Why are so many eBay sellers scammers???

[lord_vadus]

Why are there so many scam artists on eBay nowadays? I made the mistake of buying an item from a seller that turned out to be a scam. The seller's listing promised to ship the item 24-72 hours after payment, and next thing I know, I'm waiting the ridiculous two week wait to open an eBay case because the item never gets shipped. What sucks, is at the time of purchase, the seller had ZERO negative feedbacks, there were no red flags at all, and the item price wasn't even suspiciously cheap. Of course, a week after I purchased the item, the seller starts getting dozens of negative feedbacks for never shipping items...

After two weeks when I am finally able to open a case, eBay wants to give the seller an additional week to respond to the not received case. A lot of good that will do when the seller won't reply to my messages as it is when I ask when my item will be shipped. So, my money gets tied up for THREE WEEKS in the process. Why does eBay give scam sellers so much time and make you wait two weeks to begin with to open a case when the item is never even marked as shipped? You try to open a case early and eBay says "Your item is on the way, check back if it doesn't arrive by (date 2 weeks from purchase)" That's ridiculous when it hasn't even been marked shipped.

At least on other platforms, if your item isn't shipped within 3 days you can request a refund. Ebay could really stand to adopt that policy. Also, it's amazing how many times an eBay seller can rip off people before Ebay actually decides to ban them. And what, I wonder, are these sellers hoping to accomplish by taking your money and never shipping the item? I have never understood this practice, yet I have ran into far too many sellers that turned out to be scammers.

[mudshark61369]

@lord_vadus,

  "What sucks, is at the time of purchase, the seller had ZERO negative feedbacks, there were no red flags at all, and the item price wasn't even suspiciously cheap".

So the seller had a 100% rating, but did you actually check their feedback profile page?   The seller could have a fair number of feedback and a 100% rating, but if they have not sold anything in over a year, or at all.  The payments they receive may be on hold (until they prove reliable) and they do not know how to deal with it. 

Not every scammer lists items with a low or too good to be true prices. On the feedback profile page, if you know what to look for, you might see indications of the account having been hi-jacked.

Indications on the feedback profile page:

• The account was created several years ago.
• All but one or two feedback are over a year old.  The most recent one(s) are for purchases made in the last 6 months or year.
• There may be no feedback or few for selling. If there are selling feedback it is not for items like the one being sold, and usually not for multiple quantity available items.
• Possibly a few recent sales but for unrelated inexpensive items.