I want to start out by saying that the ONLY reason I am posting this is as a WARNING to anyone who thinks eBay will protect their account in any way from retaliatory activity, and to TAKE PEOPLES' ADVICE ON HERE AND USE A SECOND ACCOUNT FOR BUYING!!! Here is my almost month long ordeal of dealing with a real, live psychopath on eBay.
Sorry in advance for how long this is, because of all the twists and turns and how long it's been going on:
Anyway, here goes. October 29th, purchased a listing for some Microsoft software I planned to resell on eBay. A few minutes later, my order was canceled. Sent email asking why my order was canceled, and promptly received brusque reply: "I don't sell to resellers". OK, based on my experienced, that is 99% proof he is selling counterfeits. I replied back to that effect and did not hear anything back.
Against my better judgment, later that afternoon, I left negative feedback to the effect of "seller canceled order with bogus excuse, probably selling fakes, F-".
A couple hours later that same evening, received a order of one my cheapest store items (older version of Adobe Photoshop Elements for 19.99 with free shipping). Let's say your ship to name on your buying side of eBay was your business name, like Acme Inc, instead of using your personal name. Well, this brand new buyer's ID was basically "AcmeIncsuucks" (looks like he threw a couple extra U's in there to avoid profanity filters). The only way for him to have gotten that "Acme Inc" name was to have sold something to me, namely that order he canceled earlier under his main seller account ID.
So anyway, I knew what was going on now (obviously). I waited, and then shortly afterwards, he requested a cancellation, which I granted. I think what he was planning was to order an item, request and get cancellation, and then leave negative feedback. Apparently he was unaware that this is not allowed when the buyer initiates the cancel request, but he learned quickly, as he never tried it again.
That ID was suspended at some point, I believe by eBay's automated systems (not by a real person).
Over the next week, using his REAL first name every time and a variety of made up last names, he proceeded to order more Elements software and have them ALL shipped to the same address, which was the address on that "AcmeIncsuucks" ID as well, btw. He wasn't even trying to hide, truth be told. He was just trying to avoid auto suspensions from eBay's system. For example, let's say his name was Fred. Well, one of his buying ID's used the name "Fred Frederick". He works at a subsidiary of a very well known, large HMO in Minnesota. Several of his ID's used last names made up from his company's name, like "Fred Humana", for example. The phone numbers were all just stolen out of the yellow pages, some of them from local business a couple miles from where I live. He also even used personal info like my LLC name in one of his buyer ID's.
On top of that, two of those ID's had positive feedbacks left buy the same seller that stated "won and never paid". The other three ID's had penny auction positive feedback from the SAME SELLER in NY, some jewelry dealer. Like I said, he wasn't even really trying to hide what he was doing.
At this point, I pretty much knew what was going to happen and I was talking to eBay constantly in a state of panic. All the reps said don't worry, we know what's going on, we agree this is not right, we'll take care of it. Needless to say, after "AcmeIncsuucks" was suspended, NO other action was taken on his made up accounts.
I want to point out that not all of these accounts were brand new ones. I believe two of them were literally 5 years old, like he kept them in storage in case he needed to wreak havoc with anyone.
So then the return requests started. All of them claiming the item was counterfeit, all written in the same manner (as if by the same person, obviously). Five in total. I was talking to eBay supervisors and reps several times a day. All said we're taking care of it, we're filing reports with Trust & Safety backend, etc etc. At one point, a supervisor actually got TWO of his buying ID's suspended, ONLY TO HAVE THOSE ID'S GET COMPLETELY REINSTATED A FEW HOURS LATER.
Also, around this time, HE GOT THE FEEDBACK I INITIALLY LEFT REMOVED, and I got a WARNING for feedback extortion (!!!). All the people I spoke to at eBay could not tell me why it happened except to say it should not have happened and the feedback I left was totally fine and compliant with eBay rules.
Around now, I got three escalations on three of those returns, all of which were naturally approved minutes later. He never even had to send these ones back, just got a full refund to his fake accounts and kept the items.
The chilling thing about these returns was the cordial, almost conversational tone in the buyer messages. Like you were talking to someone at the coffee stand you buy coffee from every morning. The returns even used phrases like "good evening". It distinctly reminded me of a movie where the bad guy is very polite and cordial until he slits someone's throat because of some minor thing they did to displease him.
I had it at this point. I hired an attorney and had a cease & desist letter created and mailed to his work address (where he was having the fake buyer ID's registered), and his actual home address, which wasn't hard to find. I also consulted a harassment attorney in case more action was needed. Total cost for this: $1600.
I did this to prevent negative feedbacks from being left, and it worked. He didn't do any of that and didn't create more ID's, but he did persist on the returns and got one more escalated (I did not approve that one because one supervisor said that particular return wouldn't be covered anyway under buyer protection, but it was bad info).
So yep at this point, NO ACTION has been taken against any of these ID's, they are all still active and very obviously the same person (even a two year old could figure this out). My warning to you all: EBAY DOESN'T GIVE A FLYING YOU KNOW WHAT. 3k in fees every month and they just let this psychopath do whatever he wants while they lie to you on the phone and promise to take action and take care of it. About the only think eBay actually did was remove the defects for the escalated cases.
So yep I've talked to what seems like every single person at eBay, I have escalated to a dozen different "backend" departments, I have reached out to eBay's social media team (of course, they promised an investigation etc etc). Not a single thing has been done so far, all his ID's are perfectly fine as far as I can see. Ironically, if you google the ID that started all this, the one I bought from, the only result that comes up is a blog post warning people not to buy from him because he sells fake USB flash drives.
Regards,
