What more can I do to protect other buyers? - UPDATED - they're at it again 28/10/06

westernpromise

Pennywise wrote:

Surely ebay logs the IP addresses and can check for multiple IDs using the same IP address to stop this sort of thing happening?

They could but they have an obvious conflict of interest. As long as they are collecting their listing fees from him, they're making money, but stopping him ripping people off will mean eBay makes less money.

That's not a good deal from eBay's perspective, and as they are still growing, they don't really have to worry about reputational damage anyway. Of all the people registered on eBay, apparently 95% only ever buy things. So relatively speaking, there's no shortage of new buyers coming forward to replace the ones who get ripped off and abandon eBay, but there is a shortage of sellers. Thus little gain and a lot of downside to be had from pursuing fraudulent sellers.

They will deal with this sort of thing eventually, but it's probably 3 or 4 years away.

Meanwhile, I think they are probably a lot more worried about the potential damage from phishing. I saw a phish attempt recently which was particularly devious: it was actually embedded in an ad. If you clicked on the link to see a bigger version of the photo, you got taken instead to an eBay login screen. Many people would think there'd been a glitch, and would re-enter their login details, assuming they were still on the legit eBay site. Of course they would not be and would be giving their account details to a criminal.

Pennywise

A day later and they've now started shill bidding on their own items using upto 4 newly created identities. I've reported them again to ebay - hopefully they'll act now before anyone else is conned.

Pennywise

Result!!!

Their new ID has not been NARU'd but all their items (all 25 of them) have been removed, just minutes before the first few were due to close.

That's 25 people who now aren't going to be scammed.

Well done ebay again! So the answer seems to be to report the offenders several times and eventually one of ebay's team will take the initiative and do the right thing. Obviously reporting them just once or twice is not enough, you have to be persistent.

I really couldn't believe the cheek of this seller - even after being suspended for shill bidding last time, they go on and do it again just a month later, and its not as if they were discreet either - their shill bidding is so obvious.

Pennywise

Another update, though not good news this time.

After their items were removed, they put them all on again, but as they didn't shill bid, ebay didn't remove them.

I did report them again as being a suspended seller returning under a new ID but ebay did nothing.

Now, there's six people been robbed as at today's date, and by my reckoning there are probably another 10-15 as there were over 20 items listed which sold for between £20 and £50 each.

Why oh why can't ebay police themselves - this was so blatant and ebay were warned but chose to do nothing. I'm afraid ebay are their own worst enemy and will rapidly go downhill if they don't get their act together.

I really can't believe this has happened to those six (at the moment) - their losses were completely avoidable.

For information, seller id is trainworld2005 and their previous id was letmebuy99 - they also had several other ids used to shill bid.

Pennywise

Up to 7 negatives this morning. I have emailed those who have been conned and told them I reported the seller to Ebay in July and August - I also gave them the sellers telephone number, name and address - I only hope that people can get together to stop the seller doing it yet again. Surely ebay have to be responsible for this - they can't continue hiding behind their t&cs when they are clearly negligent.

smartie1976

right, well he's got 7 negs now, but i've reported this moron anyway for trading under and alternative name to avoid a suspension. http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/rfe-previously-suspended.html


pennywise, should you see this loser crop up again under a different guise, post it on here and I'll report him again.

Pennywise

Now up to 10 negs - I've emailed the conned buyers and given them all the details of the reports I made to Ebay that were ignored - I only hope that some or all of them sue Ebay as they surely can't wriggle out of their clear moral (and probably legal) obligations when they were warned that these people were going to be conned.

Anyway, I've certainly learned that next time this same scum appear trying to flog the same things, I'll do all I can to protect others. Last time, I was put off warning bidders for risk of losing my account, but not again. I'll also be reported the seller on this and other forums - if enough people complain, Ebay may start taking things like this seriously and block them.

It really can't be that difficult to identify and block people using the same IP address with different user ids can it?

The whole episode has ruined Ebay for me and I really don't think I'll ever use it again - it's one thing being conned by a "clever" con-merchant and I fully accept Ebay can't police everything, but in this case, the con is so obvious and Ebay were well aware but chose to ignore it. Ebay won't survive if they don't get a grip!

Pennywise

Well it's good to see that Ebay are more vigilant in policing their own discussion forum than trying to stop people being conned. I posted comments similar to the above on the Ebay discussion thread to help warn others not to use the seller and Ebay managed to have it removed within 3 minutes of it being posted, for breaching their guidelines (i.e. being critical of Ebay not protecting sellers when they were told what was happening). If only they could be so quick to protect buyers as they are to stop debate on their shortcomings!

greytroot

It is a little off subject but I had an ebayer who sent foul and very abusive emails to me, i replied to them that the tone of the language was not required they replied once again with a foul and abusive email. I copied the email to ebay 3 weeks ago and not even a reply other than the bog standard we have received your email.

As a huge company making huge profits their customer service does falldown on many many ocassions.

Pennywise

Now upto 14 negatives! Still not suspended but at least they're not selling anything else under this id. I'm watching for them to start again with a new one, post their new seller id on here and hope that enough people will complain to ebay to make them do something. They can remove my post from a discussion board in 3 minutes but can't be bothered to stop a clearly fraudulent seller!