Yet Another Reason Why eBay Is A Total Joke
I can’t believe eBay is still in business considering the huge number of scams that seem to pervade the site like flies on you-know-what. Just this past week I attempted to use eBay to auction off two notebook computers and quickly discovered that this was an impossible task thanks to all the scammers who now appear to have almost complete control of the site. Yes, you heard that right. Complete control. The way these scammers work is they send you an email asking to purchase your item outside of eBay, then when you won’t bite they hose your auction using a hacked account effectively preventing you from making a legitimate sale and at the same time sticking you with huge sellers fees from eBay. Don’t believe me? Here is the proof.
Technorati Tags: auctions, ebay, fraud, phishing, scam, scammers, security
Here is just a sampling of the emails I received from folks attempting to purchase my auction items outside of eBay:
Email #1 (Spam)
Email #2 (also a hacked account…yay!)
Email #3 (please ship it to Nigeria…NOT)
When I did not respond or responded that I did not ship outside the U.S. here is what happened to the auctions. Nice.
Auction #1 Ganked (by a hacked account).
Auction #2 (looks like it is getting ganked also)
I guess I should have figured this out earlier but I thought maybe eBay actually took security seriously and might have at least made some attempt to curb this activity. Guess not, shame on me.
UPDATE!!!!
Just when I thought these stupid Nigerians could not get any more stupid I get this email along with a fake paypal email (which did not even go to the correct address) claiming that a *payment* was made.
Hello,
I am glad to be the winning bidder of your item, i was just lucky to have won it,l just have to stick with it as l have seen the advertisement for it all around and lm impressed by the features. I came on to eBay purposely for a present for my Son.I want you to understand that i’m currently in conference in UK. I wonder if you could be so kind as to help me ship this item to my Son .It’s his birthday and this is his birthday gift. I’m prepared to cover p&p. i’ll pay through paypal and i will add $120 for shipping to my son where is on an assigment for the british Consulate in Nigeria, I want the item to be shipped to West Africa via USPS Global Express Mail 3-5 Days Delivery. The address of my son where you will ship the item to is below,Olatunji Sunday,
# 2 Adeogun Street Off Anfani Layout Challenge
Ibadan
Oyo State
Nigeria
23402.
+2348027283323..Thats the address where you will ship the item to and i will get back to you after the payment is made.
Pettit
This is total BS, fake paypal payment notices from Nigeria and hacked eBay accounts….and still not even a single response from eBay to my emails telling them this is going on. I think it’s high time eBay is forced to take notice, so digg / reddit this post up!
UDPATE #2
Finally some signs of life from eBay….too bad they are not offering to fully refund the fees for this listing. So far they have only refunded the insertion fee and have not removed the final value fee which is the large one at $82.97.
UPDATE #3
Still no full refund from eBay but thanks to a comment below I have taken the time to capture further proof that not only does this happen to others but it is so obvious that I still can’t believe eBay is letting this crap continue.
UPDATE #4
FEES HAVE BEEN FULLY REFUNDED! I just confirmed after reciving an email from eBay that both the listing and final value fees for the hijacked auction have been refunded. For the sake of completeness here is the email I recieved from eBay:
Dear Robert,
Thank you for writing eBay in regard to your auction that was recently
removed by eBay.I recognize your frustration and want to quickly and responsively
resolve your concerns.The bids placed using this account occurred during an unauthorized
account takeover. We took immediate action to stop the activity as soon
as we discovered the situation. We are now in the process of restoring
the account to its rightful owner.Because the account holder didn’t actually bid on your listing, please
consider the sale incomplete.I would like to inform you that we cancelled this listing in order to
limit the negative impact to you and the account owner, we temporarily
suspended the bidding account and ended the listing in question.We took this step to ensure all fees were credited back to you, and to
prevent any negative actions resulting from this listing, including
unpaid item reports and negative feedback. We encourage you to list your
item again, either through the Sell Your Item process or through your
third-party listing service.Also, I am pleased to let you know that I have credited all fees
associated with the unauthorized bid placed on your item and I assure
you that we do not expect you to pay the fees for the unauthorized
listings.
This is a good first step on eBay’s part but lets just hope maybe they will at least try to make an attempt to limit the impact these scammers are having in the long run otherwise it most certinately does not bode well for the future of anyone interesting in selling goods on eBay.
Related posts:
my girlfriend got scammed selling her old laptop on craigslist. she figured it out only after she’d shipped it. fedex would do NOTHING to help her. they even went so far as to tell her, “well, once the package leaves britain, there’s really nothing we can do…” so i guess it’s buyer AND seller beware.
my girlfriend got scammed selling her old laptop on craigslist – those pesky Nigerians. she figured it out only after she’d shipped it. fedex would do NOTHING to help her. they even went so far as to tell her, “well, once the package leaves britain, there’s really nothing we can do…” so i guess it’s buyer AND seller beware.
sorry to have commented twice. this site doesn’t let you delete. i’m a moroon….
I had the EXACT same thing happen to me when I sold a Nintendo Wii around Christmas. The second time I put up my auction I had to put tons of restrictions on it such as requiring immediate paypal payment.
It was totally bogus and I should have put in the time to make Ebay refund me.
Anyone who does not think something is fishy with an email asking to send it to Nigeria is pretty stupid. I feel bad for them, I hate the Nigerians, but they are stupid.
I’m a nice enough guy that besides my knowing this was a scam, I didn’t want to send someone in Africa an NTSC Wii.
Hey Folks,
As RJ says, stop the “fuck ALL Nigerians” comments. I’m a development economist and specialize in corruption. Nigeria is corrupt for one big reason: OIL. Guess who pays for the oil? Americans, through Multinationals that pump it. (Specifically Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Italy’s Agip, and ExxonMobil and Chevron from the U.S. Read the Feb 2007 National Geographic story here:
http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0702/feature3/
So — the corruption that has arisen from oil has spread to other areas in society. The 419 scams are a tip o the iceberg, of course, but the government is so corrupt that nothing is done.
Besides the local solutions (being careful on eBay), I suggest that you take out your anger on the US Depts of State and Commerce, since they are more interested in an “ally” and “business partner” than protecting the people of Nigeria and — through them — us.
Hmm. Makes you wonder if Ebay’s gone into the “service” game, and hires a few of these folks to increase their service fee revenue..
YUP this happened to me too. Then ebay tried to make me pay for the fee’s i never did and they sent me to collections. Ill never pay it because it cost me 120$ Screw ebay.
Kal’s comment, “The other thing I hate about Ebay is that unless you have a PayPal business account, you can’t accept PayPal payments.” is inaccurate. You do not need a business account to accept PayPal, so long as that PayPal account of the payer is secured by a bank account rather than a credit card. A business account is required only if the payee wants to accept credit card based payments.
I had the worst time of my life trying to sell a PS3 during the holiday. It took me 7 times to relist it because of Nigerian fraud. I complained to ebay but still had to pay the relisting fees which totaled $145. Everytime I would relist it, the PS3 was losing value. I ended up going in the hole 30 dollars over the deal. Now was that worth sitting outside for 2 nites in 10 degree weather, I think not. Why can’t ebay shut these Nigerians down?
eBay and PayPal wont help you when there is a problem. They have no financial or legal reason to so why expect them to be helpfull.
eBay wont ever clean itself up as long as its making money the way it is.
A Nigerian also tried to scam me on autotrader (I was selling the auto). I received a fake cashier’s check and everything. It was fairly obvious, but I took the check to a bank anyway just to see the response I got. Yep, you guessed it….BOGUS.
I have heard about these naughty Nigerians for a while now, but the worst I heard was about a guy to lost some cash to one of these scams, got real pissed and went to Nigeria to find the culprit. He never came back. True story.
eBay really need to step up their security and user filters. If not, someone should create a better auction site, that will encourage eBay to change.
Dudes, you gotta send your stuff via USPS. If you send a check and you do not receive something back, go down to your local USPS and file a complaint. There are postal investigators who will go and lay the law down with the cheats. If the cheat cheated youout enough, it becomes a federal felony. Three federal felonies, and the person goes to jail for life. No if, ands, or buts. Jail for life. Pound you in the ass prison.
Something for the rotten scum to think about.
Okay, if these Nigerians are so STUPID, how are they outsmarting all these rocket scientist North Americans and scamming them for money and products? Call them any dirty name in the book, but skip on stupid. They’re out-smarting a LOT of folks.
Sellers are not the only ones being screwed on ebay so are the buyers.
Approx 3 weeks ago mass ebay accounts were hacked to sell videos/dvd collections and ebay was very slow in notifying us buyers the accounts had been hacked by a third party.
I know of over 35 people that thought they were paying genuine sellers for goods from ebay and turns out scumbags from China are hacking into ebay accounts and selling goods cheap and quickly take the money and run quick.
They send you pirated copied DVDS all in chinese subtitles etc so there’s no chance in hell ebay or paypal even listen because you receive the goods.
ebay has serous security flaws, don’t use that site.
[...] read more | digg story [...]
HARSH!!!
[...] read more | digg story [...]
I love the ebay complete control department comment; essentially distills to “this is one story from one bad experience on ebay due to the victim’s own inability to control all fraud attempts against on the big ship ebaypop”. Don’t make me laugh. Hundreds of comments down the line; “this happened to me”…”wow this very same thing happened to me” and “omg this happened to me too!” and “I can’t believe the same thing that happened to you happened to me”.
Gee, doesn’t sound like an isolated incident from an ignoraminus to me. Further, ebay markets itself to the lowest common dumb seller denominator; as such, a person selling on ebay should have absolutely no responsibiility whatsoever to be a security expert or fraud spotting sleuth. It disgusts me that anyone (or anything…you’re probably a borg from the eBorg mothership) would suggest otherwise.
Typical blame the victim idiocy; a lone individual using a service has more responsibility to prevent fraud than the service that facilitated the fraud in the first place because of it’s unrestrictive buying and selling practices? You epitomize the reason nobody should buy or sell anything on ebay ever again.
I put a laptop on ebay a few weeks before Christmas for some extra money. I had it set for paypal and US only. A sniper wins my auction who had a reputable amount of legit feedbacks. Next comes the email to ship to Africa for my son along with the fake paypal email with a few hundred extra bucks for my “troubles”. I imediately reported to ebay and second chance offered the next bidder who was the real deal and that transaction went smooth. Meanwhile ebay deletes my ended auction and tells me to file a non paying bidder request. I attempt to do this yet ebay’s own form filling page denys me because my auction doesn’t exist. So I email ebay directly with all my email evidence attatched and ask for a final value fee refund since they double-dipped me for the 2nd chance offer also. Canned response, 10 day waiting period. 13 days later I try to close the dispute yet there is no clickable button to do so. Many emails over the next few weeks to ebay with many canned responses so I give up. My credit card is automaticaly billed but I don’t care, I just will never use ebay again I decide. 2 days ago I get an email from ebay that my final value fee request was granted (almost 2 months later) and my account balance has a credit balance of $17.31 What am I supposed to do with ebay credit? It’s not like I can spend it other than creating more auctions which I probably will never do again.
It is extremely unethical of ebay to allow the scammers to flourish and make the victims jump thru hoops to recoup their fees. Plus they cornhole us with paypal and the 2.5% they steal. Screw ebay and the scammers.
Don’t you get it!
eTHIEVE adores those higher final value fees!
If it weren’t for the thieves in there eSHIT would go broke!
That said, do YOU think they care?
I HATE eTHASH and payUP.com
scammers prey on not just eletronic goods sellers but any seller for that matter. i had a similar experience with a buyer from germany with this email address hipspring1894@aol.com for a second hand designer bag.
The person who contacted me, joern klein, said her husband would pay me via paypal. And he did using another account/email address hipspring8941@yahoo.com
sneaky.
shipping address wasn’t germany… but the philippines. i got duped. shipped the item after payment was made, and stupidly wired money via western union as requested cos he paid me a few hundred bucks extra. after all that was done, payer asked for reversal of payment at Paypal.
Paypal did a reversal of payment without investigating, even though i sent all the transaction details and email correspondence between the buyer and i.
i was piffed that paypal misled me into thinking that there’s dispute resolution. when i disputed the case, paypal just sent me a bunch of rules and regulations. scripted responses. they don’t care.
[...] Another supposedly great web-based service surrendering to those crazy Nigerians and their kin. One look at the comment thread of all sorts of people who’ve have some bad eBay experience, this is a strong undeniable suit. Just this past week I attempted to use eBay to auction off two notebook computers and quickly discovered that this was an impossible task thanks to all the scammers who now appear to have almost complete control of the site. Yes, you heard that right. Complete control. The way these scammers work is they send you an email asking to purchase your item outside of eBay, then when you won’t bite they hose your auction using a hacked account effectively preventing you from making a legitimate sale and at the same time sticking you with huge sellers fees from eBay. Don’t believe me? Here is the proof. [...]
Ebay should allow the user to choose what market they want to operate in. If a person only ships within the USA it means that in 99% of all cases they are only interested in offers comming from USA IP numbers. Problem solved.
Of course – ebay management are a bunch of idiots who just happened to get lucky. But we all knew that. I hope google, or someone else with brains, sit down a make a system that works.
Do you realize those links take you to your actual account?? I mean, I followed your links and am greeted AS rrittmuller, with complete access to your account. If you care about that, I’d rethink your links. Just trying to help.
The links don’t really go to eBay, they are just page captures of exactly what things looked like before eBay *cleaned* things up. If you try to do something it requires that you log in before it will let you.
PS, thanks for being concerned!
I have always had problems with ebay. And because of them i have a negative rating. I have successfully purchased 2 items from ebay and had 2 gone horribly bad.
1. I was bidding on a foosball table. I won the auction and contacted the person about delivery. He lived in the same exact town as I did so I asked him If i could come pick it up. The shipping coast was a crazy 250 ( more then the item) and i offered to pay him some money to just pick it up. He said no and wanted to ship it(to make a huge markup). The item had to ship to UPS large items facility which was further away from me then this person’s house. I tried to contact ebay to get this negative comment removed. To no avail.
2. The second was I was bidding on Poker Chips. I lost the bid to someone else so i went and bid on another set. Which I won and had successfully delivered to my house. No problems other then the company DHL lost it in transit and it took 3 weeks to get there. Then I was contacted that I was the winning bid on the first item cause the high bidder didn’t pay so he defaulted to me. I said I went and won another bid on the same item and do not need it anymore. So he negative commented me, which i argued with ebay about to no avail again. Now i cannot bid on anything cause i get booted every time for having a -2 score.
OMG, can I relate to your problem. I have recently used eBay to try and sell an iPod and my wife used it to try and sell a notebook computer. Both times, we used buy it now and both times, we had the Nigerian scam attempt to get us. We didn’t budge. I, also had my account hijacked. Someone was trying to sell a car using my eBay account. I will never use Ebay again until they fix their security issues. It doesn’t seem that they are all that concerned, so it will probably be a very long time before I use them again. So, it looks as one of the big NET giants is going to go down in flames unless they fix the problems they are having.
Well A few months ago I was selling a laptop and it sold for $900. The winning bidder told me to send it to Russia. I told him that was fine and I would send it the second the money hit my bank account. A week later the money had gone through so I figured there was no way I could get ripped off, so I sent it. A couple of weeks later I received an email from paypal stating that the money I received was fraudulent and that I had to pay them back. I tried all I could to not have to pay but in the end they told me “We are sorry, Good business practices will help you avoid this in the future” so I ended up having to pay back pay pal and I never saw my laptop again. I tried to contact ebay about it but they never wrote me back. I called the post office and they said it was still in transit. I asked them to put a hold on it, they said “sorry we don’t do that anymore.” I am very dissatisfied with all three business’. I learned the hard way that they don’t back up any of their customers.
Gee, I was thinking of buying stuff on ebay, but after reading the article and all the comments, I’ll pass. Thanks for the info.
I had the same issues trying to sell electronics on eBay. Eventually I listed on ebonza.com and they didn’t have hardly any nigerian scammers. I called to see how they did that, and they said they built a way to identify and block IP blocks frequently used in areas where scammers are highly concentrated. Toronto, Lagos, etc… Anyone know why eBay doesn’t do this? I mean, how much serious business can come from Nigeria and Romania?
Shame on me too for using ebay. The “manure” that happens on ebay while trying to sell stuff is so true that you better take heed. From the end of Nov. until the end of DEC2006 I tried selling 2 PS3 which I had to repost 5 times until I got a legitimate winning bidder. I kept getting my auctions won by people wanting me to send the merchandise to Africa or Argentina and fake Paypal “you’ve got new funds” emails, it was ridiculous. BTW, ebay only credits your listing fees 1 time, after that you have to pay ebay no matter what, and their “customer service” is strickly through email only, so all replys from them take a couple of days to get to you. So, after the dust settled and I paid ebay/paypal fees, I came out of the deals with no profit greater than 10 dollars. I no longer use ebay for anything whatsoever. My consolation was that the 2 PS3 I bought I actually stumbled upon a stack of them when I went to buy a laptop at BB one morning and did not waste my gas and my time hunting those consoles down like a lot of people did to make ebay money.
HAHA!!! Look at this one I had!!
This is an email I sent back to Ebay showing their idiosity!
I had purchased some DVD which turned out to be counterfeit and faulty!
Hi xxxx,
Whilst I appreciate your reply to the issue at hand I feel ebay should
re-assess in their own interests the fraudulant activity from sellers, and
indeed the unclear response you have committed to me:
I quote from your response below:
“Unfortunately as you have already filed through PayPal you will not be
able to claim through eBay’s Standard Purchase Protection Program.”
HOWEVER!
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/tp/isgw-buyer-protection-steps.html
Clearly you can see step 6 obviously preceeds step 7, in essence it
recomends users to go to Paypal first!
And on that you base your response that you cant offer protection to buyers
following your reccomendations.
And paypals response?:
“As you have been refunded for transaction xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx we will not
be able to investigate further.”
I await your response.
xxxx
I had been refunded immediatly by Paypal before they even investigated the issue heres another one I sent them!
=====================================
HERES MORE FROM SAME DISPUTE
I have attempted resolution via Paypal.
I had a refund carried out however (ill cut to the point here) the DVDs I ordered are in breach of copyright they are copies (fairly good at that) on trial (8 season boxset 64 DVDs) from season 1 which contained 8 DVDs only 4 worked. Paypal issued a refund and at sellers request I was to return the DVDs, well the cost of that is €45.
I will not be subject to fraud and therefore I will not send these items back can you help portray this message to the seller?
If he/she wishes to receive the goods the seller can pay.
Can you alternatively put me in contact with someone who can resolve the issue as I dont want these DVDs and I dont want to pay for shipping, anywhere, incidently the goods were marked as location UK they came from China.
Below is a copy of refund email from Paypal.
any other mails etc are available at your request.
=====================================
and more
Protection Services Department
PayPal, an eBay Company
Original Message Follows:
————————
Form Message
customer message: Describe the nature of your complaint: ‘Following very
prompt action from yourselves (paypal) for a refund carried out on April
2xth for ebay item number: xxxxxxxxxx which I thank you for your prompt
action.
It has however come to light that the postage to return this item is
€45 from xxxxxxxx to china as requested by the Seller
xxxxxxxx@xxx.com.
I would like to make it clear that I will not pay for the returning of
the above item (xxxxxxxxxxxx) as I would be at a great loss as a result of
extreme miss-representation on the sellers behalf regarding this item.
If this is not cleared up I can disclose further details regarding this
item/matter.
If you require me to furnish you with further details of the items there
is no problem whatsoever. However make it clear that I will not be
forced to pay without good grounds to do so, as a result of the seller’s
mistake and miss representation.
I hope I have made myself as clear as possible on this matter for now.
I attempted to portray these feelings to the seller via email with no
reply.
Kind Regards,
xxxx
To: eBay Complete Control Dept ABOVE!
Hmm should you be replying to these types of posts? go and help someone getting scammed instead of surfing!
Anyway:
Your quote:
“You say scammers have “complete control” of eBay, and yet your article doesn’t give any credible evidence to this point. No statistics, no investigation into the claim, no test to prove or disprove it”
HIS Post was basically a test it was a Live test!
His statistic is this happend and hes only a light user of ebay as per his statistics!
Credible evidence is this article!
How can HE test he is not ON your server or have access privelages perhaps some of the scammers do!
ALSO:
What this is is one person’s stories of being targeted by scammers
Yes it is….Freedom of speech.
ALSO:
“The reason why eBay doesn’t take it seriously is probably because you revealed to them that you have all knowledge necessary to avoid these scams”
WHAT! scams are possible then? WHY is that! And how can it be avoided they contacted him and did that to his Auction…how…
ALSO:
His refunds were mentioned!
ALSO:
“This is nothing that would even scratch the surface of complete control”
Err when someone can do this to an auction it is complete control of that auction??
is it not?
If they had complete control of ebay then they may request you dye your hair pink and wear wellies into work tomorrow…
Your argurment is flawed!
Have a nice day!
Joe above:
If you have a receipt for the 900 you paid paypal.
“Best Business practise” (whatever that is?) could also state that customers entrust Paypal with their money.
In essence someone elses money/account was used fraudulently then the responsabiity for that money is not yours but Papals…considering the amount I would have that checked out my son! >:I
i.e. if they (paypal) are unable to manage transfers is such a manor deemed secure for the purpose of use then you are not to blame!
Taken from
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html
Regardless of the previous paragraph, if we are found to be liable, our liability to you or to any third party is limited to the greater of (a) the total fees you paid to us in the 12 months prior to the action giving rise to the liability, and (b) $100.
Well basically ebay provide what… a service…a webservice to allow people to buys and SELL so the charge is for the service to sell….
You are the customer….you shouldnt have to pay for a substandard service which prevented you from utilizing the service as expected!.
If they cannot gaurantee a service you shouldnt gaurantee payment for the service
The whole thing needs a facelift! too many people are having bad experiences!
They need to protect their own business I suppose there trying but with regards to some of the above responses Ive given and read they can be too hard on people.
There’s no way eBay can monitor that many auctions for what would appear at first glance to be a legitimate user. I would bet that the rightful account owners simply don’t choose strong passwords, and are, as a result, easily hacked. I vote that letting eBay and PayPal know and seeing what they’ll do about it should come first before slamming a very successful company/idea.
wow.. after reading all this I’m glad i was timid about starting up e-bay/paypal accounts…
I’ll stick to buying stuff at retail outlets
Best way to sell laptop online is with Craigslist not EBay. Also why r u so down on Nigerian Scammers they are just trying to make a living.
all Nigerians are ****** stupid idiots. they burned me out of $ 270 last year
Ebay sucks. So does paypal. I sold a few products on Ebay and got chargebacks from Paypal even though I sent the item out. Anyways two people bought, one person did a charge back and the other guy used someone’s stolen account to buy from me.. anyways when I got payments from him and then the chargeback from the other person.. Paypal closed my account and my balance is at -400. .. Good thing I actually got $300 out of that in time to my Bank.. anyways I know how paypal works.. I reported my CC stolen so they can’t pull anymore funds from my bank account for what I “owe” them..
Won’t be many buyers, but hey – at least they will be legit.
Frankly, I don’t owe them anything. Between paypal and ebay, I think they are helping the scammers. From now on I will be doing the good old “snail mail”..
They try making a living stealing – I dont buy that. I don’t give a crap as to why they do it, I want to be able to use the net free of fear of being scammed. Just the amount of spam is bad enough – that wastes just time. Now they’re taking my money too? No thanks. And hell, slam them down.
[...] Yet Another Reason Why eBay Is A Total Joke Think eBay is safe for sellers? Think again, two items auctioned, both hijacked by Nigerians….further proof that eBay is now nothing but a e-cesspool of scams. Ohh, and any response from eBay? Nope….nothing. (Don’t even get me started!) (tags: ebay) [...]
I had the same thing happen to me when I tried to sell a digital camera. I guess these things have been happening so often now that I had no problem getting my fees refunded from ebay. The second time I listed it I got a legitimate buyer and the transaction went so smoothly, it was like a dream.
[...] or auctioning on eBay. Hopefully this will help you be more aware of what lurks beyond the window. See for yourself @ The Daily Techno-Babble Socially Bookmark eBay – Just dropping the ball.. or watching it roll [...]
I sold a Car stereo on eBay last year. The eBay part was fine, the paypal part was not. I received payment no problem and sent out the stereo by courier, the buyer specifically didnt want insurance to keep the cost down, this ment that the parcel was not tracked to the point of delivery, only to the first depot.
The buyer put in a claim for non-delivery because he claimed it was never delivered, even though i had proof of postage paypal reversed the payment. Thankfully my account was empty at the time and i cancelled my card so they could take no money from me. Quite simply they never gave me the chance to put my side of the story to them.
I did phone them, but they were not helpful, they just said i had to provide proof of delivery, proof of postage was not good enough, even though i had paypal and ebay emails top prove the service the buyer wanted. If the buyer agreed to no insurance then why wasnt that good enough for paypal?
It’s a bitter’n'sad reality to read here all the f-words addressed to poor Nigerians who were never trained in good manners and clean business. Who is looser and who won in this situation? I feel that as an artist and a seller of art originals on eBay I can only fall when people are loosing the confidence in this auction server. I have also received a false check for 5.000 EUR (btw.from Ireland!) but did not stop selling. My last transaction failed on my ignorance of American delivery conditions (only UPC and FedEx could deliver my parcel having the longest dimension longer than 105cm but they are 10x more expensive than the normal post). But we became friends with my potential buyer from Minnesota.
I’d be happy if you all will not loose the trust in good people. I think that eBay policy is good to protect us. Best wishes and kind regards. Jan from the Czech Republic
[...] is being overrun by scammers. Since eBay doesn’t allow auctioneers to filter bidders by feedback, scammers are making [...]
The Romanians are just as bad on eBay. They steal text and photos from expired listings and run scam auctions. They no longer ask for Western Union transfers, because (after 6 years) people are finally getting smarter, so instead they use phished bank accounts and ask for wire transfers.
I wrote to a Hungarian bank when a Romanian was trying to scam a John Deere and transfer funds there. They told me to “file a report with local police and have them contact us.” So they won’t investigate a hijacked account unless there’s a police report.
thescambaiter.com has hundreds of hilarious reverse-scam stories and audio too.
Check it out.