RAMPANT FRAUD THROUGHOUT EBAY! EBAY COMPLICIT, DOES NOTHING TO STOP THIS.

[ericxmp]

Fraud has been a part of ebay since it's inception.  It's something that is unavoidable from time to time since this relies on independent sellers.  However, ebay is over 20 years old and has had ample time to implement methods to combat this.  THEY HAVE NOT.   Do a search for Apple items right now.  Search for AirPods Pro, for instance.  When looking at "Buy it now" listings, you will see many many offerings from zero feedback or near zero feedback sellers.  I assumed, perhaps, these were from those scumbags who looted stores in the name of BLM justice, so I avoided those sellers.  It may be unfair to some because when selling, we all start at zero, but there is history here.  More on that in a bit.  I found what appeared to be a decent deal and it was from a seller with 100% and 58 feedback at the time.  It has been well over a week and with the item due "Wednesday to Friday", tomorrow looms and there's no tracking, no replies from this seller.  He has been racking up the negatives in the past few days.  In late May, I went on the search for an iPhone 11 Plus Max.  At the time, I was strong with the understanding that again, everyone starts somewhere and so I jumped on a good deal for a used iPhone, great condition, zero feedback seller.  It turned out to be fraud.  I then searched again, found one from a 300+ 100% feedback seller which also turned out to be fraud!  Through both of those, I was stuck in the wait.  I couldn't proceed to purchase another item because there was no telling if something was wrong on the seller's end with the craziness going around and perhaps it would eventually ship.  I was ready to just go to Apple and buy it, but again, what if it ships in the meantime?  Through the time of being unable to file a dispute until the day after the last day it shows for an arrival date to having to wait 5 days for the seller to reply to the dispute to ebay looking into it and taking their sweet time to decide, I went nearly a full month in buyer purgatory, basically payment hijacking and selling terrorism.  When this issue came up with the AirPods, that was the final straw.  3 fraudulent sales in 5 weeks?!  And as I said, I could look through listings with these zero feedback sellers using generic stock photos and have literally HUNDREDS of fraudulent purchases in a day.  HUNDREDS.  Ebay does NOTHING to dissuade this.  What other legitimate marketplace can one go to and fear fraud when making a purchase?  What other legitimate marketplace can one go to and have to literally research every possible detail wondering "will I actually get this item or am I going to have to fight to get my money back"?  This is 2020, not 1994 and the beginnings of internet commerce.  This past purchase, I used my ebay bucks reward along with my ebay MasterCard reward to truly make these AirPods Pro a wonderful deal.  The sale was July 2.  I'm stuck waiting until Saturday to file my dispute, which will be July 11.   Ebay will then give the thief 5 more days to reply, which he obviously will not.  July 16.  They will then look into it themselves and it will be July 18 or 19 before I'm finally given my refund.  I have to wonder when my ebay bucks and MasterCard reward will be given back as well.  Even if it's that day, that's a full 17 days, SEVENTEEN DAYS for resolution so I may then try to hunt for a legitimate listing.  I asked ebay to take my years of history into account, my perfect 100% feedback with many sales and my many high dollar purchases to simply use good judgement and courteous customer service in issuing me back my ebay bucks and mastercard reward so I may make a new purchase NOW, not wait another 10 days.  The reps at ebay showed no care, just generic words and no support.

Hello Eric,

Thank you so much for reaching out to us today. I first just want to take the time and apologize that you have to be dealing with such situations here on the site. It sounds like it has been a frustrating 5 weeks for you. I want to look over everything and see what we can do to get this resolved for you.

I want to be completely transparent with you and let you know that what you are asking for is not a resolution we can get to by the weekend. The latest estimated delivery date is this Friday. At that point we could go through and create a case for you. We can't go through and just change the time frames. I wish that I could but in a situation like this. Its not one that we would allow.

I have gone through and submitted a report for you on this seller. If anything changes on their account then we could possibly look at creating a case then. I do apologize about that Eric. I wish that I had a better answer for you on this. I do appreciate your patience and your understanding on this matter.

Thanks,

Troy

eBay

And another  -

Hello Eric,

We appreciate your response. We understand this is a very frustrating situation. Although we are not trying to make you feel as if the dollar amount of the item you purchased, we simply can't change policy for each member on eBay.

At this time, the earliest we can open a claim for you is going to remain the same. We know this isn't the answer you were expecting but we wish you the best on your future transactions.

eBay Concierge

They're putting a small amount of money in front of our 8 year long relationship.  It sounds like time for a break up!

**** UPDATE *****

As I write this, the seller posted tracking info for the AirPods Pro.  It simply has tracking, no proof of the post office having possession of a shipment.   I wonder if this is his attempt to gain even more time, hijacking my payment and giving him more time to make off with all of his fraudulent sales profits.  

[u_cant_take_it_with_u]

.... and there seems to be a select type group of buyers, who are targeted more than any other genre....

[eburtonlab]

@Anonymous 

Don't vent on the buyer, when you shop at a store you expected the store to be regulated to keep thieves out. That is Ebay's responsibly; screening the sellers. Telling this buyer too bad, because that is just the way it is, is ridiculous. Laughing at a buyer who gets deceived is callous; If is is as easy as you say Ebay should have no problems screening sellers. Their are great sellers hidden in a den of thieves.

Re-read exactly what I wrote. There was no "venting", "laughing" or "telling this buyer too bad".

Whether you find it ridiculous or not, users that rely on eBay to "screen sellers" will continue to run into problems.

Neither of us thinks that eBay is doing enough. Given that fact, it is in a buyer's interest to do the screening that eBay is failing to do.

[jocol_994]

Ebay is now back to "Buyer Beware" and "Seller is always right", like they were in the beginning before they realized they were going the way of Yahoo Auctions. I have stopped buying on Ebay. It's too shady, there are too many scammers.

[worldwide*local*guy]

I agree there is rampant fraud on eBay. You can find some good deals, but you have to be so careful... it sucks. On Amazon, I've hardly had any issues at all. You buy it, you get it. I would have to imagine that Amazon sellers aren't allowed to make too many mistakes. But here on eBay it seems like the scam sellers just keep on going day after day.

[corvettestainless]

@drkenb 

So all I have to do is get 10 of my family and friends to purchase 2 items from you, then post false negative feedback, and you'll be removed forever?? and I've successfully eliminated my competition? 

That's why feedback is not used to determine if you should still be a seller here or not. 

[drkenb]

"Feedback is no longer used by Ebay for evaluation because it is subjective. Buyers leave negatives because packing peanuts were not all the same color, the UPS guy left their package in the rain...ridiculous stuff like that should not count against a seller's metrics."

No-one is saying that sort of thing should count.  The point is that eBay doesn't look at feedback when they should.  Is there no one at eBay intelligent enough to be able to sort valid complaints from silly inane complaints?  eBay sure knows how to electronically evaluate messages and pull out offending (to eBay) text - why can't they also do that for feedback?  The answer is simple: they could but they elect not to.

"Also, a lot of those types of accounts you see could very well be old and established accounts that were hijacked after going dormant for a period of time."

Purely conjecture.

"The only way to shut down sellers like that is to report the listings and file the proper cases, keep up with them and escalate to Ebay at the appropriate time."

That statement is fantasy.  First, you can report repeatedly and nothing is done.  And please don't give me that eBay marlarky that "we do respond but we can't tell you what we did for privacy reasons."  What a crock.  When you report the same seller over and over and you see their account remains active and they are allowed to continue to sell, THAT speaks volumes.  Second, why should buyers bear the burden of policing eBay when it is eBay's resposibility to do so.  eBay takes 10% of item cost AND S&H, soon to be 12.35%, and you want to rely primarily on users to report abuses?  That is asinine.  Its a real easy thing to disallow a seller to sell on eBay: eBay has access to the personal information of every seller.  Accounts can have a flag set for "seller/buyer" or "buyer only".  Once a seller is kicked off eBay (for legitimate reasons of course), any attempt by that seller to get back on eBay with a different account is flagged by the system as a "buyer only".

eBay is, in my opinion only, more concerned about how to increase profits than it is policing its system.  Every decision made in the past 10 years has been toward that single goal.  Not one has been toward effectively reducing if not totally eliminating bad sellers.  No one is talking about the ocassional dispute between buyer and seller - stuff happens.  But when a seller is repeated accused of "not as described" there is a problem that eBay needs to address seriously.

I know you're just doing your job to defend eBay, but until eBay seriously addresses the real problems here, it will continue to loose customers.

[valueaddedresource]

---

@drkenb wrote:

"Also, a lot of those types of accounts you see could very well be old and established accounts that were hijacked after going dormant for a period of time."

Purely conjecture.

I can confirm that is not just conjecture.  I have personally reported over 50 such hijacked accounts that are being used in a triangulation fraud scheme which lists products for sale on eBay, then places an order on a legitimate retail site to "drop ship" to their eBay buyer using stolen credit card information. More info here. 

I can also confirm that reporting such things to eBay is pointless.  I have been doing so for over 4 months.  Ebay has dragged their feet, allowed the fraud and compromised accounts to continue, shuffled me to multiple departments and done just about everything possible to avoid any responsibility or accountability.

[7606dennis]

---

@valueaddedresource wrote:

---

@drkenb wrote:

"Also, a lot of those types of accounts you see could very well be old and established accounts that were hijacked after going dormant for a period of time."

Purely conjecture.

I can confirm that is not just conjecture.  I have personally reported over 50 such hijacked accounts that are being used in a triangulation fraud scheme which lists products for sale on eBay, then places an order on a legitimate retail site to "drop ship" to their eBay buyer using stolen credit card information. More info here. 

I can also confirm that reporting such things to eBay is pointless.  I have been doing so for over 4 months.  Ebay has dragged their feet, allowed the fraud and compromised accounts to continue, shuffled me to multiple departments and done just about everything possible to avoid any responsibility or accountability.

---

I'm curious as to how you can confirm that the alleged hijacked accounts that you've reported are actually hijacked accounts being used in such schemes.  Do you have actual evidence in each of the over fifty cases you have reported?  While I agree that such a scheme has undoubtedly been used, I'm not quite understanding how you have gained proof of this in over fifty different cases.

I'm also curious as to how you can personally confirm that the reporting of you suspicions is pointless since I don't believe eBay shares their actions taken against members with other members, including those submitting reports, owing to privacy concerns.  Frankly, I find your claim to be able to confirm that eBay is complicit if fraudulent activities to be somewhat dubious.  

[valueaddedresource]

@7606dennis  - I understand your desire to see proof and I sincerely hope one day I am able to share more of what I have publicly.  Unfortunately, at this time certain contractual agreements, the rules of this forum, and the fact that there are open complaints with state and federal authorities regarding these issues prevent me from sharing that kind of in depth information here.

I have investigated deeply, consulted with cyber security experts who have experience with this type of fraud, personally spoken to eBay buyers who purchased from some of these fraudulent listings as well as to users whose accounts have been hijacked and used for fraudulent buying and selling (some even had store subscriptions added to their account without their authorization), and spoken to a website owner who sells in a different category than us who has also recently been targeted by the same type of fraud.

I also have documentation to back up my assertion that eBay has allowed the fraud to continue for months after being presented with this information and when contacted by authorities regarding one of my complaints, they have buried the issue in bureaucratic policies and special departments.

I would not say any of these things if I was not confident in the data I have collected and the documentation I possess.  I understand that you may not be inclined to take my word for it and that what I am limited to saying here may not convince you or anyone else.  Everyone is certainly free to disregard some or all of what I have posted.

I choose to share what I can, even knowing some will doubt and question my credibility, simply because I believe eBay users should be made aware that this is happening. If it helps even one person, then it is worth it to me.

[valueaddedresource]

As far as eBay complicity in fraud, I would also point to the payment diversion fraud that occurred on eBayUK in early 2019 where user accounts were compromised and fraudsters changed the payment email addresses on a few listings to siphon money off to different PayPal accounts.  More info here

eBay has been aware of that particular type of fraud now for at least a year, and yet they haven't widely warned sellers about it and haven't done something as simple as create a system to notify users when the payment email has been changed on a listing, which has resulted in at least one reported case I am aware of here in the community of this same fraud hitting a US seller very recently.

You can argue over to what degree eBay is complicit in these situations, but personally I believe once they became aware of it, they had a responsibility to warn their users and take meaningful action to mitigate the possibility of it happening again.

While they may not be able to stop every way possible for an account to be compromised, they can and should learn from these situations and put systems in place to identify, notify (both Trust & Safety and the user), and stop future attempts at the same fraud.

I don't personally believe they have lived up to that responsibility in regard to that payment diversion fraud or the triangulation fraud that I have reported.  Again, everyone is free to make their own determinations, I am just trying to bring attention to what I believe are some important issues regarding fraud and account security on eBay.

[ubcensored]

femmefan1946
Re: RAMPANT FRAUD THROUGHOUT EBAY! EBAY COMPLICIT, DOES NOTHING TO STOP THIS.
in reply to ubcensored 07-10-2020 02:54:26 PM

Amazon? Well, they're not an auction site.
Neither is eBay, which is an advertising venue. Only about 15% of listings are auctions,

...................................................................................................................................................

I'm curious now.  What are the other 85% of listings?