Fraud feedback: Solution Proposed

[lte_owner]

Hi Everyone,

My name is Jim

I'm new here to ebay.  On my first day, I posted a few ads, and got three people that wrote me expressing some interest in my offers.  I replied to them right away but got no response in return.  I then began to search for these customers and found little to go on.  One appeared and disappeared, another had no activity for a month from what I could see.  The first two that wrote me came pretty close together and both from St. Louis MO.  I found it all a bit suspicious.  The next step was to look into fake buyers and found that ebay has a history of fake buyers and sellers, which lead me this morning to learn more about fraud here on ebay.

Well, I found that there were posts from some very upset sellers who had been victims of fraud, and learned that ebay and Amazon protects and supports the buyers much better than the sellers.  This imbalance is extremely detrimental to both platforms by destroying the sellers confidence.  This kind of mentality is good for ebay and Amazon by attracting ambitious sellers trying to grow a business, and it offers a free for all for thieves.  The eventual outcome is, both platforms fail, while counting your money, and the thieves walk away with your products and we the sellers are left with our bills and ruined reputations, no?

What would you say to a solution like this?  Keep in mind, this is an open discussion, a brainstorming if you will, process.

What if there was a clearing house as it were between the buyers and sellers.  An escrow account of sorts that would be an intermediary to hold funds for clearing of passage from the buyer to the sellers, and to act as a receiver of goods from the sellers to the buyers.  In my view, this would serve the sellers to both store and ship products and to prove both description and functionality, a quality control center of sorts to protect the sellers and buyers from fraud on both parts, and to ensure payments are made successfully to the sellers for their wares.

Let's begin shall we?  What are your thoughts, I'm intrested to hear responses from both buyers and sellers.

Thank you.

[18704d]

Exactly,

There's thousand and tens of thousands of different type items in different categories.

This clearinghouse would need experts in everything from artwork to coins to mechanics.

And how would they test electrical items?  Phones? Tvs?  Boot up each computer and make sure it fully functions?

Lynn

[bonjourami]

A newbie drop shipping expensive laptops..what could go wrong here?

[lte_owner]

Thank you both for your input on that subject.  I think that does help by putting it more in perspective.

[rustydalmatian]

Your proposal would make eBay an "All Sales Final....NO EXCEPTIONS" site.  eBay would be out of business in less than a year.

[sockmonkeydave]

@lte_owner

I don't sell hand bags, but I have read here that a seller has a high end bag.

They take it to the dealer (or buy it from the dealer)

and get a certificate that it is the real deal.

The buyer could keep the item, and return a fake.

with electronics, people swap the insides of items.

If someone wants to scam you, it is real hard to prevent.

[lte_owner]

You're right of course.  I'm just looking for a better way for everyone to protect themselves.

[18704d]

And after the 30 days that eBay gives buyers,

Paypal allows buyers 180 days of protections.

That means sellers aren't safe, even if eBay had this system.

Because bad buyers could still turn to Paypal (who hasn't seen the item) and even their own bank.

Lynn

[pburn]

@lte_owner

Also, keep in mind that you'll (probably) never see a thread started for a perfectly successful transaction. For one thread about a transaction that's gone badly, there are maybe thousands or hundreds of thousands that have been completed smoothly. The discussion boards are a place where, among other things, unsatisfied or unhappy buyers and sellers come to sound off or seek advice.

Dear fellow eBayers:

Last month, I sold a widget to a buyer who paid immediately and had their address entered correctly into PayPal. I packaged it up and shipped it the same day, with the tracking number uploaded. The package was delivered in a timely fashion, and the buyer left positive feedback.

Any comments?

Signed,

A Satisfied eBay Seller

[lte_owner]

thank you Lynn,

Does anyone have any suggestions to help the situation?  

[jolking-0]

There is no way to help the situation. If a scammer wants to hit you they're going to hit you.

For every step sellers can take to protect themselves scammers can take five more steps to hurt someone.

What I recommend doing is starting a second PayPal account. Then for every successful sale you make take a couple of dollars from that sale and move it into your secondary PayPal.

If you have a bad transaction you can move the money back out of your secondary PayPal into your primary to cover the bad transaction.

This is called self insurance or cookie jar insurance and many sellers do it.

[lte_owner]

I know that the system works most of the time, i'm not suggesting that the system is hopelessly flawed, but the problems still exist.  I just wanted to open a round table to hear what others thought of this issue and to hear suggestions on how to keep everyone safe, as best as possible that is.

In every circumstance things inherently can and will go wrong, nothing is perfect, but if we ignore obvious issues, things only get worse over time.

[lte_owner]

That's a good common sence idea.

[lewisburggold]

All ebay has to do to protect sellers is back up no returns.   No returns period.  Thats how we protect our sellers.  If you buy it its yours.   Thats what we see anyway.  Any scammers we have delt with are finding loopoles through the returns prosess and ebay has nothing to protect us and has continued to allow scammers to do so.    Were fighting for no returns ever.  This will solve a very large problem.  Then ebay can weed out the shady sellers and make everything fun again.  Best regards

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

So buyers are supposed to be sitting ducks for fraud? Buyer buys an iPhone and is sent a brick and Ebay says too bad, so sad, it's a final sale?

Yeah, that's not going to happen. There is no way to get around the law with substantial breach of contract. If the seller sends a SNAD item they violated the contract and everything goes back to the buyer.

[jolking-0]

---

@lewisburggold wrote:

All ebay has to do to protect sellers is back up no returns.   No returns period.  Thats how we protect our sellers.  If you buy it its yours.   Thats what we see anyway.  Any scammers we have delt with are finding loopoles through the returns prosess and ebay has nothing to protect us and has continued to allow scammers to do so.    Were fighting for no returns ever.  This will solve a very large problem.  Then ebay can weed out the shady sellers and make everything fun again.  Best regards

---

If eBay did that nobody would ever buy here again. That would make this site ripe for scam sellers to sell any piece of junk they wanted to and and the buyer would have no recourse.