eBay Slammed Over Levels of Fraud 522
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.'"
Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:4, Interesting)
Even the "notes" the buyer were leaving were making no sense at all! I did try to win many auctions, at prices that were "ok" and only one was lost to a real user. I did put a complaint, and kept trying, but they just sent me an automatic reply telling me they could not tell me anything about what will happen, if anything.
Last I checked, those sames users were still scamming everyone
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:5, Informative)
I replied and asked them to immediately cancel all of their other auctions for the same item and they replied and told me that they used an automated software system to handle their auctions and they couldn't cancel their auctions, but they assured me they wouldn't start any new auctions for that item until they were back in stock
That's been 6 months ago now, and they still list the same item for the same Buy-It-Now price and still start their auctions at ridiculously low prices like $0.99. To the best of my knowledge there hasn't been a day since then that you couldn't buy that item from them at their price.
I sent an e-mail to ebay about the lack-of-sale, and included all the previous correspondence, and asked them to please cancel all the auctions of that item by that seller and I received a generic "thanks for writing, we'll look into it" e-mail in response.
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:5, Insightful)
That is because the more they do, the more they "sort of" admit that they are - at least partially - responsible for the problem. Ebay would like to be very much like Kazaa and Napster in their arguments of "they're using the software we provide, but we can't be responsible for what they do with it." The more Ebay takes on fraud, the more they put themselves out as the police on the site, and they're not willing to accept that responsibility.
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:5, Insightful)
However unlike Kazaa and the service formerly known as Napster, they charge money for every transaction going on under their noses, thus rather ruining their argument.
To break out the metaphors;
If i own a nightclub, and charge people for admittance, and some of those people sell drugs and stolen goods, I have the defence that i didn't know they were doing that sort of thing on my property, they were supposed just to be coming to dance.
If however I'm taking a payback on every drug deal and dodgy sale, my defence of ignorance is shot to hell!
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, it's interesting that you bring up that analogy. In fact, thanks to the 2003 PROTECT Act, club/venue owners in the US can now be held not only financially, but criminally responsible for illegal activity that occurs in their venues, whether or not they
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if he had really moved to a place with no adddress, I find it very hard to believe that he had no relatives, friends, or a place of business that I could ship it to for him. He was easily able to convince paypal that somehow I had defrauded him. Less that 4 days after the auction ended paypal gave him his money back, and put my account at almost -$900. If buyers can use paypal to change thier mind about a purchase, why can't they use it to get their money back in the case of legitimate fraud?
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:5, Insightful)
A better question is: why do you continue to use PayPal? I've had a deep-seated distrust of them ever since the account-freezing issues. Apparently not too many other people cared about the lack of accountability and customer service.
If you like their business practices then by all means continue to use them. Personally, if PayPal (IMHO illegally) denied me a $900 payment I would never even consider using them again. But that's just me.
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:3, Informative)
I use AT&T's Universal MasterCard - there is a desktop utility that will create a one-time, amount-specific, custom expiration date credit card number with unique CV number. If I am buying a widget for $19.95 from Gary's Widgets and Wombats then I create a virtual credit card number unique to that transaction valid for $19.95 and the next 14 days only. American Express and (some) Visa cards have similar features.
Disposable credit card numbers are the wa
buyers remorse...or (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:3, Funny)
You may send all amounts you're willing to lose to my savings account
Shill Bidding true story - 5 days ago. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you actually think people are less likely to commit frauds after switching websites? I don't think so. I've been frauded on ebay too - for a $350 horn. Being a European ordering from an American private person, I never had a chance of filing a complaint. The international justice system only seems to work for corporations. The closest thing I can do is to go to Small Claims Co
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know, there has to be a better way to implement this that protects sellers.
By the way, there were Europeans involved in the court action against Mr. Hale (the convicted in my case) and they got all their money back too because there were people here in the states representing everyone.
I'm sorry to hear of your misfortune, I hope everything is resolved somehow for you. If you know anyone in Texas, now would be the time to ask them for a favor.
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:5, Insightful)
The bad part about this supposedly happy ending? The last 5-8 people were notified by this group in time to not pay. I was one of those. I got a "bad rating" from the fraudster, and this is still on my ebay account to this day.
Ebay not only does not respond to fraud, it does not care about its customers because it doesn't allow corrections of feedback (not that it really matters) under any circumstances. Well, I believe they do now, but guess what - feedback from closed accounts should be dropped. It's not.
The easy solution is to only use ebay for specific items, and make sure if the $ amount is high (more than $100-$200, get personal contact info and deal with the individual directly. CC's are also useful. Having a phone number really helps, as you can do some due diligence before completing your buy.
On the whole, this approach has worked for me post that one incident, and the people I've dealt with have been good people overall. Just remember, if it looks too good to be true, it is. Even on Ebay.
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:2)
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:3, Insightful)
I really don't see a problem here-- used hard drives is exactly what you (almost) got.
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you get 95% positive with 10 ratings?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Feedback (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:3, Interesting)
It may just b
The eBay 'venue' (Score:5, Insightful)
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.com]. 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 [blujay.com], 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 [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).
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:2, Flamebait)
I said that under the assumption that Google would have a better protection for buyers.
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Who really cleans up ebay's messes? (Score:3, Informative)
Responsibility (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
I do think it's the consumer's responsibility ultimately, but just pointing out that eBay has incentive to drag their feet.
I'd be interested to see stats on the number of auctions that close every day vs. the number of auctions that are shut down or that turn out to be fraudulent. It seems, from the news coverage at least, that it's getting worse, but they're constantly getting bigger, so perhaps it's not.
There's no reason to report a successful, legal, pleasant experience on eBay, but people love to read about how others got ripped off. And those that get ripped off complain louder than those who have not will 'advertise' their non-fraudulent experience...
-bs
Re:Responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
The seller opened a small store, and sold small figurines at low cost for months. His feedback was in the 90's. Then the holidays roll arround, and suddenly he is selling exclusive, hard to find, big ticket items. If you look at his feedback, he was great. Of course, this guy took all the cash and ran.
My friend lost $1500 for some one of a kind trinket. I would rather pay a few bucks, and be sure of the seller. Only small items for me from now on with Ebay.
Re:Responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to work for eBay (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Responsibility (Score:3, Interesting)
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 t
Why would they care? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Why would they care? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why would they care? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why would they care? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's high time for Google Auctions. Remember how webmail quality suddenly rose significantly when GMail was introduced? (Let me just say "2 MB of storage on hotmail"...) The same thing would be true here, too, or at least I hope so: quality would rise and prices would fall when there's competition.
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.
Re:Why would they care? (Score:3, Interesting)
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
I can certainly agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
eBay and PayPal = Fraud (Score:2, Interesting)
Mod my comment up or else... (Score:5, Funny)
I, for one, welcome our upcoming Google Auction Overlords.
Re:Mod my comment up or else... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mod my comment up or else... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, that's a good point. As much as you may want to leave negative feedback, you know that you'll almost always get the same in return from a vindictive, disreputable seller.
Speaking of fraudulent eBay... PriceRitePhoto (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Speaking of fraudulent eBay... PriceRitePhoto (Score:2)
Re:Speaking of fraudulent eBay... PriceRitePhoto (Score:5, Informative)
The blogger [thomashawk.com] that this all started with has been doing a good job of tracking these guys down, including all of the aliases they operate under.
Responsibility a two way street (Score:2)
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.
eBay don't care! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:eBay don't care! (Score:2)
Re:eBay don't care! (Score:2)
Someone please think of the sellers? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
How can you be so sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:How can you be so sure... (Score:3, Interesting)
- 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
Re:Someone please think of the sellers? (Score:4, Interesting)
*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.
re: caving in to keep 100% positive feedback (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Someone please think of the sellers? (Score:3, Informative)
Well, speaking for myself, when I sell one of my amplifiers in a fixed price listing for $85.00 plus $5.00 shipping, the insertion fee is $2.40 and the final value fee is $2.96. That's 6.3%. PayPal then charges $2.91 or 3.2%. That's not particularly outrageous. That's less than a 10% commission on the entire transaction.
And when I sell the amplifiers in a regular auction, the insertion fee drops to $0.60 - Ebay's take drops to 4.4%.
-h-
Market will solve this (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Market will solve this (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Market forces (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
A few pointers to avoid being scammed on eBay (Score:5, Informative)
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.
I've got a better suggestion (Score:2)
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!
Re:A few pointers to avoid being scammed on eBay (Score:2)
Moneyorders are fine - IF you wait for them to clear before sending out an item and IF you never promise "cash back" on one (that's the big $ scam).
Total Crap (Score:2, Insightful)
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'
Re:Total Crap (Score:2)
Re:Total Crap (Score:3, Insightful)
You're not protecting yourself much by resticting yourself to domestic trade.
Re:Total Crap (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
It was really just a matter of time... (Score:2)
A simple solution (Score:2)
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.
Let the market take care of it (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Technologies for fraud reduction? (Score:2)
Not my experience (Score:3, Interesting)
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!
eBay and PayPal (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:eBay and PayPal (Score:3, Informative)
In a former life I was a delivery driver for a pizza store. Local mom & pop outfit. Of course, they had to accept credit cards for deliveries else e
Two factor authentication? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ebay Fraud Protection is a farce (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Fraud (Score:3, Interesting)
ahh ebay politics (Score:5, Interesting)
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..
Complain to the FTC!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
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 $1000 be called "covered" I had names and numbers for each rep who told me not to stop the transaction. I asked them to look up the recorded phone calls. I spent an hour on the phone with a supervisor who promised me he'd look into in to it and help me, and to call him back at a certain day/time. When I did, he wasn't working. I haven't been able to reach him since.
When this is totally settled, I am going to launch a formal complaint at the FTC. If everyone who is mistreated by ebay/paypal complains to the FTC by writing, faxing, and calling, we can get some action. In the end, I didn't lose money, but I did lose 20-30 hours of tracking this guy down and calling the police, FBI, and even the Secret Service.
I'm lucky, I got my money back. Most aren't.
Ebay/Paypal could do A LOT but they don't, and they make hand over fist as a complicit party to fraud.
It's time to change.
Why just eBay? (Score:2, Insightful)
It may suck to be a victim of fraud, but it's not because of the money - it's the fact that someone used a system to outsmart you, and got rewarded for it.
If you want the government to care about it and handle it for you,
The irony ... (Score:5, Funny)
A conflict of interests (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.stockmarketgarden.com/ [stockmarketgarden.com]
I had a recent problem... (Score:2, Interesting)
I was shopping for a rare imported U.K. movie from the 80's which a particular vendor sold for not too expensive. I purchased the item (under 20$ 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
Negative Feedback Comedy (Score:2)
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.
Re:Negative Feedback Comedy (Score:3, Interesting)
eBay makes my skin crawl (Score:2)
You're just asking and waiting to get robbed on eBay. It's just matter of time.
Acceptable fraud levels (Score:2)
Easy steps ebay can take (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Ebay will take greater steps... (Score:3, Insightful)
Those costs will come in the form of greater governmental regulation, or people not using the service.
My experiences (Score:2)
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
Other options... (Score:2)
Like Craigslist-- oh wait.....
Every place breeds fraud (Score:2)
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
From a very active ebay user: suggestion (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Imagine... (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Is eBay safe? (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Two Words -- American Express (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Here's My Story (Score:3, Interesting)
- 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.