What is Ebay doing to combat scammers?

[chaidragonfire]

I've been an ebay seller/buyer since 1999, and until the  past 2-3 years I've never had any problems.

I've always been fair minded in giving newbies a chance, but it seems you cannot trust anyone with under 100 ratings anymore.   

This is the 3rd time I've purchased something in the past 2-3 years that I never received, and when I tried to contact the seller, they have deleted their accounts off ebay.

I don't order from any territories outside of the USA or Canada, but I know a lot of these scammers lie about their location.

What is ebay doing to combat scammers becoming such a problem on ebay?  

[reallynicestamps]

This is the 3rd time... I never received,

Did you open an Item Not Received Dispute in the Resolution Centre at the bottom of this page?

If the seller cannot prove delivery (not shipping, delivery) you will be refunded .

If the seller does not  refund voluntarily and promptly, eBay will refund you and go after the seller for the money.

The seller then gets a Defect on his selling account.

Defects lead to restrictions in the number and value of listings allowed, higher fees, and if the behaviour continues, closed selling accounts.

and when I tried to contact the seller, they have deleted their accounts off ebay.

No.

EBay closed the account.

It takes a member several months to close their account while eBay waits for all open transactions (including fee payments) to complete.

And that's what happens to scammers.

I don't order from any territories outside of the USA or Canada, but I know a lot of these scammers lie about their location.

There are scammers in North America too.

Many  overseas sellers keep their products in North American warehouses* because it makes delivery faster.
Many  N. A. sellers give a  US location for goods that will be shipped from overseas.

It's the latter who are breaking eBay's rules.

* In a twist on the "US warehouse" , many Canadian sellers will ship from nearby US post offices, either carrying parcels across the border themselves or using a freight forwarder.  The cost of shipping via Canada Post is high enough to make the forwarder's fees well worthwhile. The location of the goods is given, properly, as the  US post office they are dropped at.

[chaidragonfire]

The question remains............

What is ebay doing to combat scammers.........if anything?

[mudshark61369]

@chaidragonfire,

"The question remains... What is ebay doing to combat scammers......if anything?"

reallynicestamps answered that question already. Depending on the situation they sanction and/or remove bad sellers.  Because millions of new items are listed daily on this site, there is no way they can vet each seller or item.  They have to be reactive in terms of catching and removing the scammers.

  "I've been an ebay seller/buyer since 1999...  I've always been fair minded in giving newbies a chance, but it seems you cannot trust anyone with under 100 ratings anymore".

It is nice of you to give newbies a chance, since ebay's policies make it very hard for many of them to even get off the ground as sellers. It was a lot different back when you started, since the majority of sellers back then were individuals, not mega sellers. 

There some things you can do to spot scammers before running into problems. The first is to look at each seller's feedback profile before buying from them.  Things to watch out for are;

All but 1 or 2 feedback being over a year old, and the recent ones for purchases.

No or few selling feedback, and those are over a year old, and likely have no connection to the items they currently have listed.

On the listings:

A very good to too good to be true price.

Multiple quantities of an item or items, or an expensive item.

An extended delivery time frame 10+ days for a domestic item, well over 30 days for foreign items.

A No Return policy.

Use of stock photos only, and/or possibly a few shots of an item that leave a lot of detail out. If you know how to do a reverse photo look up, you may find the photo(s) are from another listing.

One or two of the items in the above lists, could be a new or inexperienced seller. Three or more means DANGER Will Robinson!!

.

[mopata]

If the scammers are in China, ebay is doing 3 things - Zero, Zip and Nada. Only if enough buyers get burned and file INRs within the time allowed will Ebay eventually take some notice. Even if they show a US location, a long expected delivery time is a good indication that they are somewhere else and increases the likelihood that the Buyer will miss the deadline. Avoid Sellers that show expected delivery dates longer than a couple of weeks.

[monster-deals]

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@chaidragonfire wrote:

The question remains............

What is ebay doing to combat scammers.........if anything?

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That depends on if you are talking about buyers or sellers and  before, during or after.

The answer pretty much is the same...little or nothing.

[scga912]

Sellers cannot delete their accounts willy-nilly.  They have to submit a request.  If they had a sale within the past 30 days of that request, it takes an additional 60 days to have it officially closed.

If the seller is off eBay and you cannot contact them and that timeline hasn't passed, then eBay did something about it and booted them.