Dodgy phone seller on eBay

sprintstar

This seller has to be one of the most unethical I've come accross on eBay - dprbirch. He's been selling dummy phones and only mentioning in the small print the fact that they aren't the real thing. Take a look at #190030820223, the high bidder musn't have had any idea this wasn't a real phone. probertz seemed to have been his alias for shill bidding, but he's no longer registered now.

I'm just stunned eBay haven't banned him yet

Rev

Checking out his feedback, the small print for item #190026992623 states

"If you bid and win the auction. You are not entitled to not pay and pull out. Anybody who does this will be reported to ebay and i will make sure you lose your account with ebay. If you win my auction it means you have accepted my terms and conditions and have to abide by them."

I feel sorry for people who actually believe that and pay thinking they'll lose their account otherwise. He can't make you pay.

5thElement_2

Happens quite alot unfortunately

I've seen people pay 70/80 quid for just a photo of a phone etc etc

Really is out of order, i dont know how these people sleep at night.

king_of_the_penguins

People like this should be reported at every opportunity by as many people as possible, then maybe, just maybe E bay will take some action.
Just because he hides the fact its a dummy phone in some obscure piece of text should not allow him to get away with it :mad: :mad: the title of the auction is misleading in any case (its not a phone!) which is a breach of listing policy.

Most people here would not be caught out by this but there are a lot of less experienced people out there and in my opinion it is in everybodies interest to drive people like this out of E bay!

kevinyork

Totally agree however the reporting process is totally lame. eBay do not care. You get automated or cut and paste responses that are next to useless. Yes, anyone with some experience should spot these scams however its the new eBay members that will be caught out and having been conned will probably stay clear of eBay and tell 10 more people to do the same.

Cant eBay see how people like this are ruining whatever reputation they have left? Yet they continue with the ridiculous reporting system that achieves nothing and is patronising beyond belief.

peter_the_piper

I see that it was won by a newbie for £184.00, thats another one who won't use ebay again. I hope he gets his money back as its misleading description.

kevinyork

Hopefully the two prominent negatives will at least stop him using this eBay name for a while.

sprintstar

It's so true that eBay really need to take a look at their reporting system for dodgy items, there should be a simple button link on each auction to report things, but instead you have to wade through a hundred other links to find it, and when you do, as you say kevinyork, you only get a generic automated response.

It really grates to be honest how they can be so over zealous about deleting some listings - one of mine for an old record called "this is not a song" was recently deleted by a member of staff for key word spamming??!! All I included in the title was the name/artist/format, so I e-mailed them back explaining their mistake, they apologized etc, but then said I would have to relist by composing the listing from scratch! Meanwhile characters like this one get away with blatantly ripping people off, and eBay seem to turn a blind eye.

kevinyork

There is a campaign on for the next 4 days as part of an eBay strike where users report as many infringements as possible to let eBay know the strength of feeling about their site being full of scammers.

Have mixed views about this since it will simply cause huge delays to reports and most items will have ended before eBay get to look at them anyway.

They promised in July to be looking at introducing a report button on every listing. They have it on eBay.com and eBay.com/au but not in the UK. There answer is that its taking a while to sort out the technicalities whereas in fact they dont have the staff to deal with the increase in reports that a simpler reporting procedure will bring. Its a catch 22 for eBay. The longer they take to bring in a better reporting system, the more scammers there will be on the site because they feel they can get away with it so when eBay finally bring in a report button the impact on them will be so much greater.

The thing that gets me most is that if they remove a listing for an infringement and warn the seller, they give them their fees back!

Smickan

Well he is a nasty little man and no mistake. The wording in his listings would stop me from buying from him!

smsmasters

This is what money does to people.