eBay employee 'torpedos' fraud trial

EBay really don't seem to care that much about fraud

eBay could do a lot more to stop fraud.

An example I'm personally familiar with is memory stick cards. I bought a 4Gb card which turned out to be a fake. The seller had a good reputation but the card was a phony. I found out when I tried to copy 4Gb of stuff to it and it broke at 256Mb. The sad thing is that people don't bother with this simple test and so these conmen build up a good reputation. It takes a good while until the complaints catch up. Then eBay belatedly shut them down but not before they've opened another store.

I expect fraud is so rampant in certain types of item such as memory sticks that eBay should really tack a big warning notice to every sale informing bidders how to tell bogus items, how to report frauds etc. Winning bidders should be reminded of this info a week or two afterwards as well. Anything to force these stores to be shut down sooner than they've been able to get away with so far.

Some kinds of auctions should be banned entirely. Search for "wholesale list" and witness the utterly deceptive practices used. You will see hundreds of items that at first glance appear to be selling TVs, laptops, trampolines etc. for cents. But they're not, they're tagging their wholesale list with a picture of those items but your buying a worthless email. eBay could effectively snuff out this scam by banning pictures and confining wholesale lists to a text only section with strict rules on the sale.

Do they do this? Nope. And that's just two examples. I'm sure there are many more. eBay could be doing a lot more to stamp on fraud and the fact they don't gives the appearance that they really don't care that much unless it's reported to the police.

Typical... nothing turns up via ebay!

Marvelous isn't it... ebay blah.. blah about fraud protection and we look after you and they can't be bothered to turn up at the trail. Like alot of things on eBay... you order it and it doesn't bloody turn up.

I lost 560.00 to fraud, ebay, gave me 75.00 to ease my pain.

They don't help what-so-ever, they did not call the police, issue warrents, or anything, though they knew the names and addresses of the sellers.

Time someone taught these half wits a lesson

No, I'm talking about the lawyers and judges - not Ebay.

If this guy came in on Sunday it was because he was told he would be required on Monday. I can totally understand him getting annoyed and deciding to piss off after two days waiting.

I work with a guy that had to give evidence in a trial like this, the idiots that run the legal system expect you to sit around on your ass until they are ready to ask you stupid questions.

typical ebay business practice

As long as they get their listing fee and final value fee they are not interested in doing anything about fraud. Tens of 1000s of fraudulent, fake, misrepresented items are on sale now. Hurry, go and bid so you can make a scammer and eBay shareholders richer.

eBay fraud

I've been an avid ebay-er since 2004-ish. I havent bought any expensive electronics or gadgets etc. Most expensive thing I've bought is a refurbished iPod so that I could break its insides and see how it worked etc. A side project for a class of mine. Apart from that, all other transactions have gone on hitchless.

Hence, it comes to me as a surprise that so many people have been frauded on that site. I've been tempted to buy electronics though, especially memory sticks/flash drives but then I thought "If i happen to get a wrong amount of memory, I have no way of proving my case that I havent switched it out with a smaller memory size and am now complaining to make a profit.". This point alone has kept me from bidding on stuff like that.

Maybe Im being cautious but the last thing I want to do in an age such as ours is send money to someone who I know off the internet.

Amazon are not much better

The Amazon 'marketplace' seems to be as full of fake memory stick/flash cards and who knows what else as ebay, and Amazon seem to have just as little interest in cleaning it up as ebay. If you do buy a card from these clowns, find the serial number and stick it into google, chances are if its a fake it'll appear on a forum post.

Stupid judge

To even consider diverting a full plane load of passengers for a witness who turned on a voluntary basis is complete stupidity.

There is some ridiculous tosh in the comments here...

The vast majority of them seem to be "I was scammed, so eBay is crap". Has no-one ever explained that anectodal evidence proves absolutely nothing at all? The worst is the person who claimed that "eBay fraud is more the rule than the exception". Funny that - I have a feedback rating of 300+ with no negs or neutrals, and I have only had reason to give out a neutral rating twice (and no negatives). Doesn't sound like the rule rather than the exception to me. And I tell you what, the proportion of good experiences I've had is significantly BETTER than my experience in most retail shops.

You've got to remember where you're shopping. If you go down the local market, you don't expect the same sort of experience as you get at Harrods.

Honestly.

A credit card is your friend

If you want to stop getting defrauded then just use your credit card via the paypal service. It is what I do. Any problems and the money is not returned, speak to your credit card company. Paypal would then have to fight with the seller to get their money back and you can be guaranteed it will be the only time they will try - when they, not you, are out of pocket.

=============

To Neil Weller,

No, you are wrong. England Scotland and Wales is Great Britain (or after successive useless governments, Britain). Add Northern Ireland into the mix and you get the United Kingdom (or UK). Ignore the passport - it is wrong.

@Harrods

"You've got to remember where you're shopping. If you go down the local market, you don't expect the same sort of experience as you get at Harrods."

Never a truer word said. Ever since Fayed took over Harrods has turned into an Egyptian bazzar selling mainly overpriced tat for tourists, maybe he's a bit homesick. Local markets offer much better service and quality.

For Neil Weller

Follow your own advice and look at your passport. You clearly didn't. Of course Northern Ireland is the United Kingdom.

It's the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain being England, Scotland and Wales

@ Neil Weller

Actually, that's the wrong way round. The full title is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Great Britain = England, Scotland and Wales.

@Neil Weller

D.A. is correct. My passport says 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'.

@ Neil Weller

Neil, did you get your passport off a Kiwi on eBay???

My passport is United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.... not Northern Island...

Ebay have stupid practices

Someone purchased an item from me on ebay, I was suspicious of the purchase (looked like a stolen credit card), unconfimed address (deliberate spellling mistake?). I refunded the purchaser and relisted. Ebay warned me for doing this?

Basically you have to sell to anyone no matter how dodgy they look, you can't refuse or you may get suspended. No online retailer would send you an item if they thought you were using a stolen card, so why is it different on ebay?

re: Amazon are not much better

"The Amazon 'marketplace' seems to be as full of fake memory stick/flash cards and who knows what else as ebay..."

Believe me if anything Amazon is a lot worse. I check Amazon for games for the kids and if there is a limited edition AND special edition you see LOTS of the cheaper one advertised as the more expensive one in the marketplace.

What makes me laugh is the fact that if you go to the proper amazon site you can buy the more expensive one for about half the cost of marketplace.

What is the country coming to?

"If you look at your passport and look at the correct manner of saying it we are the "UK and Northern Island"."

Er, you're thinking of Great Britain. The UK is the larger body. But I have to wonder where this witness thinks he is living? Despite the pretty shoddy experience, if it had been me I would at least have informed the court of my intention to leave. The implication of the report is that he just bunked off.

That's just impolite, and we don't behave that way in Blighty. I'm shocked. I think the rozzers should nip round to his place one dark night and extract an apology.

@Neil Weller : NI *is* in UK

but not in Great Britain...

It's "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" (not Island...)

Rampant fraud

Just thought I'd add my name to the list of people who have been defrauded on eBay, and I would encourage everyone with a similar experience to do the same to help reveal the true scope of the problem.

In my case, the seller never shipped and was soon delisted, but neither eBay nor PayPal responded (beyond the initial acknowledgement) to my repeated requests for an update of the status/resolution of my claim. Fortunately the amount was small.

@Neil: Actually, if you check your passport, you will find that Northern Ireland is indeed part of the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". So UK yes, GB no.

Neil Weller

Er, no - a UK passport says "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

Great Britain = England Wales and Scotland

United Kingdom = England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

British Isles = England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland

It's amazing how many British people don't know the distinctions. I blame the education system, when I were a lad etc etc.

To Neil - NI is in UK

Neil, Northern Ireland is in the United Kingdom; the unity you described is known as Great Britain. Look are the passport again (if you have UK one), it is "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

It just seems to bring out the worst (in) people

I'm sure that a lot of folks use Ebay very honestly. We do so ourselves. But I was saddened to hear some time ago of an individual in a large IT support company who pulls all of the trashed, changed-out, hardware out of their skip and advertises it as being in perfect working order. Personally I would be very wary of any hardware sold there.

UK

Sorry, Neil, you're wrong. It's "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", England, Scotland and Wales being on the larger of the 2 islands that make up the British Isles.

@NI not in the UK

Er yes it is, even if some people wish it wasn't. Our passports say "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". England+Scotland+Wales = Great Britain. Great Britain+Northern Ireland = UK

No real problems

I've had one bad experience where a deadbeat seller was uncontactable, sold a part I'd won to another eBayer and was generally an arse. I'd paid by PayPal and the dispute was found in my favour (I'd kept all emails, along with communications with the other eBayer who got what I'd actually bid for).

So long as you switch your brain on and don't do totally dumb-ass things like use money orders, then you should be OK. I also back PayPal with a credit card rather than a back account as that gives me even more protection.

I normally buy motorcycle parts, DVDs and classic PC parts, so maybe I'm just lucky in that the people I trade with tend to be enthusiasts.

NI

@Neil Weller - we're technically the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - so NI is included in UK, but not GB, regardless of what your passport might say.

I'm with Martin Benson on this. I've had a flawless experience with ebay, in excess of 180 successful transactions all with 100% feedback. The fact is most people that have commented will have done so because they wanted to moan about the fact they've been defrauded. The ones who haven't had problems mostly can't be bothered to pipe up. You're going to get exceptions of poor customer service no matter which shop you buy from, be it Harrods, John Lewis, dabs.com, ebuyer, ebay, Currys, etc etc. No where is perfect.

eBay and Harrods

"You've got to remember where you're shopping. If you go down the local market, you don't expect the same sort of experience as you get at Harrods."

I think it's all the same, the only difference is the likely level of overcharging. The last time I bought food in Harrods it was rotten, the last time I bought a new pen on eBay it was second-hand.

@ Neil Weller

It's not UK and Northern Ireland its "United Kingdon of Great Britain and Northen Ireland" so NI is in the UK. Different legal system though like Scotland and England.

@Neil Weller

Actually I think you'll find that we are in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I.e. UK is made of GB and NI.

For neil NI is in UK

The term United Kingdom is short for "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" I can't remeber which act of paralment is revelvant but you can see the usage on loads of sites e.g. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uk.html

United Kingdom

Actually NI is part of the UK - "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". "of" not "and".

@ Jasgon Togneri

Trust me, just dealing with German eBayers INSIDE Germany can be a hassle :) Never mind outside it...

But then, I've never had a nasty experience with anything bought here yet. Some memory I bought from the US site was another matter though.

It's very much a case of caveat emptor and using common sense anyway... the same would apply to going to a car boot sale or street market really. With large purchases I only deal with people close enough to me that I can go and see it, test etc, pick it up and pay cash.

If they refuse to allow in-person transactions, walk away. Simple.

To summarise, some people are almost asking to be ripped off.

Why does my comment need a flippin' title?

I really have to wonder why so many people are getting scammed on ebay, or if it's really a case of just a tiny, but vocal, minority shouting.

I've bought hundreds of things off ebay in the past, ranging from Lego, to computer bits, to craft supplies for my wife, and have yet to get scammed...not sure if I've just been lucky, or if I'm just more cautious than most people, but I suspect it's more a case of caveot emptor.

I've certainly had consistently better service from people selling on ebay than I've had in some high street stores.

PS - Reg - please get rid of these crappy icons.

UK

@Neil Weller

Wrong. Great Britain consists of England, Scotland and Wales.

Then there is "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" which is what is says on the front of my passport.

So, NI is not part of GB but is part of UK.

Not all fraud, but some

I've done a bit of eBaying. So far I've had one fraud - some bloke sending me a dodgy CD-R instead of the actual software I'd ordered. I got my money back off him though. But I reported it to eBay AND to FAST - no response from either. Ho hum.

Moderation queue...

I think Neil Weller just got pwned, there must have been a lot of messages sat in that mod queue!

In fairness,

I have been actively using ebay since 1999, and over the course of several hundred transactions have had very few problems. Where the occasional item has not turned up, I have eventually recieved satisfaction fro the seller or Paypal.

The thing that I hate about ebay is the abuse of the feedback system. I know of one seller who recieved a huge number of negative feedbacks, including one from me. His immediate response is to neg the buyer, purely out of spite. The result is the innocent party gettig tarred with the same brush as the shyster.

eBay checks

I have only had one bad ebay experience as a seller when a winner of a bid said he would not pay as I did not take paypal at the time - he had not read the listing properly and did not trust me (his words) with £5 even though I have 100% rating and I am a private seller of 'my old stuff' - no problem, I sold the item to the next bidder. I decided against marking him down as I suspect he was the kind of stupid idiot who would have retaliated.

As a buyer I always check before I buy/bid if the seller allows you to collect the goods. If the seller does not or will offer no addres - I smell a rat. Also anything over £50 I would not dream of paying for without seeing it first. Pretty basic stuff this.

I always offer local collection on sales even thoguh 99% of the time people live too far away for the item or it is to cheap to worry about.

I got ripped off because I deserve it....

Now the geography lesson is over, anyone else want to whinge about being ripped off? boo hoo poor you!

If you were in ebay's shoes, would you go out of your way to help and protect the thousands of idiots out there who really do believe they're getting an iphone for £50?

The best thing ebay could do is have a compulsory IQ test when registering, sub 120...no account for you!

Paypal

Paypal updated their T&C a couple of years ago and sent an email asking me to confirm that I agreed with the new ones. The new T&C consisted of 19 PDFs and a shedload of pages. I don't have time to wade through that amount of crap just so that Paypal can claim immunity for anything they do, so I decided to close the account. The "close account" section of Paypal's website refused to work because I hadn't agreed to the new T&C. It took a couple of months to get that sorted out.

re: If eBay were a P2P network they would be shut down ?

Nope.

P2P crime costs money for big corporations*.

eBay fraud makes money for at least one big corporation.

* yeah, yeah, I know; but it's not me making the laws.

@Neil Weller

Look what you've started here...

A typo on his passport? Or a piece of dirt?

Maybe his says 'United Kingdom of Great Britain, and Northern Ireland' ?

Oh, and the icons just have to go.

credit cards and ebay

Well a crdit card isn't always worth it. If the item is cheap, they won't pay out (in one case [the last time I owned a credit card in fact] I was told that I could persue money back through the courts. Pointing out that I could do that without a credit card too so why should I use them didn't change their tune).

Using PayPal doesn't work either (the escrow option) since they don't consider themselves a bank, so if your money goes AWOL, you're stuffed again.

Oh, and I reckon that ebay should be responsible for goods undelivered. If the good doesn't turn up (and is proven to be paid for) then ebay should get the goods instead. OK, so some protection of ebay against people abusing this to get cheap goods and scamming them will be needed.

Ebay

Its makes me smile when people whine about getting ripped off on ebay, I use the following rules and have never had a problem.

Rule 1 If the deal looks too good to be true then it is a CON!

Rule 2 see rule 1

Call me cynical but if something it being sold new for less than 80% of the cheapest online price i can find ( google products is a gem!) then its a scam!

For second hand kit i never pay more than 50% of the new price, never spend more than £50 and never buy stuff from outside the UK. A good rule of thumb is if they use a stock pricture then its a con, if its photographed on the kitchen table / desk then atleast the item might exist!

I also steer clear of any listing that seems to be very carfully worded to give the impression that something works, without actually saying so. The old " i don't have the charger so can't turn on the phone to check it" ploy usually means its been dropped in the bath or something and is totally knackered! another good one is "powers up but can't seem to make calls etc" oh so its been stolen and is blocked from the network then?

It makes me giggle when i watch muppets bid over the new price of things like phones and ipods, when they don't realise they have absolutly no protection from being ripped off!

How do you get scammed by so much?

If I was buying something as expensive as some people seem to get ripped of by, I would definatly be doing more research and probably going to pick it up myself?

I'm another one of those that has 200ish positive transaction under my belt, both selling and buying. (books, Lego (yeah me too!) model railway stuff, even low value jewellery stuff) One thing got lost in the post (it was delivered to my work PO box and the tracking showed it as being signed for by the person that collects the mail, but I never got it. Not the sellers fault)

I've bought from Germany, never had a problem getting them to deliver to me, but they don't like PayPal and IBANs are stupidly expensive from the UK so I usually just send cash (yes real Deutchmark/Euro notes!). It always worked out OK.

Using El Reg icons makes you impotent

What we need is a set of standard El Reg comments that the moderator can add automatically, as required by the content of the article, for example:-

Mention of eBay or PayPal: I bought a 25Gb memory stick from a seller in China for £1.50 and it was only 256Mb, eBay told me to get lost, thieving scumbags.

Mention of the RIAA: the music companies are a) all that stands between us and a future without music b) a bunch of thieving scumbags.

Mention of P2P or AllofMP3: people who use them are a) leading the revolution in the way we consume music b) a bunch of thieving scumbags.

Mention of any part of the UK: last time I looked <place> was in The United Republic of Turkmenistan and Outer Mongolia. Oh no it isn't. Oh yes it is.

Mention of any problem with Windows: I don't have these problems as I use Apple/Linux. Steve/Linus is having my baby, MS are thieving scumbags.

Anything on music by Andrew Orlowski: Why don't you allow comments, you .. you ...you girl?

Be careful out there...

I'm a long-term eBayer with >200 feedback and 100% positive. I've had some great bargains and I've sold stuff I would have otherwise thrown away. I've only had to leave negative once. I've had three disputes, all successful. So what are the Secrets Of My Success?

Don't trade outside the UK

Only use PayPal or cash on collection

Don't buy from low feedback/poor feedback sellers

Check feedback is for meaningful transactions, not penny ebooks

Read ads and small print carefully, ask questions even if they're stupid

Avoid cheap commodity items

When you sell, get proof of delivery or at least of posting

Assume the worst about everyone and cover yourself, but...

Treat everyone with respect - communicate politely and frequently

eBay/PayPal will only help if everything is black and white - so make sure it is

Neil Weller - you've had your 15 minutes. Not as good as being Paul Weller eh?

mostly harmless...

..but frauds do happen. After 100 happy trades - mainly tech stuff - I bought a "new" laptop. Except it wasn't new. Seller was passing off used (but recent) stock as "new" - hence jacking up price by 20%. A nice scam if you can run it. A trawl through seller's history showed that he had this nasty habit (as well as having multiple online identities). I followed all eBay's permitted dispute procedures. Got nowhere with them. Got neither help nor interest from eBay. Finally got my money back from seller by threatening recovery through the courts.

But eBay themselves were utterly useless. Their own feedback records showed that this guy had been ripping buyers off for an age. They didn't want to know. They didn't want to help. They didn't want to shut him down. Let's face it: eBay's interests (more sales = more commission = more profits) are in direct conflict with users' interests (remove fraudsters = fewer sales). So why would eBay care?

Ah well. Caveat emptor.

eBay balance

Just to balance things up a little, I've been buying computer parts, peripherals and consumables from all over the UK, Europe and the States for years with only one memorable incident which eBay handled satisfactorily.

(I bought a set of reference manuals, only to receive an unmarked CD containing badly scanned PDFs of said manuals. eBay stomped the guy pretty quick.)

The only people I've ever had an real problem with are the bloody freight companies who mess you about with deliveries, and worst of all UK customs who charge extortionate duty on the imagined value of second hand goods (aided and abetted by the afore mentioned freight companies who simply pay the fee and then hold your goods hostage until you give up querying the fee and pay up).

Almost harmless

"A trawl through seller's history showed that he had this nasty habit (as well as having multiple online identities)."

Really is a good idea to do the trawl through the online history before buying, not after.