This kind of fraud sticks out like a sore thumb in click stream. I had no trouble finding fraud and building algorithms to automatically detect it but I did find it impossible finding someone at eBay who cared enough to do anything about it. eBay still gets paid so no one wants to be in charge of a revenue hit. I doubt that's changed.
Mark Carges tried to turn it around in 2008 and failed.
I have high hopes Facebook can move into this space.
She joined with 30 employees and was CEO until 15,000 employees. I fail to see how she could have destroyed the culture or do you excpect a 30 person company culture to remain static? Am I mising somehting?
If you have high hopes for anything, it should be for https://openbazaar.org
They attempt to solve the problem with "moderated payments" where the buyer pays into an escrow account which is jointly controlled by the buyer, the vendor, and a third party called a moderator. In order for the funds to leave the escrow, any two of these parties need to agree how to release the funds.
Its simple just to pull out your phone and grab a few seconds of sealing the box and putting on the label. Keep it for a few weeks until the transaction "settles" then delete.
However, I've gotten a LOT of scam Amazon messages. They are all the same "plz send me pictures at [poorly obfuscated email address]." I'd get 3-4 a day for a used Macbook. The scam is they get your email address by getting them to email them and then they send you a fake "shipped send now" email. Some people even go as far as just sending "shipped send now" as an Amazon message! I've reported all these and Amazon doesn't do anything about them. All they did was ding my seller account for marking too many messages as "no response required."
I think Facebook has the potential to combine eBay and Craigslist as a platform to sell more "common" items. They won't be able to get your broken laser pointer to a broken laser pointer collector, but if you want to get rid of a bed/desk/cell phone/microwave, it's much easier to sell it to someone that lives 10 minutes away than to ship it across the country, and the risk of fraud is much lower.
I know they have plans to scale this out and improve the experience of buying and selling things (I've been messaged by a few FB staff asking for feedback as they've added new features), but it definitely does not have the critical mass that CL has, and discovery (getting into the right group) is much harder.
That sounds like a class action suit waiting to happen. Or, a RICO lawsuit, where the government can pretty much prove that eBay is in cahoots with hordes of scammers.
See: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html
"You and eBay each agree that any and all disputes or claims that have arisen, or may arise, between you and eBay relating in any way to or arising out of this or previous versions of the User Agreement, your use of or access to eBay's Services, or any products or services sold, offered, or purchased through eBay's Services shall be resolved exclusively through final and binding arbitration, rather than in court. Alternatively, you may assert your claims in small claims court, if your claims qualify and so long as the matter remains in such court and advances only on an individual (non-class, non-representative) basis."
[...]
"Prohibition of Class and Representative Actions and Non-Individualized Relief YOU AND EBAY AGREE THAT EACH OF US MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS, OR REPRESENTATIVE OR PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ACTION OR PROCEEDING. UNLESS BOTH YOU AND EBAY AGREE OTHERWISE, THE ARBITRATOR MAY NOT CONSOLIDATE OR JOIN MORE THAN ONE PERSON'S OR PARTY'S CLAIMS, AND MAY NOT OTHERWISE PRESIDE OVER ANY FORM OF A CONSOLIDATED, REPRESENTATIVE, CLASS, OR PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL ACTION OR PROCEEDING. ALSO, THE ARBITRATOR MAY AWARD RELIEF (INCLUDING MONETARY, INJUNCTIVE, AND DECLARATORY RELIEF) ONLY IN FAVOR OF THE INDIVIDUAL PARTY SEEKING RELIEF AND ONLY TO THE EXTENT NECESSARY TO PROVIDE RELIEF NECESSITATED BY THAT PARTY'S INDIVIDUAL CLAIM(S). ANY RELIEF AWARDED CANNOT AFFECT OTHER USERS."
I wonder why?
https://www.google.com/maps/place/78+McCullough+Dr,+New+Cast...
I had shipped out a piece of recording equipment. It was packed pretty well- certainly good enough for domestic shipping. I sent it off to somewhere in Seattle, and according to my shipping records it arrived.
Strangely, like 3-4 weeks later the buyer is like, "Whoa, it arrived damaged!", to which I felt terrible, as I liked shipping things properly. I told him to ship it back to me, and I'd refund him, or to take it to the USPS store for the insurance claim. He said he couldn't ship it back to me, or that it would be $100 to ship, and there was no USPS store. I told him that was absurd, because it only cost me $15 to ship it to him.
It was then uncovered that he was in another country, and that it had been shipped on a container ship to get there. I hadn't packaged the thing for international travel.
Anyway, we resolved it and I paid him a bit (somewhat begrudgingly) for 'poor shipping packaging'. But it taught me a lesson about shipping.
Had he simply been transparent, I'd have added yet one more box layer. As-is, it looked like a forklift drove through it.
As someone who uses package forwarding services to get things that don't ship outside America, I can assure you I'm not a "scam".
By the way, I never had a problem and never a seller put a complain on this.
So it's perfectly inline to refuse to ship to such address via eBay.
Did it multiple times, and no seller refused to send a package to forwarding address. Never had a problem either.
The service I use does make photos of all incoming and forwarded packages (and contents), so in case of any problems there will be some evidence.
This isn't correct, not 100%, probably not even 50%. I sold a $1,000+ used MacBook and shipped it to a package forwarding service. Before shipping expensive items I always do a small amount of research to determine if I feel comfortable shipping it out.
I googled the buyer and I found out that he's a newspaper reporter in the Caribbean, so he obviously had a large public presence. Before the sale we had a lot of back and forth messages as he had several questions about the Macbook and I sent him several more pictures. He was very well spoken, personable, and polite. He seemed like the most legit buyer there can be, I sent it out. I got a very nice feedback from him thanking me.
I also have sent a whole bunch of things (none expensive) to eBay's global shipping program, Never had a scammer there either.
It is extremely unfortunate that scammers are using them, this means a lot of sellers won't sell to me :( .
I would pinpoint the time Ebay went off the rails to many years ago, when they changed their feedback system. The whole beauty of Ebay was that it was based on reputation. If I was selling something for thousands of dollars, I would only allow buyers that had plenty of good feedback. This simple system allowed you to avoid 99% of scammers. The only scammers that got through were people who spent a long time acting legit and building up lots of positive feedback, then "going rogue" and using that built-up goodwill to pull off a scam. This risk was small and worth taking (happened to me twice after hundreds of sales).
At some point, though, Ebay changed their feedback system so that sellers could not leave buyers negative feedback! You could only leave positive feedback, or refuse to leave feedback at all. Overnight, the entire reputation-based system of buyer/seller reputation was destroyed. Within three months of the change I was hit by three scammers, after selling less then ten total items. This was more scammers than I had to deal with in a decade of prior Ebay sales. There was simply no way for me to figure out which buyers were legit, and no way to warn other sellers which buyers were scammers. As evidenced in the article above, Ebay has absolutely no interest in blocking these scammers. Contacting Ebay inevitably results in a canned response that has nothing to do with your issue. Shortly after they changed their feedback system I stopped selling on Ebay all together. It just isn't worth dealing with the scammers, and Ebay seems to think that their current business model is fine.
It was so obviously corrupt and bullshit and undermining their basic platform function of connecting buyers and sellers. I refused to accept the shift, it felt so shitty. I stopped using it immediately and scoured online for alternatives and eventually just gave up and resorted to the limited local audience of Craigslist.
I bought things on eBay BECAUSE I felt it would be easy to sell them again on eBay if I changed my mind. It was superb. NOTHING has replaced it. Craigslist is local only, nothing else has brought back the eBay that once was, and now I buy less PERIOD on ALL platforms because I have no good way to sell things I later decide to pass on…
They want to sell themselves as a place to buy stuff, like Amazon, not so much as a marketplace of individual sellers selling stuff.
By basically removing buyer feedback, they've made the experience buyer-centric. All the safeguards (which are still fairly questionable) focus on the buyer's experience with the seller, and the possibility of the seller being dodgy.
Also, I'm not sure how it use to work, but how can a seller reasonably refuse a buyer when a transaction has already gone through, without their intervention?
A couple of ways. For one, you were able to set up filters to filter out anyone below a certain amount of feedbacks or anyone with X number of negative feedbacks from bidding on your item. Obviously by eliminating the ability to leave negative feedback to buyers eliminates this.
You could also cancel the bids of buyers and offer the item to a different bidder if they violated the terms of the sale (or didn't pay). As absurd as it sounds, someone can bid on your item, not pay, and still leave you a negative feedback. For example, they place the "winning bid". After the auction ends (and before they pay) they contact you and tell you they want the item shipped to Nigeria. Even if Nigeria isn't listed as a place you sell too, and you explicitly point out in the item description that you don't ship out of country, they can still leave you a negative feedback - all without paying! In the past buyers were hesitant to due that, because they'd certainly receive a negative feedback in return. Now they can be as scummy as they want without consequence.
How large of an market is there for "original ebay" today? If it's big enough, I wonder how much longer it will take for a competitor to rise from the ranks.
Of course that's a compromise (I'm sure it reduces the audience), and that may not work good enough in some countries, or for some type of sales (I've sold up to ~1700$, I think), but I think it's preferrable [where it works] to stop using eBay at all.
Regardless, this is serious though:
> Ebay has absolutely no interest in blocking these scammers.
When I tried to expose the "scammer", eBay was essentially not interested.
¹=except the occasional one who attempts the ridiculous nigerian release-after-receival scam.
Obviously this isn't a worldwide market, but for used phones or mac laptops it works.
Usually, they send you a return package with a rock or brick inside approximating the weight of the original package.
Its famous enough at this point that its impossible that ebay is unaware. They are fully aware and are choosing to continue to profit off of this. So much so that the "shell game" the author faced is likely scripted by this point.
Ebay consumes sellers as a raw material as part of the process. That's their business model.
Ebay sadly does not even provide you with a way to submit such evidence.
If investigative news meant anything, they'd be all over this. But most investigative news is gone, and there's so few investigative reporters and trustworthy news outlets left that its hard to hold ebay's feet to the fire.
For a buyer eBay is a great place because everything is protected and you can always get a refund.
For a seller, I guess you either have to accept the risk, or get some kind of insurance.
Overall, I think auction places always attract scams, so there always be some risks involved.
Hardly. No guarantee that anything is authentic or not stolen. No refunds outside the return window. And you need to know how to use ebay to force your refund. If your return package fails, you'd need to go through all of the USPS insurance hoops. And the protection ebay offers is the same protection most credit card companies offer which is also similar to what paypal offers... so this idea that "ebay provides safety" is a delusion.
> you either have to accept the risk, or get some kind of insurance.
That's not the point. The point is, ebay doesn't give a shit, and there is no "some kind of insurance".
> auction places always attract scams
As do all monetary transactions.
Or eBay pays the insurance cost out of the fees they charge.
I think it's a great idea, even just for the buyer's piece of mind.
This package been send from USA -> Ukraine, Kharkiv. When I saw article and addresses automatically assumed that someone from Ukraine stole it.
In reality, „scammer“ just lost about $200 (shipping + VAT + money conversion rate). I checked his name and address: he is son of a private entrepreneur. His parent will have lot of problems if somebody will try to report that item, which is stolen at customs, as fraud.
For the record, the buyer...
with a shipping address...
New Castle, DE 19726-2079, United States.
I record the video at the post office itself, and of course include a shot of the post office.
Start the video showing a closeup of the item, then record yourself packaging and sealing the box, and putting on the address label - then very important record an image of the address label, and finally walk it over to the drop box, put it in, and pan wide to record the building.
Make SURE never to have the item go off frame or people will say you pulled a trick.
The post office where I am is open 24/7 and deserted at night, so it's easy. When I shipped UPS the guy looked at me funny and warned me he didn't want to be in the video, but other than that I was able to record (and I included the tracking receipt I got from them in the video).
It's a lot easier if you have a second person holding the camera, but it's also possible with a tripod, or even just holding it if you prepare all the tape stuck on one side of the flap so you can work one-handed. Do a test shot to make sure your video camera is good enough that you can actually read the address label - and even better the serial number on the product.
Keep the video for a long time, several months.
I've never actually had to use any of the videos I've made, but I keep making them anyway.
Not that I'm convinced that this would actually work with a behemoth that still makes money in situations of this type of fraud.
“… but, unfortunately, we didn’t receive proof that the buyer caused the issue.”
Sounds like there is a way to submit proof, and this video would be proof.
But, it's very important to "test" the buyer - have them document what they claim they received. Then this video can refute that.
Once they ship it to you it's too late - they'll claim they shipped an iPhone.
No longer accepting addresses outside of the US helped reduce the spam.
All this being said, anecdotes aren't data, and I worry every time I read an article like this that I am going to get burned bad one day.
On the other hand I would never sell on eBay due to all the scammers. Props to these brave souls who continue to sell there.
eBay's seller protections are non-existent, and I no longer use eBay for equipment sales. I do local sales (CraigsList or personal connections) or donate it to an appropriate 501(c)(3) for the write off.
Dunno about outside the US though.
The buyer is in the Ukraine, usually considered a faraway place.
If you sell me a broken phone, it gets broken in the mail because you didn't package it correctly, or any other thing that can happen between the time you send it out and when I receive it, you should refund my money or accept my return.
I buy hundreds of thousands of products per month for my business on Ebay and Amazon and many people outright lie about the products they are trying to sell me. A good return policy is a must.
My theory is that it's one of the only reasons Amazon and Ebay became the kings of the online marketplace. I've tried to purchase from the other sites and because there are barely any protections in place for buyers, I always go back.
I don't see ill will on eBay's part. What I see is a few badly-designed processes: not soliciting proof when there is a buyer/seller dispute and not integrating a "Money Back Guarantee" charge into eBay's account balance.
These seem like matters of incompetence.
Also, in my experience, when I refused to pay eBay for some charges I disagreed with, they simply sent the debt to a collections agency.
Well, eBay does this because they know that legally they don't have a leg to stand on in some cases, so they resource to harass their client into complying and give them money they are not legally entitled to.
The reason that this was a close call rather than complete catastrophe was that I had the listing reviewed by the service's internal investigation team while I transacted. The team altered me of fraud, I responded immediately with PayPal to learn that hey guess what - their fraud claims policy excludes vacation rental services! They refused to help me. Further, the scammer knew this policy limitation, and even left me a troll voicemail as I was escalating the scam that was along the lines of "guess what? PayPal won't refund you!"
Fortunately, I used a credit card for payment. I managed to file a claim with the credit card company and reverse the fraudulent charge.
The reason I escalated this listing as a concern was that it had zero reviews and was new. The owner was also a bit too accommodative of my requests. I proceeded with caution.
I went to the authorities about this, including the secret service, who for whatever reason handles fraud like this. I never heard back from anyone.
The power of the chargeback is unappreciated by many, I think. I'm guessing a large chunk of people who use that power are people who've lost money in their business to it to scammers and scammers (which is not to say the chargeback is always a scam - there are scammers who charge credit cards, too)
The buyer from hungary filed a item not received claim and they took my money from my paypal account (it has been negative ever since).
5 months later out of curiosity I sent a message to the buyer and he replied that he did received. But since the case was closed in Ebay there is no way for me to forward the email I received from him to get my account back up in good standing...
I was sent to collections and filed a debt verification letter which they didnt reply correctly and havent responded to it and two years later still does not show on my credit report.
If it ever does I will just file the debt verification letter again and ask for small claims court.
I don't typically get the best prices, of course, but I've never been scammed.
>other expensive and related items in their history
Is there a way to view what someone has bought now? Last I knew they got rid of showing the buyer's item on their feedback page a few years ago. Is there another place to find this information?
They protect buyers, because where there are buyers always will have sellers. Dishonest people paradise, unfortunatelly.
Their fee structure is pretty bad (10% of the the sale price?!) compared to just selling it locally on Craigslist if you are in a big metro. The eBay UI to figure all of this out is even less so, and I had to resort to Google to figure basic information.
Less than 24 hours after listing an iPhone 6s for sale, it was 'bought' by someone who was an obvious scammer.
They reached out and asked for my direct PayPal email, citing that eBay was broken. Of course, I told them to pay through eBay or I wouldn't ship the phone. Immediately after this, I reached out to customer support and reported the account. This did absolutely nothing - the sale was locked up for a week "pending payment" until the buyer 'reported their account stolen' and the sale was reversed. Nobody responded to my ticket, absolutely nothing happened.
I ended up selling it in that time frame locally in less time than it took to deal with all of the eBay BS, and I was able to get something like $50 more.
The buyer never shipped it back so it finally timed out after another 30 days and I was able to file a claim and get my money back. Good to know I can unlink from PayPal since they pulled the funds directly from my account. I was in a negative balance.
Here's the kicker. If you decide to checkout on any site using PayPal, they'll actually authorize the full balance behind the scenes. I was definitely surprised when I saw a $400 charge for a $11 item I paid for.
eBay sucks for sellers, but you typically still get the best value aside from dealing with criagslist.
also: I confine my purchasing on ebay to and from US domestic vendors with verified accounts, and I never sell to consumer end users...
It's not naturally difficult, it's just a decision by eBay. With that kind of money they could pay and train people to provide service to you. Larger companies than eBay operate tech support services, and my guess is that tech support is higher-skilled than the customer service eBay needs.
https://ask.metafilter.com/77638/Can-I-trust-PayPals-seller-...
I recently sold 50 4TB hard drives on eBay. I had 2 returns for broken drives that were damaged in shipping (my fault - the first 2 drives I sent weren't packed well enough), and one other drive returned that the buyer said was broken.
I tested the 3rd drive and found it worked perfectly, so reported the buyer for abuse of the return process (I did allow returns, but only for defective drives). To its credit, eBay refunded to me the shipping charges both ways that I had paid. The buyer was pissed off and still insisted that the drive was defective (and he was a Microsoft Certified something or other, blah, blah), but strangely enough, it had 60 more hours on it when I received it back. Hmm...
I guess I was lucky I didn't get back a 40GB drive. I recertified the drive, resold it, and had no complaints.
My point is, yes, you can get screwed on eBay. But I live in a podunk town of 35K in Indiana and there's no way I could have sold 50 4TB hard drives as easily as I did on eBay. Guess I could have tried Craigslist, but I didn't want to meet 50 strangers at a McDonald's, and I doubt people would even want to buy them without seeing them actually work in a computer system.
If this phone thing had happened to me, I probably would have filed a small claims against eBay, regardless of what their stupid user agreement says I can or cannot do. You'd be surprised how seriously a company takes your complaint if they get a legal document.
I'm interested in what will happen when Ebay becomes a site for scammers sellers to transact with scammer buyers.
Perhaps UPS/Fedex could act as a verification service. For a small fee, the UPS store employees could photograph the contents of the package before it gets mailed, check if the electronics turn on, write down the serial numbers, etc. and send a report to eBay.
I consider them a co-conspirator.
The best bet for selling was Amazon, but now is Facebook groups.
A friend of mine however ended up with a debt collection agency (Transcom) after him for 6 months because he refused to refund the item. Eventually after much letter writing with "fuck off" in it basically, they gave up because there wasn't a genuine claim that would stand up in court.
I still buy and sell off ebay but it's usually very niche items which are on 1:1 interest and low value (vintage transistors for example). Anything popular, I get the other half to stick it on Facebook and it's gone, in cash usually within 72 hours. No fees, nothing.
Mail forwarders usually take photos of items sent through them (so their customers could see what they would receive). Ebay could contact the forwarder if they wanted to find out the truth.
I tend to think eBay would not even respond and lose by default
Facebook marketplace is the way to go. You get way more exposure and can usually sell something in minutes.
First, as others have mentioned, they have a monopolistic marketplace where they require one to use their own Paypal for transactions. The combined fee's for selling on ebay + Paypal now are 10% of the final sold amount + the shipping amount. Where margins are slim as it is and things are already selling well below their value at times because of so many other competing auctions, the fee's make it not worth it in many cases. They are making a boatload in fees and I'm tired of it. I just sold $400 golf clubs and had to give them $42? Ebay provides value as the market is so large. I had those clubs on Craigslist for TWO months and not even a inquiry at that price. Ebay got sold in 7 day auction. But to pay 10% for everything is too greedy imo. They have NO competition.
Second, ebay has become a haven for scammers and overrun with them to point I am leery of purchasing anything like electronics, phones, etc on there. Software..forget it! DO NOT buy any licensed software from ebay no matter how good buyer feedback. Even if it claims new/sealed. The pirates have gotten too good. I'd venture to say 99% of software on there now is either a)counterfeit from get go or b)legit but "used" and/or illegal Volume Licenses. The problem is key will work when you get it but fail 5 months from now or when you need to reinstall. I've been victim of this two times now and NO more will I buy software off ebay. When it does fail, it is long enough you have zero recourse. Ebay you can't even file a claim as they give you only like 14 days after purchase. A pirate knows this and gets keys from a keygen. I had 8 legit looking MS Office licenses in sealed retail boxes register then 4 months later started to fail. Called Microsoft and they told me I had registered them too many times and they are now flagged. Huh? I only installed them ONCE. Credit card company didn't even help as it was past the time limit for a case. So basically the seller sold many of the same key and whoever bought from him, who knows how many of us, they are all worthless. Really upsets me that ebay allows ANY software even on there. They clearly know that this must be going on. I tried to inform them of the practice but couldn't even find a contact to let know. They don't care as they are making their fees! Tons of them from software. Their only concern is a small webpage to help identify counterfeit. From now on, I will only buy hard items that can't be counterfeited or scammed easily, like golf clubs.
Third, as this story is about, ebay is WAY to buyer-centric and I too was once bitten by similar story as topic starter. Not as blatantly bad as the OP or that amount of money, but bad enough I was pissed. Eventually also got someone from ebay on the phone and as similar was brushed off and there was no pleading my case. End of story, refund the money. It cost me out of my own pocket by time it was returned and settled.
Then there are the horror stories like this all over the internet that just cemented my decision to never use or recommend either service ever again.