.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
This is not surprising to me at all.
Living close to eBay headquarters in Campbell, I was interested in the prospect of working closer to home to be near my children and less commute.
I interviewed for a position and was offered the job (for a fair amount more than what I was making too), but I turned it down because:
-there were already thousands of people working there, and I couldn't possibly figure out what they were all doing. When I think of an auction site, I think of automation as much as possible, with people to write code, some administration and some other folks. eBay is _NOT_ that. I think they have way too many people there. Possibly a left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing phenomenon.
-they call their builds "trains" It seemed more like train wrecks to me.
-they are using Windows for their servers and stuff.
-I am convinced that I could, with 10 good programmers and some support staff, do a _MUCH_ better job of things, AND have a better security model, AND have better customer service. Sadly, eBay has the market because of name brand recognition. Yahoo! Auctions was better in many regards, and it was free, but it lost out.
-having used eBay, and tried to get customer service, it is obvious that there are a lot of people there who don't do anything useful. Mostly, I get generic form letter responses.
I keep telling myself that I have to write a letter to the eBay board and the president/CEO telling them that I'll make them $20-$30 million/year more, but they will have to pay me $5 million/year to do it. That is without laying off tons of people.
he found a better deal the next day, or
it was a dummy account for a competitor, who was trying to tie up everyone elses 360 auctions, so they could sell their own, with less competition
------ Work is so much easier when you don't
I once won an auction for a tablet PC on ebay. The auction details were litterally a cut & paste from the actual manufacturer (IT was for an HP TC1100). So the description included the Tablet PC, the system disks, power supply attatchable keyboard and NON-BATTERY stylus. For some reason when I went to pay with paypal, there was no "pay by credit card" button. This frustrated me greatly. The only option to pay was to validate my checking account with paypal. So I called paypal and they told me that "This transaction is being flagged as a security risk for the seller, and that I have to verify I have the funds. And that by verifying, this also protects me from fraudulent auctions." So I verify the account and go back to paypal. I *STILL* can''t pay via credit card. At this point, the auctioner is asking what is delaying my payment, and i explain to him. I eventually just pay straight from my checking account. Long story short, after I pay, I don't hear from seller for 2 weeks. I pm a lot. Finally 4 weeks later I get a package from the mail from him. It was sent USPS, NOT UPS NEXT DAY AIR like I paid for in the auction. Furthermore the only thing it came with was the computer and stylus. No keyboard, no disks and no powersupply. Furthermore, it wasn't even the same Tablet PC I was bidding on. It was a older version of it (Inferior specs and auctioned for HALF the price of this one). I spent a week trying to find a power supply for it and when I did, i found out the tablet was password protected. So I call up HP, give them the serial, and ask them if it was stolen. It was not in there system and they mailed me the system disks. Meanwhile, I contacted Paypal, Ebay, Square Trade, the FBI Online Fraud Investigation team, and the Waxahachie TX police department, which is where the shipment originated from. To this day (over a year). I have not received a reply from Ebay on the matter. Paypal told me that "They were looking into it." In an automated email and finally "No evidence of fraud was found." FBI has yet to get back to me, and the Waxahachie police said that since I received *A* package the transaction was concluded. Ignoring the fact of gross misrepresentation of goods. I tried emailing the seller and he ignored me for two months, even though I saw him log onto Ebay every day (thanks to the online status of ebay) and continue auctioning. Eventually he replies to me, claiming to be a kid, using his fathers account and that he was sorry he told me the wrong thing and that he was really sorry, and that he was selling the computer for his father, and that he was really sorry. Using the information on the shipper info on the package, and the fact that he used his full name on his email address, I was able to look up his phone # and address and gave this info to the FBI (this info was not included on the ebay/paypal website, was left blank). I did call, and got some guy claiming he didn't know what I was talking about, but he was VERY pissed off that I was calling him. In the end nothing ever happend, I got the tablet working, and I NEVER use paypal or ebay. /gofuk ebay:paypal
I just find it unusual that people would spend $3K for a laptop from "Canal St"
How many people have NOT gotten scammed on ebay?
Yet people continue to do business with both them and paypal.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
1. EU law is not applicable in the US, if it is really even EU law (since you don't seem able to look up even the simple US EBay policy) at ebay.com.
2. Visa completely prohibits payment surcharges in the US. There are any number of references to this on the Visa site and all over the internet for anyone willing to look:i sa/ops_risk_management/rules_for_visa_merchants.pd f
_ visa/ops_risk_management/visa_risk_management_guid e_ecommerce.pdf
http://usa.visa.com/download/business/accepting_v
http://usa.visa.com/download/business/accepting
Search for the word 'surcharge'. Trivial to find thousands of internet documents explaining this fundamental policy of Visa and other credit cards.
3. EBay prohibits payment surcharges. http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-surcha rges.html
4. The seller would have to mention the surcharge in his listing, which he clearly did not either before or after the dispute when he claimed to accept credit card as an alternative to PayPal, because adding unexpected surcharges is wrong.
5. I tried and tried to get anyone to look at it. They are all complicit in the fraud because they would not. No one ever challenged that I had EBay, Visa, etc. policy on my side. They just completely ignored it, except when the Seller complained with no evidence (and I had already submitted multiple evidence that he would not sell), they jumped to issue a strike on me.
6. I would take you up on looking into it further if I did not consider it only a PR ploy to pretend to take it private because we happen to be in a public forum where EBay is getting a very justified black eye by many with similar experiences. Lack of trying for resolution on my part was never an issue at the time, and the records are long erased by now because in disgust I went through the multi-month process of having my username removed.
7. The much better thing you could do is try establish a credible system for getting responses and getting this sort of issue resolved, but you will be working against EBay's status quo. Until then, eBay will be fraud's best friend, punishing only the victims, and I will hold a discussion with EBay only in a public forum where their lies become more transparent, and I will continue to state that one of the most-effective ways to avoid fraud on the internet is adding -EBay to searches.
Try looking up your own EBay policies before responding. Are you really an EBay employee, or are you just trying to make them look bad? I accept the possibility that you may be honestly deluded about EBay status quo, but you are not trying at all. It was prominently linked from the first page on policies for sellers at ebay.com.
I wouldn't touch a seller with a 93% rating. That means seven out of every 100 deals go bad to the point of negative feedback. Because people are so reluctant to hand out negatives no matter how well-deserved, out of fear of retaliatory feedback, the actual number of unsatisfactory transactions is three or four times that.
Feedback is a difficult thing to analyze. Like you mentioned, the 100% positive virgins can be manipulated like a puppet. A guy who has taken one recently may be trying extra hard to prove he is not a shitty seller. But the guy who has taken three or four may no longer give a shit about customer service. And one thing I am certain of is that every deal I have made with a sub-98 percent seller has had problems.
In case you missed the point, the big point was not that I was at all concerned about the strike, but that the seller continued to sell in his original listing, offering to accept credit cards without mentioning his fraudulent undisclosed fees, which no doubt many EBayers accept as part of the fraud tax you have to pay to do business on EBay. The point was that EBay couldn't care less about flagrant informed violation of policy by sellers but was only concerned thbat buyers would not go along.
Shouldn't Ebay have to warn their customers when they have an indication that one of their merchants may be a higher risk than others? An email on the subject to Ebay Customer Support was returned with the standard canned, non-sequitar reply. A subsequent complaint elicited two paragraphs of disclaimers and disavowals of all responsibility.
They make it abundantly clear that Ebay's only real concern is their own bottom line. I won't deal with them again.
NR
If the words "WESTERN UNION" appear in the auction, it is probably a fraud, particularly if it is for a hot or expensive item.
It may not be stolen, it may be counterfeit. This is a serious problem with cell phone batteries. Lithium batteries can catch on fire or explode if they are not manufactured properly, physically damaged, or improperly charged.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I think eBay - just as several governments are now doing to banks - should be held liable anyway. WHY? Because they're responsible for the pathetically weak authentication system which allow for password theft and consumers are nearly powerless to do anything about it.
You can't "Phish" the password from someone who has to use 2-factor authentication systems to gain access to an account (e.g. smart card). Smart card readers are about $15 these days and the cards are pretty cheap. It would cost much to allow sellers and even buyers opt to get a more highly secured authentication scheme for their account making them virtually immune to phisphing and spyware attacks that lift passwords. eBay could give those sellers & buyers an icon so that parties could know who their dealing with and that's not a scam (at least if it is a scam they KNOW who's responsible for it.)
The idea behind pressuring the banks (and eBay) for this sort of thing is that they alone can make or break the fraud. They claim it isn't their fault and they should be liable, but unless THEY are willing to make stronger authentication an option, law enforcement and victims will never really be able to make a substantial dent in this sort of thing.
So I log into eBay and I'm trying to collect hockey cards. I just happen to luck out and find a local seller who has what I want. Well his auctions run for 7 days and I bid on them, because, frankly, he started his bidding at 99 cents and its a steal! It's getting closer to the end of auction and I phone him up, just to find out if there's any other cards I might need that he can sell, and he mentions that he got his son to log in and bid up the price of all the auctions I had bid on, since in his own words "Those cards are worth more - I just made the mistake of putting them in the wrong category!" the big red flag was seeing some other person with zero feedback all of a sudden win every single auction I had bid on. I quickly look up the shill bidding page and fire off an e-mail to their support team, and I kid you not - 15 minutes later, all his auctions are pulled and his account completely toasted - 700 feedback and most of it good - all gone.
As a seller myself who is honest about what I sell, and communicate with buyers on the status of their items, seeing this quick of a reponse was surprising - I refreshed my eBay and saw the items dissappear from it one by one with each refresh - it was kinda creepy actually.
Just my opinion, which isn't the status quo, because I think they are sincerly trying to change their image, because im just as skeptical as everyone else.
I loved eBay. Used it all the time and had a spotless reputation. Up until I sold a certain item which everything appeared to be normal. Then PayPal notifies me a few weeks latter that the CC used to purcahse my item was 'stolen' and promptly reclaimed 'thier' money. Unbelievable! There was NO way for me to know this let alone prevent it, yet PayPal (which is a div of eBay) took my money anyway! Last transaction I ever did on eBay. PayPal are a bunch of thieves and eBay does nothing about it. I hate eBay.
Sure, a lot of people have problems with it - and businesses have to kick back a rather large percentage to them for the ability to accept the card but it's worth it. No questions asked, they will immediately chargeback the payment, and open their own fraud investigation into the matter. I have had a number of VISA and MC cards, but once I got the AMEX I just cut them all up.
The copper bosses killed you, Joe. 'I never died', said he.
I've got two words for American Express, but I can't post them here because they aren't proper.
I can sum up all the credit cards and institutions for you quickly, by saying they are NOT on your side.
oh, and there's no such deal as getting a popular item at 1/5th of the price,
Couldn't agree more.
Here's something I don't understand about people who buy stuff on eBay. Everytime I talk to them, they're all saying it's because they can find a great deal on something popular. Newsflash people: the price that an item fetches on eBay is the true value of it, the exact intersection of the supply and demand curve. This means that by definition, there is no such thing as a good deal on eBay. If someone's desperate to sell something at a low price, it will get bid up by people desperate to buy it.
The only reason I use eBay these days is for hard to find items: like a used triathlon bike that's properly sized for me. Or an old out-of-stock game. But I do not buy stuff on eBay that I can find in stores. The other golden rule: bid on auctions with real photos, not stock photos. You can still get scammed, but the likelyhood is a lot lower.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Unfortunately the feedback system is hollowed out by many sellers. Instead of leaving feedback IMMEDIATELY after I pay for the item (usually the day of winning the auction itself), they wait until I leave feedbakc for them, be it good of bad, to leave theirs accordingly.
Actually, it's funny because you are trying to set yourself up as an authority but are unable to write with authority. I generally let spelling and grammar gaffs pass, but yours were so egregious I had to comment. I wasn't the only Anonymous Coward who picked up on your lacking command of the English language.
It took several readings of your posted run on sentence describing the JFK auction before I understood the letters were auctioned off to Perot and Gates rather than they being the ones addressed in the letters.
Perhaps I don't know anything about autographs or memorabilia, perhaps I do. I do know if one intends to be seen as an authority, one must present themselves in such a manner. In a text based world the only impression I have of you is your words.
When you had these Kennedy letters, you claimed possessing, did you happen to read through them? Were they scrawled in crayon and riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, or were they solidly written pieces neatly typed on presidential stationary as one would expect from a president?
Your story would have been more convincing if you had expounded upon it, rather than burying it in a poorly told story. From the troubles you have with basic correspondence, I would suggest you investigate this before laying all of your business credibility problems on ebay or some other organization.
This is a perfect application of the escrow process; I work at a wholesale mortgage bank and that's how transactions are conducted. Perhaps Ebay should make in manditory to use an escrow service for purchases over $100. Using an escrow service: Buyer pays the escrow company in full, escrow tells the seller to release the product to the buyer, once buyer is satisfied, escrow disburses the funds to the seller. Forgive my ingnorance since I don't use Ebay regularly but I understand they offer escrow services and since escrow gets a cut of every transaction, I would think Ebay would want to push its usage.
Maybe Craig's List hasn't sold out... yet. But the camel's nose is in the tent. It will be interesting to see how long principles can stand up against great wads of cash.
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What they need to do is focus on people who scam shipping prices.. Why sell the item (like a wireless camera) for 2.00 and expect people to pay $45 for shipping on something that only costs 4 bucks to ship. Perfect example- I bought a decal the other day for $1 with $3 shipping.. What I got was an evelope with postal stamps on it.. NOT $3 worth of stamps mind you, just standard letter rate.
Moreover, when you do get a response from eBay, it's generally evasive to your question or completely irrelevant, having nothing to do with the question or concern.
Indeed, some of the responses are outright patronizing, where they treat the end user as a complete idiot. Often times, presumably, without even investigating the question properly.
You would think that with all that revenue, they could afford to hire and train a proper customer service staff.
I was unclear when I said "in his original listing". I should have said in the language of his original listing. There was clearly no point in removing a listing that was expired, but in the coming months permitting him to make the same listing again, over and over, under the same terms that he refused to honor without a surcharge and told me there was no way he would sell without surcharge, that is Fraud, with EBay a partner in the fraud. There is no excuse
If lifting the strike is all EBay was willing to do, there is the clear answer to who is at fault. That action carries no credibility and does nothing significant to reign in the behavior by the merchant, which was obvious because despite my protests to him and EBay he continued the same practice with no modification at all. It is no excuse just because greed, as you say, happened to drive EBay to this pattern of fraudulent behavior, ignoring all bad behavior by sellers.
The simple fact is, this kind of thing never happens to me anywhere but EBay, where the environment is alligned against the buyer.
I do not have the seller name. I might be able to find it in a backup of an old e-mail, given some effort, if you in turn find a suitable public forum to continue to discuss this (this slashdot will not be suitably public after today).
But you somehow think you can find all relevant US data and facts without even dabbling in US policy? Your unwillingness to even look up the obvious makes it clear how your "investigation" would go. You do not even yet cite authoratative EU Visa or other rules. It is not that hard to find EBay rules in the EU. For example (the German is most natural for me): http://pages.ebay.de/help/policies/listing-surchar ges.html
This says basically the same thing that the US version does.
Verkäufer dürfen bei der Annahme einer Zahlung durch Kreditkarte keine Gebühr - den so genannten Kreditkartenaufschlag - erheben. Dieser Aufschlag würde dem Käufer weitere Kosten verursachen.
Die Entscheidung, ob Angebote mit diesem Grundsatz im Einklang stehen, liegt allein bei eBay. Ein Verstoß gegen diesen Grundsatz kann eine oder mehrere der folgenden Konsequenzen nach sich ziehen:...
I checked German because that was most-familiar to me. Now I check UK, and see that UK (apparently not EU, as you claimed) has made an exception, but apparently has limited the charge only to the passing on of direct bank charges, in which case, since I looked at the charge table of his credit card processor, he would have still been in even clearer violation of the law and had you understood the UK policy and law, you would have asked about that. Again, your arguments fall very flat.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
You give that daughter of yours a big hug and thank her for making me laugh so hard I almost drstroyed my laptop by spitting my coffee out onto it.
s'wut i sed.
http://www.geocities.com/sisal_lo/index.htm for anybody who doesn't know how DISREPUTABLE and UNSAFEebay is
* weedshare.com 50% to artists, webjay.org iuma.com CDBaby.com Epitonic.com ampcast.com
I find it funny that billg would call and scream at you for an obvious error on his part.
But then it is symptomatic of how microsoft operates in general. Symptomatic of their lack of ethics, from top to bottom.
My wife has lost about $500 with ebay in two separate auctions. After being enamored with the idea of ebay, she says she will never use it again. The first time the seller sent a piece of junk that was supposed to be the item, but was rusted out. My wife returned it to the seller who then took her money and the rusted item and ran. She couldn't get ebay or paypal to do jack... plust the seller spread the time out with promises... The second time similar thing... The seller got their money, shipped a defective item and claimed that we broke it. The stupid thing on our part is that we didn't use insurance on the return trip because it was broken and he said that was what caused it to break... Took out money and ran... I will still buy stuff on ebay because I will stay on top of it, but my wife won't anymore. Oh well, chalk it up to learning experiences... ;|
EBay has made considerable effort to try and postulate themselves as an unbiased conduit for the transfer of goods. Yet, they openly admit to having a "prefered" relationship with some retailers which somehow gives them the ability to call EBay and get items pulled? How exactly is that unbiased? If EBay wants to be "hands-off" then fine, make sure you go the full monty. Don't pigeon-hole Joe Average Seller's complaints while you're off catering to the big boys.
so,
a global market place? with auctions ending every fraction of a second?
and wait.. wait.. there isn't your mom holding your hand as you purchase things.
Come'on get real, your buying things from hobbiest and pissed off ex-wifes. (and thats the best part!)
No one knows what your going to get. And if you do think it's a online 'store' then your saddly mistaken. If you wouldn't buy it from a rummage sale i wouldn't buy it on ebay.
As for getting ripped off, maybe you should go to a local store and actually support your own town. But i know you can't walk away from the computer long enough to say hello to a store owner.
Ebay replaced online forums and bulleten boards, not Amazon. We should never expect ebay to provide the same service as amazon.
But, maybe like the Government (both Legislative and Executve branches!), they do what Big Business wants, regardless of what is important to Joe Consumer.
ACHTUNG! Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
I'm more concerned about the fraud that Ebay is perpetrating with the colusion of PayPal. They'll lock down someone's account and not respond to inquiry requests as to the account's status, and provide no method for re-opening PayPal accounts due to a fraudulent and unproveable claim.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I don't understand why eBay doesn't do anything because its only hurting them.
You see, eBay only charges a final value fee on the AUCTION price, not the shipping price. So, to save costs, people jack up the shipping and keep the auction price absurdly low.
To you, there is zero net difference in what you pay as a customer. So I dont see why you should complain.
I make my living off of eBay. It's a great marketplace but its got its problems. We all know about fradulent sellers. Makes life difficult for folks like us with over 5000 positive feedbacks and a 99.7% rating. But let me clue you, there are probably more fradulent buyers than sellers. Give a credit card # over the phone? Charges (yes legit ones too) will be reversed without a signature. PayPal payment? Just say "not as described" and PayPal will give your money back, almost no questions asked. Only way to be sure of payment is to demand a Money Order but then you lose honest buyers and still get people trying to pass fake Money Orders to you. Sure there are problem sellers but trust me, it's no better and possibly worse on the buyer side.
We deal with this every day. eBay is generally not much help. Oh, they're aware of it but they don't have the resources to fight it all. And eBay's own policies are generally counter productive. eBay caters to the (false) notion that they are "leveling the playing field" by letting the little guy compete. This means they treat a 12 person company like ours the same as a guy in the basement. Well guess what? We're not the same. You combat fraud by having professional companies sell stuff and treating them well, not by assuming all sellers are the same and busting the ones you catch doing something bad. We've sold nearly a million in merchandise in the last few months with highly professional auctions. We've introduced hundreds of people to eBay and often have people call us thinking we *are* eBay! We are exactly the sort of folks eBay should be encouraging but eBay doesn't. We bring in thousands of dollars a week to eBay in fees and we're somehow the same as the guy in his basement with 3 feedbacks? (and before someone asks, no their powerseller program frankly is not much help) eBay has been unwilling to acknowledge that not all sellers are created equal and that size DOES matter. (go ahead make your dirty jokes...)
How's this for absurd... Every account on eBay is a personal account. Companies like Sears (not necessarily them but companies like them) have inquired about using eBay but they can't because they aren't about to use an account tied to a single person. eBay doesn't set security policies that make sense either. shill bidding but their policies don't work when you get large companies with lots of employees. Drop shop franchises regularly get busted for innocent bidding on items. Set up a kiosk to sign people up for eBay? You'll kicked off for shill bidding as soon as they buy something. Of course fraud is a problem but eBay's reponses are just just hastily implemented band aids that don't really stop the problem. The only long term way to fight fraud on eBay is to cultivate companies with real professionalism. If eBay has a weakness it will be a failure to address the needs of real companies trying to use their service. So far they are doing a miserable job of it.
Well, you're entitled to use eBay any way you wish - but for my part, I look at it like a grade-point average. A 93% or better is an "A" in the educational world, last I checked, and any seller with an "A" rating overall seems fine by me.
Again though, the total number of deals completed is a big factor too. The biggest risk of newer eBayers with low overall feedback scores (whether 100% or not) is that they could easily have just set the account up with an intent to scam and run. Often, these people sell 10 or 15 "trinkets" that get them off to a good start, as part of the setup for the scam, where they move to ripping people off for hundreds or thousands of dollars at a time on bogus big-ticket items. But if someone has, say, 150 transactions under their belt, it's a much better chance that they're a long-standing user who intends to keep using eBay legitimately.
So what's a one-time seller or only-time seller to do without a rating history?
I've bought things off Ebay with no problems, but now I'm in the position of selling some furniture I really need to get rid of. What are some of the things I should do to ensure folks that I'm not a scammer?
I did a fair amount of musical instrument buy-and-sell on eBay until recently. I bought about $1500 worth of guitar stompboxes and synthesizer tone modules, in about 120 buys and 100 sales.
I found that with good write-ups (I always used long precise descriptions) I could sell an item for about 20% more on average than I paid for it on eBay. With me paying the shipping cost, I came out about even financially after about 200 sales and retained a collection of 30 inexpensive but good-sounding guitar stompboxes, and four older MIDI synth tone modules.
I look at eBay as an inexpensive instrument rental service. Because generally with prudence one can resell an instrument for the same price as one purchased it. Therefore the only cost of using the instrument between your purchase and the instrument's resale is the cost of having it shipped from the previous owner.
I am not an entrepeneur, but I don't see how one can make money on eBay in the musical instrument field unless one is doing a high volume business on high-value/high-price instruments. And be an expert in the specialized instrument field. And even then, the price of paying for shipping and the eBay and the PayPal fees would probably equal the cost of renting a small retail space in a major metro area and having a website.
If you have been and continue to be successful in the musical instrument field on eBay, my congratulations.
Say, you wouldn't need an extra plastic $8 fuzz-box? Hey, just kidding...
Its a great report, but it suggests there was an internal collapse caused by something that I guess I'm too lazy to understand.
But I'm keeping that report. Thanks.
Any time I'm looking for something (say XFILES), I get swamped with bootlegs and pseudo-boots and sometimes the only way to "tell" that it's not an R1 authentic DVD is to look at where the seller is selling from. I bought the HISTORY OF BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD dvd for a good but not great price. It was a reasonable price and i was just browsing around so i wasn't too diligent, but it seemed fine. Then i get it and it's a color-laster printed cover, with a DVD+R. Grrrrrreat. I cold've just resold it on ebay but they prolly would've shut ME down... -goro-
I think ebay treats fraud with a pure "accounting" strategy. i.e. profit is highest when a few frauds are refunded, and the majority are ignored.
It is far more expensive to provide any serious fraud investigation and prevention strategies than it is to simply pay out a small percentage as insurance payouts.
In the long run though, this strategy will lead (has led?) to a loss of consumer confidence, and opportunity for competition.
(I've been burnt by an ebay seller and was absolutely flabagasted at ebay's "do as little as possible" tactic).
Law-enforcement agencies and ToS-enforment departments have to sort through spam, incomplete reports, and false reports. The identity of the reporter is one piece of information that can help do that.
I doubt that a federal agency would provide the identity of a tip to the target of an investigation before they had to. If you don't tell them who you are, they can't call you on the witness stand if there eventually is a trial.
Finally, under US law, any information you provide might be brought before a grand jury; a grand jury's proceedings are closed, and the defendant does not learn the identity of those who testify. If you really are worried that the malfeasor lives near you... that's what a restraining oder is for.