eBay employee 'torpedos' fraud trial This story was updated on Friday 26th October 2007 16:59 GMT to add comment from eBay public relations. The trial of a UK man suspected of defrauding eBay users was scuttled after an employee for the online auction house abruptly left the island before offering key testimony. According to the Herald Express, eBay employee …
I purchased a small computer part on 20 September. With shipping, the amount was about US$13. I paid by bank money order and the seller marked it "paid" on 22 September.
I have not received the item. The seller claims it was "shipped and returned." eBay has not addressed the dispute which I opened on 22 October.
If I have not received satisfaction by 22 November, I shall file a claim against the money order (with the bank) for fraud, and report eBay to the State Attorney General for conspiracy to commit postal fraud. they can out the seller, or not; I don't care.
eBay could do a lot more to stop fraud.
An example I'm personally familiar with is memory stick cards. I bought a 4Gb card which turned out to be a fake. The seller had a good reputation but the card was a phony. I found out when I tried to copy 4Gb of stuff to it and it broke at 256Mb. The sad thing is that people don't bother with this simple test and so these conmen build up a good reputation. It takes a good while until the complaints catch up. Then eBay belatedly shut them down but not before they've opened another store.
I expect fraud is so rampant in certain types of item such as memory sticks that eBay should really tack a big warning notice to every sale informing bidders how to tell bogus items, how to report frauds etc. Winning bidders should be reminded of this info a week or two afterwards as well. Anything to force these stores to be shut down sooner than they've been able to get away with so far.
Some kinds of auctions should be banned entirely. Search for "wholesale list" and witness the utterly deceptive practices used. You will see hundreds of items that at first glance appear to be selling TVs, laptops, trampolines etc. for cents. But they're not, they're tagging their wholesale list with a picture of those items but your buying a worthless email. eBay could effectively snuff out this scam by banning pictures and confining wholesale lists to a text only section with strict rules on the sale.
Do they do this? Nope. And that's just two examples. I'm sure there are many more. eBay could be doing a lot more to stamp on fraud and the fact they don't gives the appearance that they really don't care that much unless it's reported to the police.
I've not used eBay for a year now and highly recommend nobody else does. You might get a couple of bargains on there, but then you WILL be defrauded, no matter how careful you are.
Me - I lost £300 when selling a phone, and eBay/PayPal had the audacity to assume that *I* was the fraudster when I made the complaint, as I was the seller. £300 out of pocket, eBay/PayPal accounts terminated, and the worst customer service I have EVER experienced bar none.
I'm surprised eBay and PayPal are even legal, frankly, the problem with fraud has reached epic proportions. I'd trust an email from a Nigerian asking if I can transfer a million pounds more than I trust eBay.
No, I'm talking about the lawyers and judges - not Ebay.
If this guy came in on Sunday it was because he was told he would be required on Monday. I can totally understand him getting annoyed and deciding to piss off after two days waiting.
I work with a guy that had to give evidence in a trial like this, the idiots that run the legal system expect you to sit around on your ass until they are ready to ask you stupid questions.
I've been an avid ebay-er since 2004-ish. I havent bought any expensive electronics or gadgets etc. Most expensive thing I've bought is a refurbished iPod so that I could break its insides and see how it worked etc. A side project for a class of mine. Apart from that, all other transactions have gone on hitchless.
Hence, it comes to me as a surprise that so many people have been frauded on that site. I've been tempted to buy electronics though, especially memory sticks/flash drives but then I thought "If i happen to get a wrong amount of memory, I have no way of proving my case that I havent switched it out with a smaller memory size and am now complaining to make a profit.". This point alone has kept me from bidding on stuff like that.
Maybe Im being cautious but the last thing I want to do in an age such as ours is send money to someone who I know off the internet.
The Amazon 'marketplace' seems to be as full of fake memory stick/flash cards and who knows what else as ebay, and Amazon seem to have just as little interest in cleaning it up as ebay. If you do buy a card from these clowns, find the serial number and stick it into google, chances are if its a fake it'll appear on a forum post.
The only people I ever met that sell on ebay got busted for stealing phones and ipods from major retailers to sell there they got caught in the act but as far as I know never got any grief from ebay slimy light fingered teenagers and more con men than you can shake a mouse at. I wouldn't buy anything off the site.
My gut tells me there's more to it than just impatience. If he was there to testify, I'm sure he was on the line with eBay legal at least once a day, and wouldn't leave without their say so. Plus I'd bet money that all ticketing is done through the eBay travel department.
Approval would be needed, if not direct instructions to hop a plane.
Did someone worry that if he was to testify it may set a precedent that would require representatives hopping all over the globe to get sworn in. Or maybe someone decided that they didn't want "on the record" testimony that could come back and bite them in the ass someday.
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Strange, on one side the Record industry are trying to shut down P2P networks as some users choose to do illegal things on it.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/25/triesman_isps_music/
If the same was to follow, should eBay be closed down as some users choose to be be bad boys and girls.
What next, close the road network as this would stop people speeding.
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Arrest a voluntary witness?
It's bad enough being arrested as an involuntary witness.
The Judge's thoughts on turning the plane around remind me of Doctors.
"last month we had 213 people didn't turn up for an appointment".
What they didnt say was that "we, the Dr's didnt turn up on time for the other 1637 appointments that month either "
Which is odd considering the 213 vacant appointments.
Courts are no better.
It depends. Of course you're likely to get defraued, especially on tech items, but look carefully at the auctions and the sellers. If you don't try to buy 16GB flash drives and stick to other, stuff you'll be fine. I've been on eBay since 2004, I have 100% feedback for over 150 transactions, and recently I bought a nice pair of 1957 sixpence cufflinks for somebody who just turned 50, as well as a book from the same year (in as-described condition) and I've also bought spare hinges and some memory for a laptop. Yes, I've had very small defraudings most times (usually on mis-described items), and in those cases, about 75% have been genuine sellers willing to do an exchange or return.
Yes, the world is full of fraudsters, but please don't make it easier for them by being a brainless twat. Use a little common sense (and staying away from the .com and .co.uk sites helps, although try getting a .de seller to post outside of Germany... ouch).
The vast majority of them seem to be "I was scammed, so eBay is crap". Has no-one ever explained that anectodal evidence proves absolutely nothing at all? The worst is the person who claimed that "eBay fraud is more the rule than the exception". Funny that - I have a feedback rating of 300+ with no negs or neutrals, and I have only had reason to give out a neutral rating twice (and no negatives). Doesn't sound like the rule rather than the exception to me. And I tell you what, the proportion of good experiences I've had is significantly BETTER than my experience in most retail shops.
You've got to remember where you're shopping. If you go down the local market, you don't expect the same sort of experience as you get at Harrods.
Honestly.
If you want to stop getting defrauded then just use your credit card via the paypal service. It is what I do. Any problems and the money is not returned, speak to your credit card company. Paypal would then have to fight with the seller to get their money back and you can be guaranteed it will be the only time they will try - when they, not you, are out of pocket.
=============
To Neil Weller,
No, you are wrong. England Scotland and Wales is Great Britain (or after successive useless governments, Britain). Add Northern Ireland into the mix and you get the United Kingdom (or UK). Ignore the passport - it is wrong.
"You've got to remember where you're shopping. If you go down the local market, you don't expect the same sort of experience as you get at Harrods."
Never a truer word said. Ever since Fayed took over Harrods has turned into an Egyptian bazzar selling mainly overpriced tat for tourists, maybe he's a bit homesick. Local markets offer much better service and quality.
Its been generally a good experience for me bar one thing when i bought a stereo for 150quid, didn't receive it, opened a dispute thing in pay pal and got 50quid back. Ebay is going to have to pull its socks up before the general public decides that it is too much of a risk and goes elsewhere (unlike the brilliant minds who read elReg who already know this...se above).
Can I just say to the twat who came out with "Nah, the PSNI wouldn't pick him up. They are too busy harrassing teachers who talk in the "leprachaun language"." You are an idiot. You and your type deserve to be on the wrong end of a baton round for such biggotry.
Someone purchased an item from me on ebay, I was suspicious of the purchase (looked like a stolen credit card), unconfimed address (deliberate spellling mistake?). I refunded the purchaser and relisted. Ebay warned me for doing this?
Basically you have to sell to anyone no matter how dodgy they look, you can't refuse or you may get suspended. No online retailer would send you an item if they thought you were using a stolen card, so why is it different on ebay?
"The Amazon 'marketplace' seems to be as full of fake memory stick/flash cards and who knows what else as ebay..."
Believe me if anything Amazon is a lot worse. I check Amazon for games for the kids and if there is a limited edition AND special edition you see LOTS of the cheaper one advertised as the more expensive one in the marketplace.
What makes me laugh is the fact that if you go to the proper amazon site you can buy the more expensive one for about half the cost of marketplace.
"If you look at your passport and look at the correct manner of saying it we are the "UK and Northern Island"."
Er, you're thinking of Great Britain. The UK is the larger body. But I have to wonder where this witness thinks he is living? Despite the pretty shoddy experience, if it had been me I would at least have informed the court of my intention to leave. The implication of the report is that he just bunked off.
That's just impolite, and we don't behave that way in Blighty. I'm shocked. I think the rozzers should nip round to his place one dark night and extract an apology.
Just thought I'd add my name to the list of people who have been defrauded on eBay, and I would encourage everyone with a similar experience to do the same to help reveal the true scope of the problem.
In my case, the seller never shipped and was soon delisted, but neither eBay nor PayPal responded (beyond the initial acknowledgement) to my repeated requests for an update of the status/resolution of my claim. Fortunately the amount was small.
@Neil: Actually, if you check your passport, you will find that Northern Ireland is indeed part of the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". So UK yes, GB no.
Er, no - a UK passport says "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
Great Britain = England Wales and Scotland
United Kingdom = England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
British Isles = England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland
It's amazing how many British people don't know the distinctions. I blame the education system, when I were a lad etc etc.
I've been on ebay since Jan 2002, I have bought & sold, all over the world.
I have only 1 neg feedback against me and that was in retaliation so I don't
think it counts.
The American buyers make things interesting as they don't understand I'm
not living next door to them and can't figure out what "£" means.
Selling to Americans' is usually entertaining
My Buying Tips
1> Always check out the feedback of the person you are buying from,
2> Always compare with others selling the same thing
3> Always wait, never buy on impulse
4> Always read the description FULLY
I'm currently toying with the idea of selling a 42" Rear Projection TV
I don't consider it a risk to sell or buy high value items from Ebay
AS LONG AS YOU ARE CAREFUL !!!
I'm sure that a lot of folks use Ebay very honestly. We do so ourselves. But I was saddened to hear some time ago of an individual in a large IT support company who pulls all of the trashed, changed-out, hardware out of their skip and advertises it as being in perfect working order. Personally I would be very wary of any hardware sold there.
I've had one bad experience where a deadbeat seller was uncontactable, sold a part I'd won to another eBayer and was generally an arse. I'd paid by PayPal and the dispute was found in my favour (I'd kept all emails, along with communications with the other eBayer who got what I'd actually bid for).
So long as you switch your brain on and don't do totally dumb-ass things like use money orders, then you should be OK. I also back PayPal with a credit card rather than a back account as that gives me even more protection.
I normally buy motorcycle parts, DVDs and classic PC parts, so maybe I'm just lucky in that the people I trade with tend to be enthusiasts.
@Neil Weller - we're technically the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - so NI is included in UK, but not GB, regardless of what your passport might say.
I'm with Martin Benson on this. I've had a flawless experience with ebay, in excess of 180 successful transactions all with 100% feedback. The fact is most people that have commented will have done so because they wanted to moan about the fact they've been defrauded. The ones who haven't had problems mostly can't be bothered to pipe up. You're going to get exceptions of poor customer service no matter which shop you buy from, be it Harrods, John Lewis, dabs.com, ebuyer, ebay, Currys, etc etc. No where is perfect.
"You've got to remember where you're shopping. If you go down the local market, you don't expect the same sort of experience as you get at Harrods."
I think it's all the same, the only difference is the likely level of overcharging. The last time I bought food in Harrods it was rotten, the last time I bought a new pen on eBay it was second-hand.
Sorry Neil, your off on that one.
UK Passport actually says:
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Great Britain is Scotland, Wales and England.
The United Kingdom is therefore Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and England.
Northern Ireland is part of the UK.
The Judge however was correct, since the Ebay employee had left one country, England and traveled to another (N.Ireland). We are after all a United Kingdom, of many countries. - And this explains why there are English, Welsh, Scottish, and a Northern Irish football teams, rather than just a UK Team.
Note, not British Team, since this would imply Great Britain
Actually you are correct. The UK is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. If you look at your passport and look at the correct manner of saying it, it is the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". Great Britain is the mainland-y bit (plus the odd island like the Isle of Wight).
Paul
Trust me, just dealing with German eBayers INSIDE Germany can be a hassle :) Never mind outside it...
But then, I've never had a nasty experience with anything bought here yet. Some memory I bought from the US site was another matter though.
It's very much a case of caveat emptor and using common sense anyway... the same would apply to going to a car boot sale or street market really. With large purchases I only deal with people close enough to me that I can go and see it, test etc, pick it up and pay cash.
If they refuse to allow in-person transactions, walk away. Simple.
To summarise, some people are almost asking to be ripped off.
Actually, I've had no problems with individual item sellers, people selling on second-hand stuff, where I have had issues is with large eBay shops. These are professional businesses and as such I do expect them to apply a minimum level of professional care. The reality is eBay protects them - if you look at the dispute process, the shop can suspend your account and even after you provide proof of purchase the help from eBay is zero to the buyer and all geared towards the shop. And scamming is even easier if you keep the amount below the eBay fraud threshold. Sure, £18 is minor, but if you scam a few hundred people the same way then eBay simply ignores several hundred victims because the individual amounts are below the threshold, and ignores the whole amount which equates to a major fraud.
And as to the eBay employee - tough if you got bored. This si the whole eBay attitude - it's not my problem, I can't be bothered to help. I'm sure he'd feel different if he was the one being ripped off.
Do you actually live in the UK?
Great Britain is England, Scotland and Wales. The UK includes Northern Ireland.
The Passport actually says "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". (image http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/e/e1/Ukpassport-cover.jpg)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uk:
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the U.K., or Britain)[7] is a country[8][9] to the north-west of mainland Europe. It comprises the island of Great Britain, the north-east part of the island of Ireland and many small local islands
Nope, wrong!
Northern Ireland is not in Great Britain (which consists of Scotland, England and Wales).
Northern Ireland is in the United Kingdom.
The full title of the UK is "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland"
(government) web page explaining it : http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Gtgl1/GuideToGovernment/AboutBritain/DG_10012517
I really have to wonder why so many people are getting scammed on ebay, or if it's really a case of just a tiny, but vocal, minority shouting.
I've bought hundreds of things off ebay in the past, ranging from Lego, to computer bits, to craft supplies for my wife, and have yet to get scammed...not sure if I've just been lucky, or if I'm just more cautious than most people, but I suspect it's more a case of caveot emptor.
I've certainly had consistently better service from people selling on ebay than I've had in some high street stores.
PS - Reg - please get rid of these crappy icons.
Neil Weller, I suggest YOU look at your passport. N.I. is not a part of Great Britian, but it is a part of the United Kingdom.
You will find that your passport reads "United Kingdon of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" - the UK is the combination of NI and GB.
-- Pete.
hehe, shows that most of us are educated after all.. Bet neil is cowering now, either that or hes buggered of and will never know how big the hornets nest he stirred was....
now back to the topic... I aint been scammed on ebay but I have had to wait 2 weeks for an item being sold with buy it now! thats a rip off if I wanted to wait till the end of the auction i would have just bid.. flippin nusances.. tsk tsk...
I have been actively using ebay since 1999, and over the course of several hundred transactions have had very few problems. Where the occasional item has not turned up, I have eventually recieved satisfaction fro the seller or Paypal.
The thing that I hate about ebay is the abuse of the feedback system. I know of one seller who recieved a huge number of negative feedbacks, including one from me. His immediate response is to neg the buyer, purely out of spite. The result is the innocent party gettig tarred with the same brush as the shyster.
I have only had one bad ebay experience as a seller when a winner of a bid said he would not pay as I did not take paypal at the time - he had not read the listing properly and did not trust me (his words) with £5 even though I have 100% rating and I am a private seller of 'my old stuff' - no problem, I sold the item to the next bidder. I decided against marking him down as I suspect he was the kind of stupid idiot who would have retaliated.
As a buyer I always check before I buy/bid if the seller allows you to collect the goods. If the seller does not or will offer no addres - I smell a rat. Also anything over £50 I would not dream of paying for without seeing it first. Pretty basic stuff this.
I always offer local collection on sales even thoguh 99% of the time people live too far away for the item or it is to cheap to worry about.
From 7pm yesterday through 10am today, nothing but people telling Neil Weller that he's an idiot. Come on Reg... either get these comments moderated more rapidly or let existing users post without needing moderation. These comments are crap as a result.
If anyone actually cares about the UK/GB/NI things any more, check out the British Isles Venn diagram... http://qntm.org/uk
> From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uk:
> United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the U.K., or Britain)[7] is a country[8][9] to the north-west of mainland Europe. It comprises the island of Great Britain, the north-east part of the island of Ireland and many small local islands
Which just goes to show the dangers of thinking that Wikipedia is accurate, and that it can be used as a reference... wrong, and wrong.
"... is a country..." - no, it comprises a number of countries, i.e. England, Scotland, Wales, and a province, i.e. Northern Ireland.
"...It comprises the island of Great Britain, ... and many small local islands..." - no, because by any grammatical interpretation, this is stating that the "many small local islands" aren't in Great Britain, and clearly they are (there are many hundreds of these in Scotland alone, although I will concede that the owners of illicit whisky stills probably argued for years that the Excisemen had no jurisdiction over them...).
... Involved nothing electronic, but it involved the eBay claims process that took 6 months to complete.
The rule on eBay is CAVEAT EMPTOR. If it appears too good to be true, then it usually IS. A laptop for £50? Unused? Yeah right.
When I SELL on eBay I only accept PayPal, I get a proof of posting, and I make sure the item gets there by generally using tracking. When I BUY on eBay, I make sure they accept PayPal, so that I can dispute a transaction if it's fake.
So far I have yet to be disappointed, although eBay themselves are worse than the sellers ON eBay (as evidenced with my 6 month long claim).
Now the geography lesson is over, anyone else want to whinge about being ripped off? boo hoo poor you!
If you were in ebay's shoes, would you go out of your way to help and protect the thousands of idiots out there who really do believe they're getting an iphone for £50?
The best thing ebay could do is have a compulsory IQ test when registering, sub 120...no account for you!
That's funny, both the UN and the EU recognise the UK as a country. England, Scotland etc are constituent countries of the United Kingdom.
"The word country does not necessarily connote political independence, so that it may, according to context, be used to refer either to the UK or one of its constituents."
Although wikipedia does contain inaccuracies, it has been shown to be largely as accurate as many other sources.
Of course, if you think the above article it wrong, feel free to edit it yourself.
In the geographical sense, Great Britain is the largest Ireland of the British Isles. The small Islands are a part of the British Isles, and the UK, but not Great Britain.
Right, that's enough politics and geography. It's after midday on a Friday and I'm not in the pub yet....
If you use Ebay to buy second hand tat, you're generally ok. But don't go buying new kit thinking you're getting a bargain.
The online marketplace is very cut-throat with profit margins at rock bottom. If you see a product cheaper than play, tesco online, amazon, 7dayshop, scan and all the other major players, you have to ask if it's too good to be true.
Paypal updated their T&C a couple of years ago and sent an email asking me to confirm that I agreed with the new ones. The new T&C consisted of 19 PDFs and a shedload of pages. I don't have time to wade through that amount of crap just so that Paypal can claim immunity for anything they do, so I decided to close the account. The "close account" section of Paypal's website refused to work because I hadn't agreed to the new T&C. It took a couple of months to get that sorted out.
Stop being such moronic parts, saying its peoples own fault for getting scammed. Fair enough you have to be careful, however the matter of fact is, that eBay as the company offering the auction services should ensure that everything is above board, just in the same way if you went to a shop and went wow that Rolex is cheap bought it and found out its fake you would expect to get your money back. Have you never heard of false advertising companies can be sued over it. So in the same way if someone is lying about what they are selling they should be ousted shamed and made to return the money. Perhaps there should be a new system where payments are held in papal until the product arrives (all mail would be sent recorded delivery) the user then has a day or so to check it out and if dissatisfied return it (again recorded delivery) before money is taken out/returned. This would benefit papal in more ways than one as they could use the money much in the same way banks do with your savings until it’s needed! Also id likes to add shut the hell up about the UK passport :|
Well a crdit card isn't always worth it. If the item is cheap, they won't pay out (in one case [the last time I owned a credit card in fact] I was told that I could persue money back through the courts. Pointing out that I could do that without a credit card too so why should I use them didn't change their tune).
Using PayPal doesn't work either (the escrow option) since they don't consider themselves a bank, so if your money goes AWOL, you're stuffed again.
Oh, and I reckon that ebay should be responsible for goods undelivered. If the good doesn't turn up (and is proven to be paid for) then ebay should get the goods instead. OK, so some protection of ebay against people abusing this to get cheap goods and scamming them will be needed.
Its makes me smile when people whine about getting ripped off on ebay, I use the following rules and have never had a problem.
Rule 1 If the deal looks too good to be true then it is a CON!
Rule 2 see rule 1
Call me cynical but if something it being sold new for less than 80% of the cheapest online price i can find ( google products is a gem!) then its a scam!
For second hand kit i never pay more than 50% of the new price, never spend more than £50 and never buy stuff from outside the UK. A good rule of thumb is if they use a stock pricture then its a con, if its photographed on the kitchen table / desk then atleast the item might exist!
I also steer clear of any listing that seems to be very carfully worded to give the impression that something works, without actually saying so. The old " i don't have the charger so can't turn on the phone to check it" ploy usually means its been dropped in the bath or something and is totally knackered! another good one is "powers up but can't seem to make calls etc" oh so its been stolen and is blocked from the network then?
It makes me giggle when i watch muppets bid over the new price of things like phones and ipods, when they don't realise they have absolutly no protection from being ripped off!
WTF has eBay got to do with GP appointments, but to correct your point:
The doctors were probably late for all the other appointments because they were waiting for those that didn't turn up! Besides - when you see a doctor, do you expect them to keep checking the stopwatch and kick you out after exactly 5 minutes? Some patients need more time than others.. so might you one day, but I don't suppose you mind making others wait just as long as you get your full appointment.
If I was buying something as expensive as some people seem to get ripped of by, I would definatly be doing more research and probably going to pick it up myself?
I'm another one of those that has 200ish positive transaction under my belt, both selling and buying. (books, Lego (yeah me too!) model railway stuff, even low value jewellery stuff) One thing got lost in the post (it was delivered to my work PO box and the tracking showed it as being signed for by the person that collects the mail, but I never got it. Not the sellers fault)
I've bought from Germany, never had a problem getting them to deliver to me, but they don't like PayPal and IBANs are stupidly expensive from the UK so I usually just send cash (yes real Deutchmark/Euro notes!). It always worked out OK.
What we need is a set of standard El Reg comments that the moderator can add automatically, as required by the content of the article, for example:-
Mention of eBay or PayPal: I bought a 25Gb memory stick from a seller in China for £1.50 and it was only 256Mb, eBay told me to get lost, thieving scumbags.
Mention of the RIAA: the music companies are a) all that stands between us and a future without music b) a bunch of thieving scumbags.
Mention of P2P or AllofMP3: people who use them are a) leading the revolution in the way we consume music b) a bunch of thieving scumbags.
Mention of any part of the UK: last time I looked <place> was in The United Republic of Turkmenistan and Outer Mongolia. Oh no it isn't. Oh yes it is.
Mention of any problem with Windows: I don't have these problems as I use Apple/Linux. Steve/Linus is having my baby, MS are thieving scumbags.
Anything on music by Andrew Orlowski: Why don't you allow comments, you .. you ...you girl?
I'm a long-term eBayer with >200 feedback and 100% positive. I've had some great bargains and I've sold stuff I would have otherwise thrown away. I've only had to leave negative once. I've had three disputes, all successful. So what are the Secrets Of My Success?
Don't trade outside the UK
Only use PayPal or cash on collection
Don't buy from low feedback/poor feedback sellers
Check feedback is for meaningful transactions, not penny ebooks
Read ads and small print carefully, ask questions even if they're stupid
Avoid cheap commodity items
When you sell, get proof of delivery or at least of posting
Assume the worst about everyone and cover yourself, but...
Treat everyone with respect - communicate politely and frequently
eBay/PayPal will only help if everything is black and white - so make sure it is
Neil Weller - you've had your 15 minutes. Not as good as being Paul Weller eh?
Title says what I think on how you can deal with Ebay issues.
The court system would of allowed the Ebay employee to make a sworn statement before a judge - call affidavit(sic) iirc.
Also a video link via videoconferencing would be doable as all courts have at least a ISDN link enabling a Videoconferencing link afaik.
The date would of been set, so if the ebay employee wants to blantantly risk the wrath of the courts, then he did the right thing.
Most Judges I've seen and dealt with are very down to earth bottom line - take no shit types. Think pensioners in supermarkets - they know what they want, they know how to get it and how it should be done - mess with any of that and they will not hesitate to tell you and put you in your place.
So why oh why did this Judge not get the employee back on the plane at least - my faith in judges is wondering here as we expect British judges to be arragant to the truth and fact that he didn't makes more news than had he got the plane turned around.
Should of tried the case in France - then he would be guilty until proved innocent. though personaly I so prefer (as would alot of Judges) the Scottish system of Innocent/guilty and the extra verdict of not-proven for when the Jury would be on the fence and a default not guilty would prevail.
Can have a burglar come to court and have 3 previous cases against him but if he had 50/50 evidence yet you suspected he was guilty in the UK he would go free yet in Scotland he would get a not-proven.
Anyhow - Ebay transactions pay VAT and as such whilst alot of people moan and complain that fact gives you alot more rights than you thought. I see a future in online transaction legal companies soon. Least get them away from silly patent land perhaps and prove more valuable to the world community as a whole.
But bottom line:
1) you paid VAT
2) Ebay brokered the transaction
3) Ebay has UK based office
boils down to take Ebay to court and let them waste there time and stress on catching the crooks. Maybe then they will take it as seriously as they subscribe too.
..but frauds do happen. After 100 happy trades - mainly tech stuff - I bought a "new" laptop. Except it wasn't new. Seller was passing off used (but recent) stock as "new" - hence jacking up price by 20%. A nice scam if you can run it. A trawl through seller's history showed that he had this nasty habit (as well as having multiple online identities). I followed all eBay's permitted dispute procedures. Got nowhere with them. Got neither help nor interest from eBay. Finally got my money back from seller by threatening recovery through the courts.
But eBay themselves were utterly useless. Their own feedback records showed that this guy had been ripping buyers off for an age. They didn't want to know. They didn't want to help. They didn't want to shut him down. Let's face it: eBay's interests (more sales = more commission = more profits) are in direct conflict with users' interests (remove fraudsters = fewer sales). So why would eBay care?
Ah well. Caveat emptor.
"...eBay as the company offering the auction services should ensure that everything is above board, just in the same way if you went to a shop and went wow that Rolex is cheap bought it and found out its fake you would expect to get your money back..."
This analogy isn't terribly accurate, as eBay isn't the entity that sold the item.
If you used an IRC channel to allow people to bid for your item, would it make any sense at all to hold the IRC server responsible if you scammed the buyer??
Should I be able to hold the government responsible for my traffic accident, as it was they who paved the road thus giving my car and someone else's the opportunity to collide??
Earlier this week, most Reg readers were perturbed that the tv-links guy was hauled off, being as he's just the middleman, providing the means, and was not the actual purveyor of goods. Now you want to point the finger at eBay??
Furthermore, if I agree to host a tupperware party in my home, for my friend who sells the stuff, you buy stuff from them, but they never deliver, is it MY responsibility??
How many other examples do I need, to show how completely stupid it is to blame eBay for the shady actions of some of its users??
Just to balance things up a little, I've been buying computer parts, peripherals and consumables from all over the UK, Europe and the States for years with only one memorable incident which eBay handled satisfactorily.
(I bought a set of reference manuals, only to receive an unmarked CD containing badly scanned PDFs of said manuals. eBay stomped the guy pretty quick.)
The only people I've ever had an real problem with are the bloody freight companies who mess you about with deliveries, and worst of all UK customs who charge extortionate duty on the imagined value of second hand goods (aided and abetted by the afore mentioned freight companies who simply pay the fee and then hold your goods hostage until you give up querying the fee and pay up).
a few hangups and glitches in communication, all sorted out tho thru the sellers and buyers. Only two serious problems, one of misrepresentation which the seller actually cleared up when i started asking legal questions:) and one scam where I lost $20. After thousands in transactions in both directions, things have been pretty decent.
been using PayPal the whole time too.
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