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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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
When an ebay competitor which is significantly better comes along, sure, we'll all switch. But few others will -- they'll carry on using ebay until they get burnt, because they... dont... care. And eventually some of us will switch back to ebay because of the sheer volume of people using it.
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/
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.
... 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.
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?
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
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 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!
It's called...
Being able to take recourse...
Have you tried dealing with something illegal that is outside the country. It doesn't matter what end of the stick you are on. It's a pain in the ass to deal with... end of story.
So me, I don't deal with anything outside the US and I'm a little suspicious of that island resort for new criminals called Hawaii. (I thought I would be at least a little bit comical)
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.