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criminal fraud use of this site
How many people have been scammed by criminals who use this platform to post items they do not actually have to sell? I have had $364 sitting on a Visa for an item the seller literally messaged me through the eBay messaging system that he'd just post them again and in 10 minutes have someone else's money. eBay says in however many days we'll figure out if they are going to cancel this meanwhile, the money is sitting on my Visa! So now I've disputed the charge with Visa and eBay says they've cancelled my cancellation request? What in the world why would you make this an active transaction if you know the charge is being disputed. I used eBay for years, back in the day before it became overridden with criminals now I'd say it's buy at your own risk...
eburtonlab
Mentor3 years agoOnce you dispute a payment with your credit card, eBay can no longer help you as the matter is totally out of eBay's hands in the hands of your card issuer.
Had you waited, you could have instead used eBay's money back guarantee policy to get a full refund for items that did not arrive or that were not as described.
In general, you can avoid a lot of headaches by choosing to purchase only from established sellers that have recent and past positive feedback as a seller for selling items in the same category that you intend to buy. If someone is selling a dozen apple watches, but has no feedback, or only has feedback as a buyer, or only has feedback for selling dress patterns or fishing lures (actual examples I have seen), perhaps wait until they have a track record of positive feedback for selling electronics before you buy from them.
You might miss out on a good deal from a new seller once in a while, and nothing can guarantee that you won't still run into an issue anyway, but you can avoid a lot of potential problems by choosing to do business with established sellers. Anyone can put together a listing that looks nice -- it is not hard at all to simply copy an existing listing -- but it is much harder to create a history of consistent sales and positive feedback.
For more experienced sellers, you can learn a lot about the sort of seller you are dealing with by checking the seller's feedback page to see where the seller is registered and to notice if the seller has any negative feedback. If you see negatives indicated in the table of recent feedback, you can choose to exclusively see each type of comment by clicking on the numbers shown in the table. Reading negative or neutral comments can often tell you if a seller has a pattern of problems with items not matching the descriptions, canceled orders, late deliveries or item location misrepresentation.
If a seller has a pattern of too many serious negatives -- or just not enough positive history -- it is often better to find another seller with a better track record to do business with.
If you have made a purchase from a listing that you think may be suspicious:
Typically you have to wait until the last estimated delivery date has passed to start an Item Not Received claim on eBay; if the seller is removed and eBay does not send you a message about that, and if you can no longer find the item in your Purchase History or the Help page, you can start a similar process through your PayPal account (if you used PayPal) or through your credit card or other payment source. There are various deadlines that have to be met at each stage, and you must take care not to make more than one claim about a single transaction through eBay or PayPal or your funding source at a time or your claim may be dismissed.
If the seller actually ships something (but not your item) and can provide a tracking number that shows delivery, you must file a Significantly Not As Described claim (and typically return the item), as a valid tracking number that shows delivery would cause you to lose an Item Not Received claim. There are other scams that involve shipping an item to another location in your zip code which can complicate matters further.
If possible bookmark the seller's feedback page so that you can monitor that to see if the seller's account has been removed from eBay, just in case the item listing disappears.
thekennedyzone
OP3 years agoI've done 100s of transactions on eBay and don't need a lecture on how to avoid scams. eBay on the other hand needs a better process of vetting whether or not an item is legitimate. A seller should maybe be required to have 10 minimum positive transactions before they are allowed to post items over a certain threshold. Looking through the listings for the item we purchased, nearly 80% are criminals. They are sellers with fake eBay handles with 0 positive feedback all selling the exact same item. This is a problem with eBay not my buying practices. To say it should be the burder of the buyer to sit with this item on their credit card for 2 weks while eBay finds their left and right hands and decides to get on board with calling something a fraudulent post meanwhile that buyer is accruing interest in some cases on their credit card every day that item sits on the card. Not in my case, but a lot of people are in that situation. You also can't get to a live human being at eBay to explain how and when they are addressing any problem you are having. In a nutshell buyer beward on this website, that is the short answer.
eburtonlab
Mentor3 years agoLooking through the listings for the item we purchased, nearly 80% are criminals. They are sellers with fake eBay handles with 0 positive feedback all selling the exact same item.
It sure sounds like you could have saved yourself a lot of frustration by vetting your sellers yourself rather than relying on eBay to do so.
I do not disagree with you that eBay could do more to quickly identify and remove some obvious scam listings or to prevent new sellers from listing expensive items, but no matter how quickly eBay acts, scammers will still be able to hijack accounts of existing users and edit listings to promote scams, so it makes some sense for users to protect themselves rather than totally relying on eBay to do that for them.
This is a problem with eBay not my buying practices.
If you don't think eBay is doing enough -- and it sounds like we both think that -- then it follows that buyers need to be more proactive than eBay to protect themselves, not less. If eBay's standards do not exceed or even meet your own, you need to be more vigilant than eBay currently is to protect yourself if you want to avoid having to wait for a refund for what you now seem to recognize was an entirely obvious and easily avoidable scam.
If you believe that a seller should not be able to list an expensive item without a certain amount of past selling history, why would you then choose to buy an expensive item from a zero feedback seller with no demonstrable history?
If there are more experienced sellers selling the same item, buy from one of those sellers instead. And if there are no experienced sellers selling the same item at the same price point, you should ask yourself why that is.
gosimus
Mentor3 years ago@thekennedyzone
< I've done 100s of transactions on eBay and don't need a lecture on how to avoid scams >
Not a lecture, just advice. I understand you're smarting – emphasis on the "ing" – from recent events, but that was an unworthy response to the excellent advice that @eburtonlab gave you. The responders on this forum are volunteers who get nothing in return for their service, and you were lucky enough to get answered by one of the, if not the, best ones on site.
< In a nutshell buyer beward on this website, that is the short answer >
The buyer should beware on all websites, that is the shorter answer.
< disputed the charge with Visa and eBay says they've cancelled my cancellation request >
You have to let the eBay dispute play out before initiating a dispute elsewhere. It's virtually never necessary to go to another venue, but when it is, the sequence is: first eBay, then PayPal (if that's how payment was made), then the credit card company.