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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.
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".
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.
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
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*
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 $1000 be called "covered" I had names and numbers for each rep who told me not to stop the transaction. I asked them to look up the recorded phone calls. I spent an hour on the phone with a supervisor who promised me he'd look into in to it and help me, and to call him back at a certain day/time. When I did, he wasn't working. I haven't been able to reach him since.
When this is totally settled, I am going to launch a formal complaint at the FTC. If everyone who is mistreated by ebay/paypal complains to the FTC by writing, faxing, and calling, we can get some action. In the end, I didn't lose money, but I did lose 20-30 hours of tracking this guy down and calling the police, FBI, and even the Secret Service.
I'm lucky, I got my money back. Most aren't.
Ebay/Paypal could do A LOT but they don't, and they make hand over fist as a complicit party to fraud.
It's time to change.
...on eBay, which was just resolved last week.
I was shopping for a rare imported U.K. movie from the 80's which a particular vendor sold for not too expensive. I purchased the item (under 20$ 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!
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.
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
Remember, kids: capitalism is good, but it only works if there's competition. If there's none, it degenerates into a system where one company extracts all the money they can from everyone by doing pretty much nothing at all.
This leads to the next question, which is "why is there no competition?" Cheap, fraud free online auctions are a hard problem to solve. IMHO the only way is by having as much transparency as possible, e.g. comment system a la slashdot for each auction, for each seller, full transaction histories, etc. so it is easier to gauge the trustworthiness of sellers. Of course then there will be lying abusive buyers, and in the end the users will have to use their heads kind of like they do now.
Since the price of this sort of transparency is probably in server resources, Google might really be competitive with their scalable swarm-like PC hardware and storage, as opposed to eBay's crappy, slow-as-molasses, one-off Sun box.
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
I had some moron give me negative feedback because he couldn't read. I sold a graphics card (Matrox G500 Dual Head.. was a while ago) and described it fully, even down to the model number etched on the motherboard, with a link to the site containing informaiton about how to decode that number. The description also clearly stated that whilst a good 2D card, it was pretty useless for 3D.
*3 months* after selling, I get a negative feedback saying I'd sent a different item to what was described.. I'm like WTF??? and post as such. This guy never attempted to contact me directly (before or since) so I've no idea what he was smoking when he wrote that. Unfortunately the negative feedback stayed on my record & I lost a couple of items I was buying after that.
That's a nice thought. I had a friend who sold a piece of equipment on eBay. Once the piece of equipment was out of the country, the "buyer"'s account reported fraud and got their money back. So, my friend was out his piece of equipment, while the scammer got it and his money back. How's that for a scam?
I always wonder what is the reason to have sellers leave feedback on buyers. I mean as long as you get your money, your happy. You don't get the money, you don't ship the item. As simple as that. Relist it and sell it again. Feedback should only be allowed to be left by people considered a buyer.
Gorkman
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!
Just important to note that eBay is not a law enforcement agency, so allegations of fraud require certain factors to be there. Also, to broadcast any investigation information or to alledge a person is committing fraud to the general public would be a highly risky move for a company to take, and possibly incurring legal liability in the case where a mistake got made. PSUs are what we call previously suspended users. Without getting into too much detail, these are linked via phone numbers, credit card accounts, PayPal accounts, names, addresses, post code, images, servers, links, phrases and cookie crumbs. I can tell you around 4000 new members are suspended before they even get a listing on the UK site. Another 800 users are suspended hourly although it may take a few hours, and sometimes people have already bid and possibly paid for listings.
I'm a reasonably high volume seller on eBay and I've seen it happen several times, usually with camera or new computer equipment:
- Buyer claims not to have received item, despite someone having signed for it, threatens to leave negative feedback and chargeback via VISA/MC/PayPal
- I issue refund
- Buyer leaves no feedback whatsoever, positive or negative
- A week later, buyer is selling the precise item on eBay, sometimes even using the photos from my auction that they won in the first place (*grrrr*)
But that is at least less aggrivating than people who just buy and chargeback. There are a lot of those... they don't ever complain, don't ever mention that they didn't get something, they just charge it back with VISA/MC/PayPal and then I get to hear from the VISA/MC/PayPal directly that the buyer claims the never got it.
I can always provide proof of shipment and that someone signed for it, but usually VISA and MC at least just refund the buyer's cash anyway because they have a policy of working very hard to try to ensure that buyers are happy.
-
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
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.
Want to fix it? Eliminate immunity protections. If a corporation breaks the law or facilitates fraud and the executives of said corporation knowingly ignored the problem or authorized the illegal actions then said executives should be personally held to the fire.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion