Short Ebay Rant and informal Poll...

[Mark Wolfe]

I just had a very negative experience on ebay... I know you're all shocked.

 

A seller who had stellar feedback, started to sell items that seemed suspiciously cheap, but not TOO cheap as to be outrageous. I mean their profile was impeccable and they were not a power seller nor were they inactive for a long time before they started selling this item.

 

what happened was I got an empty box in the mail. By the way it was packed I just KNEW it was deliberate. The only recourse I had due to ebay policies that I know of, was to leave negative feedback to warn others because they had a long list of these things for sale and then to file a paypal complaint.

 

As a day went by three other people chimed in that they too got empty boxes. By the end of that day the seller was no longer a member of ebay and all their listings were pulled and ebay sent out their famous "loss prevention" notice.

 

When pressed, ebay basically told me to look in the yellow pages for help, that they are not the authorities. I was on my own and still am. i have to wait until feb 22 to even get a response on my paypal claim

 

Now, what I want to know is, how many people here have gotten an empty box due to a scam on ebay?

 

i also want to know if anyone agrees with my theory that if this got in to the hands of the media, this idea that people can scam on ebay so easily without them even doing anything, that it would blow up in their face and make them have to answer, finally, to the cold way they treat their customers who have ben victimized by crime.

 

I'm very interested to hear your thoughts and I'd prefer not to get off on tangents about leaving ebay, because I'd like to see change happen and I think it is possible provided it hit the 24hr news stations in the right manner. I'd like to see them forced to answer for this stuff and get an idea of just how prevalent it is. My guess is, ebay has a dirty little secret they don't want anyone to know. That anyone can get away with stealing from ebay buyers and nothing will happen to them.

Edited February 15, 2009 by Mark_Wolfe

[HammR25]

It's not eBay's job to make sure you don't get scammed by doing anything more than they do now. Caveator Emptor.

Edited February 15, 2009 by HammR25

[IHATETHEBEARS]

I had a similar exerience on Ebay several years ago. I was into movie collecting at the time. And a longtime seller named THEBARRY (who as I recall had something like 17,000 feedbacks) started selling movies, advertising that he'd gotten a hold of a huge warehouse find. I'd bought from him in the past. So I knew him and trusted him. He was easy to remember because with every purchase, he'd send along a bag of microwave popcorn. Cool perk!

 

Like with Atari game collecting, movies also have rare VHS titles. And he suddely had hundreds (if not thousands) of extremely rare titles. I won two of the items. One of them was around $80.00. And the other one was somewhere around $30.00 I think.

 

Within a few weeks, when no films showed up, I started looking into the matter, only to discover that after about 70 consecutive negative feedbacks, Ebay had shut him down.

 

"THEBARRY" was a guy named Barry Reiger. Here's an article about the incident. THEBARRY EBAY FRAUD

 

I remember reading somewhere that someone added up all his phony auctions and discovered that he pilfered about $400,000 from his victims. Apparently the FBI eventually got involved. And it looks like he was actually charged. I just found this article online.

 

"Barry J. Reiger got 33 months in federal prison yesterday for bilking customers out of about $165,000 by falsely advertising hundreds of videotapes and DVDs for auction. Reiger was ordered to pay full restitution to the more than 3,000 customers. Reiger pleaded guilty to mail fraud in October. Authorities say he legitimately sold thousands of videotapes and DVDs through online auctions on e-Bay for about five years."

 

From what I understand, Ebay did absolutely nothing to help. After all, why would they? They got their fees. It was only after hundreds of people began calling Reiger's local police department that the matter was investigated.

 

Needless to say, I never received a cent.

[Mark Wolfe]

It's not eBay's job to make sure you don't get scammed by doing anything more than they do now. Caveator Emptor.

 

 

ahh, I see so to give a parallel example, if i was say in a brick and mortar store and a crime happened on the premises, the store has no moral obligation to do anything?

 

my main gripe is that ebay does not eve provide a means to initiate and investigation so they can hand over the relevant evidence to the authorities. they simply turn a blind eye. furthermore, they do not provide any means by which a person who is being victimized to DO anything immediate about it.

 

it's like if you were walking down the street and saw a hit and run, and you response was to tell the person who was hit to call 911

 

it is morally incompatible with the way our society and big business should operate.

 

 

@iahtethebears: thanks, this is exactly the kind of story i want to hear about and "collect". I think it is about time that some media hound put's ebay in its sights. the kind of shit the 24hr news stations live for. something to make ebay grovel.

Edited February 15, 2009 by Mark_Wolfe

[+poobah]

i suspect you could try the postal inspector. Using the mail system to commit a fraud is a big deal.

[sl0re]

I think the people to go to should be paypal. If they blow you off, then I would consider that the problem and you'd be justified to be pissed off.

 

But, you know, on the yellowpage thing... ebay is the yellowpages while paypal is your credit card. If your ripped off, you go to the credit card company for help while the yellowpages no longer takes their ads... ebay is not really a 'store'. Its a means to find and buy from other people / their stores...

Edited February 15, 2009 by sl0re

[the.golden.ax]

What makes em snap. This isn't good for us big sellers that are legit and won't snap. It makes it look like everyone is a suspect these days. Honestly if an auction site were so bold as to go full escrow it would be a hit. Not so great for sellers at the start, but eBay is moving that way with new users (holding paypal funds for 1 - 2 weeks). In the long run there are just as many dirty buyers as sellers though. It will never be perfect. The scales will always tip one way or the other.

 

AX

[Stan]

You almost wonder if some of these scams are orchestrated. Here's a weird one I never figured out. My friend used to help me sell and had his own account. His feedback was around 130 or so. Eventually, he didn't really use it too much. One day, he gets an email that someone bid on his auction, which he never put up. It was for a very, very, incredibly expensive watch. He looks at the winning bidder, and this guy had bid on nearly the exact same watch and WON it at least 20 different times. He could not access his account and eBay would not respond. The guy paid him in Paypal. He kept emailing them to no avail. The money sat in there for over a month, he said screw it and put it in his account. About five months later eBay demanded it back (or Paypal, I forget which). To this day I have no clue what that was all about, I suspected some sort of inner-eBay scam that has something to do with their business filing or something weird. Anyone have a clue?

[Mark Wolfe]

I agree ax, things do tip one way or the other and will never be completely balanced but what I see here is a hole, a giant hole in their safety netting.

 

anyone, you me, anyone can start to sell stuff and then send out empty boxes and make a little money, sometimes a LOT of money and there ain't a god damned thing anyone can do about it and that needs to change somehow, some way, right away. it is a huge potential time bomb ticking away. sooner or later the wrong person is going to be duped and then there will be a huge scandal and it will hit the 24hr news cycle.

 

as for me, I have my "claim" and it is sitting there until paypal responds, which they say they are waiting for the seller to respond even though 4 people have reported empty boxes, even though the seller is no longer a registered user. I can only hope they froze the paypal account and that there was money in it.

 

I do understand that this is mail fraud and that i should contact the folks who handle that bit it seems to me, ebay should have a fast track to that kind of investigation and actually HELP people and facilitate the investigation by being a mediator, at the very least by supplying a form by which you can report the issues, to report crimes.

 

stan, it sounds like a common problem whereby a dormant paypal account was hacked by someone else, it also happens when they're not dormant sometimes. I've had my paypal account hacked but I must say they have taken steps to fix that hole and there are immediate steps you can take now to report a problem like that and get it sorted out right away, when it happened to me, they fixed it, there was some issues with getting them on the phone but ultimately it worked out ok and they dealt with it quickly. this is the kind of thing they need to do for this empty box problem. but even after this bank paypal issue was cleared up for me, no one did anything about the crime that was committed. no one, not my bank, not paypal, I mean they all just sat there with thumbs up their asses, when we were all victimized by the hack in to my account.

Edited February 15, 2009 by Mark_Wolfe

[Mirage]

Yeah, that's a bunch of B.S. One of the many reasons I don't use ebay anymore. It was a great place a good while ago, now it's mostly just a fetid cesspool of crap.

[IHATETHEBEARS]

Yeah, that's a bunch of B.S. One of the many reasons I don't use ebay anymore. It was a great place a good while ago, now it's mostly just a fetid cesspool of crap.

 

I couldn't agree more. Ebay used to be great. Then the powers that be started to tinker with it. It's a classic example of fixing what isn't broken. Now it's an absolute mess.

[hhwolfman]

Send back the same box same weight and make a claim with paypal. No big deal. HHW

[Trey]

are you guys forgetting the ebay safety tip:

If you are contacted about buying a similar item outside of eBay, please do not respond. Outside-of-eBay transactions are against eBay policy, and they are not covered by eBay services such as feedback and eBay purchase protection programs.

[Mirage]

I must have missed the part about someone making a deal outside of an auction.

[Mark Wolfe]

I must have missed the part about someone making a deal outside of an auction.

 

 

no one did, I think he was trying to be funny

 

also, the ebay trashing is all fine and good, and I agree with most of it, but it is not productive in any way. There are already a ton of ebay trashing threads here on AA.

 

I am not bailing on ebay because there is still no real alternative and while chase the chuckwagon is fun and full of warm fuzzies, it just does not have the amount of stuff available that ebay does.

 

I have made my paypal claim and there is no reason to send back the empty box since the fact that it was empty is the basis of my claim, although filling it with dogshit first had occurred to me

[Mirage]

I must have missed the part about someone making a deal outside of an auction.

 

 

no one did, I think he was trying to be funny

 

also, the ebay trashing is all fine and good, and I agree with most of it, but it is not productive in any way. There are already a ton of ebay trashing threads here on AA.

 

I am not bailing on ebay because there is still no real alternative and while chase the chuckwagon is fun and full of warm fuzzies, it just does not have the amount of stuff available that ebay does.

 

I have made my paypal claim and there is no reason to send back the empty box since the fact that it was empty is the basis of my claim, although filling it with dogshit first had occurred to me

 

I understand about ebay still being the best outlet to find (and sometimes sell) things. Sorry about trashing ebay... I know it wasn't productive... I didn't have anything productive to offer on the issue, sorry! I guess I was just basically agreeing with you that it would be GREAT to expose the seedy underbelly of ebay to the public -- because I think that would be productive, in hopefully sparking a change. Since I haven't ever seen any willingness on their part to change (for the better), maybe if they had a little more pressure (to their bank account in terms of lost business), they'd possibly figure out a way to protect buyers and sellers better than they generally do now.

[Zwackery]

If I may make a suggestion here, it might be worthwhile to get other media involved, particularly your local television news program. Many local stations have one of those "we'll fight for you" segments where you submit a story about getting ripped off (usually by a local business, but sometimes they'll go after a national business or the government) and if they find it interesting, they interview you and try to track down the culprit to get some answers. I'd love to see a reporter shove a big microphone in the face of an eBay spokesperson. eBay, on the other hand, probably wouldn't like this kind of negative publicity. It might be worth a shot, and you might feel better about having attempted to do something else to rectify this crappy situation.

[Trey]

I must have missed the part about someone making a deal outside of an auction.

 

 

no one did, I think he was trying to be funny

 

 

this quote is in every email from ebay (at least the ones notifying me a buyer has a question).

 

it makes me giggle to think how risky it would be sell over the internet without the comforting arms of ebay.

[Mark Wolfe]

@Mirage1972: no apology needed, I mean I agree with what you said, so, no worries.

 

@Zwackery: I've been thinking about that and I think you're right, if the local news picked up on it, you never know where it will go and who will see it.

 

I'm definitely considering coming up with a 1 page "press release" explanation of what happened. Even if I just post it on an anti-ebay website, that's something.

Edited February 19, 2009 by Mark_Wolfe

[stingray2772]

I was recently scammed... a guy on ebay was selling microsoft points, he had tons of transactions (I'm thinking hundreds, possibly a thousand). I bid on a few (he had like 10 listed)... then after I bid I saw he had some more... like 1000 more lol. So I knew then I was done. Of course, no emails, nothing. But everything worked out, the auction was guaranteed through paypal, so after waiting a few weeks I got the 10-15 bucks back. I'm not sure if it always works out that way (I would hope so if the auction states it is guaranteed through paypal) but it did for me...

 

So I have a question, are the auctions actually guaranteed? Or is this just some scam.

[+FujiSkunk]

It's not unheard of for old, high-feedback accounts to get phished from their owners and become scam houses. It's also not unheard for scammers to start an account, shuffle a few low-dollar items back and forth to get the feedback up, and then launch with the high-dollar lures.

 

In short, feedback is about as trustworthy as everything else on eBay. In short short, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

 

I agree eBay could do more, though. Not because I feel they are obligated, but because they want you to think they're doing more. Either put up or shut up.