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.
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.
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.
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.