Grrrrrrrr! I am NEVER buying from Ebay again!!

[Sir Kenyth]

Well, out of six purchases on Ebay I've been screwed over on two. This is unacceptable. The ebay feedback doesn't seem to be an indicator. Both screwings were by people with over 100 ratings. It's only safe to deal with people who have over 1000 feedbacks it seems. One of them was caught and arrested, but this doesn't help me much. I still lose the money. It also takes a lot of effort to find and get warrants on these guys! Ebay will cover some of the loss, but they have a $25 deductable and won't cover shipping cost. That means about %50 reimbursement for this last purchase and %25 on the one before that. That's if they decide that it's reimbursable. It also could be some months before I see the money. Earlier this year, someone took me for $25. This completely negates the advantage of shopping on ebay! They have to find some way to cull the rif-raf! It's too easy to get an ebay account, or multiple aliases for that matter and use them to defraud people. What do you do? I used to love Ebay, but this is ridiculous! Anyone else having problems with online shopping?

[Neb]

That sucks bigtime Kenyth, damn, I rarely, if ever, shop online, but mostly due to the fact that I do not own a credit card and have to get someone who owns one to order for me if I want to.

[Sir Kenyth]

quote:

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Originally posted by Neb:
That sucks bigtime Kenyth, damn, I rarely, if ever, shop online, but mostly due to the fact that I do not own a credit card and have to get someone who owns one to order for me if I want to.

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You aint kiddin' Nebber old boy! I just finished going after the last one. Now I have to go after this new guy too! I've got his name and address, but that's the easy part. Now I have to file police reports, and consumer complaint reports, and FBI mail fraud reports, and Ebay reports, and paypal reports, and fax innumerrable print-outs and forms to people that don't really care, etc., etc., etc.

*Sigh!*

I was happy because I was building a new computer system for cheap. Now, I'll be lucky if I break even with what I would have spent at the computer store! I also lost the guy who was gonna buy my old system because of all the delay!

[img]graemlins/crazyeyes.gif[/img] AAAArrrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!

*Kicks a trash can mercilessly*

[Sazerac]

Sir Kenyth, I am so sorry for you! That sucks majorly.

The trouble with the Ebay rating system is that it's so abused. A person will get a contingent of friends to "run the ratings up" on him or her and Ebay has no method of detecting or correcting for this. In short, the rating is about as good as cheap toilet paper. It can work, but often you'll find yourself in a position you DON'T want to be in.

So sorry to hear about the computer, man. Hopefully, you'll find another buyer for your old system.

Cheers,

[Sir Kenyth]

Thanks Saz! I'll live, but it still frustrates me! Ebay has (kind of) fixed that particular problem by requiring an auction number for each feedback and only allowing the seller and buyer accounts involved to leave feedback on it. I've heard that there are hackers who have ways around this too. Beleive it or not, some folks build up their feedback to 50-100 by buying or selling a bunch of penny auctions. After that they run a quick scam for a couple grand and disappear. This is where my beef comes in. There is no excuse for ebay not having verified identities from their sellers and making this info available to the ebay community in fraud allogations. The privacy act impedes this apparently. I think it's a crock of #$%^&!

quote:

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Originally posted by Sazerac:
Sir Kenyth, I am so sorry for you! That sucks majorly.

The trouble with the Ebay rating system is that it's so abused. A person will get a contingent of friends to "run the ratings up" on him or her and Ebay has no method of detecting or correcting for this. In short, the rating is about as good as cheap toilet paper. It can work, but often you'll find yourself in a position you DON'T want to be in.

So sorry to hear about the computer, man. Hopefully, you'll find another buyer for your old system.

Cheers,

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Sorry to hear about your problems Sir Kenyth. I've had awful experiences with eBay myself, and certainly wouldn't recommend it to anyone else.

[adam warlock]

since I am a ebay seller and buyer for 2 years and only got cheated once I guess I'm lucky.....

here are a few tips
never buy from the seller that has less than 50+
be suspicious of a user that prefer to keep the feedback or public info private
email the seller first about the item
always check the info on the BUYERS on the feedback list (date time, emails, etc)
ask the buyers on the feedback list if the seller is to be trusted
make your own set of rules as a buyer (especially it comes to electronics)
be wary of the seller that does not include 'About ME' icon next to the username

for example: I was looking for a wacom tablet for my computer to do my art and I found it at ebay but the seller is... kinda new (40+). I I asked him some questions, I checked around, and it turns out that the company does exist! brought it, waited, and got it... and it works [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Sir Kenyth]

That's what trips me. Both had good feedback ratings and no negatives. They both seemed to go bad when I decided to buy from them. Maybe it's just a run of bad luck. The second guy has a building and a web site for @#$% sake! His own domain and everything! I think his business may have gone under. He gave a couple folks refunds and then just quit responding.

quote:

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Originally posted by adam warlock:
since I am a ebay seller and buyer for 2 years and only got cheated once I guess I'm lucky.....

here are a few tips
never buy from the seller that has less than 50+
be suspicious of a user that prefer to keep the feedback or public info private
email the seller first about the item
always check the info on the BUYERS on the feedback list (date time, emails, etc)
ask the buyers on the feedback list if the seller is to be trusted
make your own set of rules as a buyer (especially it comes to electronics)
be wary of the seller that does not include 'About ME' icon next to the username

for example: I was looking for a wacom tablet for my computer to do my art and I found it at ebay but the seller is... kinda new (40+). I I asked him some questions, I checked around, and it turns out that the company does exist! brought it, waited, and got it... and it works [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]

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[Cerek the Barbaric]

Sir Kenyth,

I'm sorry to hear about your eBay problems. I've bought a number of items (mostly VHS videos for my boys) and NEVER had any bad luck.

However, I did encounter a fraud seller on one of my first auctions. They were offering "The Ultimate Arcade CD". It had every game you could think of on it....the only problem is that this seller had pirated these games off legitimate copies and mass-produced them.

EBay got slammed by Sega, Nintendo, and every other big name game mfct for copyright infringement. Fortunately, I had not sent my money before this happened, so I lost nothing. I later heard from several other buyers who had been cheated by this same seller...turns out she had about 6 different eBay identities. When one she scammed under 1 ID, she would just switch to another one.

BTW, what type of system are you selling?

[Sir Kenyth]

I think the most common problem is people using an alias to run the bid up. My brother found one of these once. He accidentally bid $250 instead of $25. A typo. Even though there were other auctions of the same tape for under $50, his bid was magically run up to $249! He said one guy kept bidding against him. I'll bet once this mystery bidder won the high bid, the seller let him retract his last bid. My brother wouldn't know how to research this though. He just refused to pay and picked up negative feedback. I would have confronted the seller with the obvious alias or close freind and demanded a bid history to check on it. A common trick, and hard to catch as most don't run the bid up to the extreme like this. Another reason why ebay should keep verified names and addresses of members. This simple thing would cure a lot of problems by making it hard to maintain aliases. I don't think they'll do it though. It would increase overhead and reduce membership, not to mention opening them up to privacy act lawsuits. Ebay will not uncover their own nuts to protect yours! My neighbor has once again reconsidered buying the computer. It's just close to christmas and he's short of money. It's an AMD 450MHZ, 14GB HDD, 298 MB RAM, 8MB 3D video, 16 bit 4 speaker sound, 10/100 Ethernet, 56K modem, 8X/32X DVD/CD, 4XR 4XRW 16X CDRW, keyboard and mouse. He already bought the monitor. I was thinking of selling it to him for around $250-$300. What do you think it's worth?

quote:

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Originally posted by Cerek the Barbaric:
Sir Kenyth,

I'm sorry to hear about your eBay problems. I've bought a number of items (mostly VHS videos for my boys) and NEVER had any bad luck.

However, I did encounter a fraud seller on one of my first auctions. They were offering "The Ultimate Arcade CD". It had every game you could think of on it....the only problem is that this seller had pirated these games off legitimate copies and mass-produced them.

EBay got slammed by Sega, Nintendo, and every other big name game mfct for copyright infringement. Fortunately, I had not sent my money before this happened, so I lost nothing. I later heard from several other buyers who had been cheated by this same seller...turns out she had about 6 different eBay identities. When one she scammed under 1 ID, she would just switch to another one.

BTW, what type of system are you selling?

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