Please Read! A Legal Reminder!

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Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 12:56 am

Hi all. I don't want to be a spoilsport and I think that auction scammers and others outside of the world of 419 should be baited to the max as well.

BUT!

Bear in mind that this, unlike baiting a 419er, might involve a third party that has their very own and very REAL economic interest in the transaction.
As much as eBay probably hates the scammers abusing their service, they probably dislike people deliberately messing with them as well. So whatever you do, please make sure that you respect the third party's TOS, should there be one involved. We definitely do NOT want this to backfire on 419eater. So evaluate your actions wisely.

Thanks!
LV

Read Ana L. Felcher v. Mary Benson here! · Master of Master Baiters Joined: 01 Apr 2004 Posts: 751

Lord Vader - could you please clarify your post for the acronym-challenged among us? I do not know what a "third party's TOS" is, and I'm not sure exactly what your post is warning against. Thanks.

Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 11:00 am

TOS = Terms of Service

the third party (auction site) might get sick of people messing around with the scammers even if it is helping out those who don't know any better.

Posted: Mon Mar 14, 2005 3:06 pm

What about asking the auction site's permission to do scammer baiting with an account they could provide for them? Not sure if it will work with ebay, but other auction sites may let you do it.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 10 Jun 2005 Posts: 54

They are not going to give you that permission I am afraid. Any news about scams etc is bad for business.

Ideally, I'd like to see us put together intel files on scams on Ebay, and work with Ebay in the background to put a stop on it. You'd have to go to the very top to do it though - the drones you meet answering phones cannot make those decisions.

If we were able to get enough stuff together, and put a well reasoned submission to Ebay about 1) what is happening, 2) what should be done 3) how we can help them do it - and then nicely pester them for a response, I think that is the way to go.

They will want to handle it all in-house, as I think if you owned Ebay, you would too. But, shame is the best weapon. They cannot afford to have people say 'Ebay the scammers site', even though they might not care at all about individual users getting scammed.

Perhaps (if we do not already) have an official Ebay thread where people put as much detail as they can on Ebay scams, and we make an overall submission to them?

419Eater is my life Joined: 11 Jun 2005 Posts: 344

^^ if you truly want to persue this, can go straight to the top with an email to [email protected] (will get read by ceo's assistant)

Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 9:23 am

There is an official modality for reporting ebay scams. It is a bit of a pain to find the right option but it is there and does work.

ebay is not terribly fast at removing scam auctions, however.

For the UK the url is:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/contact_us/_base/index.html

I have an ebay id solely for the purposes of warning scam victims in an emergency but it is best left to eBay to terminate the auction instead.

Posted: Mon Aug 22, 2005 3:59 pm

winelight's idea is great for stopping scamming sellers if ebay don't pull the auctions but does nothing to help noobie or naive buyers and sellers falling for the fake check and 'second chance offer' scams and these are out of ebay's reach too.

If ebay could be convinced to set up a few dummy accounts specialising in overpriced expensive items that the other accounts could bid on you would be guarenteed to hook some scammers.

Having used ebay often and bid on items up to �500 I have had lots of 'SCO's' from scammers and even played one live on the ebay discussion boards but ebay pulled the thread - guess it makes them queasy to see scammers at work on ebay!

Posted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 6:33 am

What sums it up was the comment that e-bay are "not terribly fast" at removing scams, even when they see them.

This is a disgrace. It's much better for business to remeove a suspect scam, and quickly, before some poor soul gets defrauded than it is to sit on their hands.

Though it was not a formal fraud, when Geldof was doing his charity concerts, tickets were being re-sold on the e-bay site at vastly inflated prices. The press got the hold of it. E-bay made excuses for it. It was a disgrace. Quickly the practice was buried by noble bidders doing the "buy it now" with bids of $10,000,000 for the tickets. The practice stopped, when e-bay stopped it. A few days later, it began again.

If e-bay has a problem with counter-scammers messing with fraudsters, then I'm eating my heart out. I really am.

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2005 12:58 am

As a Amateur Radio buff, I see Illegal C.B> radios(they have frequency's able to transmit outside the allowed range-interferes with Amateur, coast guard, mexico and European agencies) Ebay says NO to them, so now, they list them as "10 meter radios" Now, Mind you, they don't say Amateur. Just 10 meter rig" which is a stretch of the truth. If they sell them outside the US, they don't seem to be bothered by the FCC, but Let em start talking INSIDE the FCC and the Jerk on the radio say where /Who he got it from...BIG TROUBLES. the sad thing is, many people are being affected by this crapola, Ebay is getting swamped by the Amateurs who police it. But- here is the catch- if they say it's a 10 meter rig- Ebay has to back off. I hate it when they get on the Ham bands, makes the frequency unusable, and they don't care if you're trying to Phone patch some guy to his soon to be wife giving birth, they were jamming frequencies on 10 meter Amatuer during Hurricane relief!

I know Hams (for those who may not know- that's a slang for a Amateur), who are getting burnt buying these rigs- One guy buys em just to keep the idiots off the air, he had one show up that was the outside of the rig and filled with cement! I would love to nail the dishonest ones, that's supposed to be safe harbors job, but they don't do as well as a job as i would like.

Perhaps Big Al shouldn't send Pictures to them! HA!

Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2006 6:50 am

You can use Ebay (US) and report them, but the first thing I would do is contact the Seller and let them know you are onto them; sure they may blow you off but it puts them on notice.

Auction Sites are so rife with fraud both on and after the deal is done, its almost like you get more crap then treausres when dealing with them.

Heck, there "were" badge sites selling good copies of US federal officer badges from the FBI, Secret Service and more; the site was US based and operated on the fringe by selling to "collectors" neat thing was that 1/2 the sellers were complete frauds who sent nothing at all.

Back to the first point, save copies of emails sent to sellers/scams and any replies; send those to ebay.

419Eater is my life Joined: 21 Nov 2005 Posts: 264

I've found Ebay very good at closing down illegal activity once it is reported to them correctly. As mentioned above it's a bit of a pain to find the right option but once you do they respond very quickly and shut down auctions that aren't legit.

I recently reported a spoofed Ebay website and got a reply within 12 hours. Not long after the website disappeared. Also not long ago someone was selling software that was created by a person I happen to know. A number of people on another forum including myself reported this to Ebay along with a report from the owner of the software and the auction was shut down promptly, within an hour or so.

Elite Baiter Joined: 03 Jan 2006 Posts: 1455

They seem to be very good with some sorts of things.

I have never however managed to persaude them to stop allowing sales of freeware software from another site I visit.

The fact that they often include photos of the CDs with "Freeware - Resale on on e-bay or any other place not permitted" hasn't yet encouraged them to remove an item.

419Eater is my life Joined: 21 Nov 2005 Posts: 264

Quote:

I have never however managed to persaude them to stop allowing sales of freeware software from another site I visit.

For that you need the person who holds the copyright to lodge a complaint. That's basically what I was dealing with in my second example. Someone had a compilation of a bunch of freeware (license only permitted upload to certain websites) from different authors. I found one thing on the CD from someone I knew so I reported it to them and gave them a link to complain to Ebay. Ebay pulled the auction within a couple hours once the copyright holder complained about infringement.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 26 Jun 2006 Posts: 72

Unfortunately, Ebay has the stance that they're simply a 'marketplace' and a service to 'connect buyers and sellers', and make it painfully clear in their TOS that they're not responsible if you get screwed.

However, more reasonably, you have to understand that they're having to 'police' literally millions of auctions per day...and just because someone is following a standard fraudulent MO, isn't actually proof that they're doing anything wrong.

Basically, if you report to Ebay that a seller is listing something illegal or something forbidden in their TOS, they can take action pretty quickly. It's plain as day and obvious that the seller is breaking Ebay's rules.

On the other hand, maybe the guy who is sending a check for twice the amount of the item and wants the remainder returned by WU is actually telling the truth.

Common sense tells us that these scammers obviously aren't telling the truth, but from a legal point of view, you can't arbitrarily remove a listing, just because there's a 'chance' the listing is fraudulent.

I'm speaking from experience here. I wanted to buy some classic C64 games on Ebay, and asked the seller if he accepted personal checks. His reply was along the lines of: "Oh yeah? and I bet you'll be sending twice the amount and wanting the rest sent back to Nigeria by WU! Fuck off!"

I replied stating I was in the UK, and would write him a check for the exact amount, and he could hold off on shipping until it cleared...but he never responded to me.

Long story short, from a legal point of view, it's difficuly to take down a listing because it might be fraudulent.

Posted: Thu Aug 10, 2006 2:23 am

eBay is a total crapshoot. They pretend to care about the customers but they really don't . I know this up close and personal. But its' still a great place to find good deals if you know what you're looking for and are careful who you buy it from. As a seller I got stung a couple of times with fake checks so I stopped taking checks. Sipmle enough. Actually I didn't lose that much money and it was a great lesson in fake checks. I still have those suckers in my desk drawer. Ya win some and ya lose some.

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 4:24 am

ebay does not make money off buyers... they charge sellers so much that they pretty much HAVE to give them a million chances.

there are too many loopholes in ebay's policies... at least they do remove listings and do try and police their auctions.

check out sites like tradekey.com ec21.com sell.com tradeleads.com alibaba.com
these sites are prime for big money scamers

i get fake ebay emails at least 3-4 times a day, i probably have every spyware imaginable on my computer lol

Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:30 pm

http://www.trademe.co.nz is starting have problems with the romanian vlads. There are a few of us keeping an eye out but we are hamstrung by the site not allowing us to warn other members about the dodgy auctions by way of the message boards.
These vlads hijack account with the old fake site email "Log in to update your security" and start "selling" cell-phones.

Master Baiter Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 158

Bad Cheque buyers are an issue too. Baiting them is somewhat harder because you actually have to HAVE to product to sell if you get a legit buyer.

However, I have discovered you dont need to actually HAVE an auction to find them.

1: Go to Laptops or Mobile Phones (They love these, some pick just one, the really greedy ones for for both)
2: On the side click the button next to "Completed Listings" and then Search.
3: On the Bold Green prices with Buy It Now next to it, check this listing for a bidder username.
4: In another browser/tab, open up "Advanced Search" and click "Search by Bidder"
5: Put the name in there and click the "include completed listings" button, then search.
6: If there is a huge list of items bought within minutes of each other (usually all laptops, mobiles or game consoles) then you have yourself a scammer.

Use the Security Contact section and the accounts security option. Put the link to the search in the box and just advise them that this struck you as highly suspicious - could they have a look into it. You dont even need to add your Ebay ID.

I only discovered this a few days ago myself when a scammer tried it on me - but since then I have been checking every day (around midday here) and forwarding on the suspicious activity to the Ebay Security centre. They are fairly good at getting all the auctions cancelled quickly.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 41

That's an interesting tip, XPS.

Master Baiter Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 158

Works a treat TS. I reported 5 today, three accounts (made by scammers at EbayAU so they can bid on the AU only actions) have been iced, a stolen one has just had all the bids put on it TKOed, and I am just waiting to see the last one vanish.

If we could get a few more people just doing the same check after the lads have gone to bed, we could put a major dint in their income and save a whole lot of victims. Thats why I added it here.

Ebay do appreciate the assistance.

Quote:

Hello XXXX,

Thank you for writing back about this issue.

I have forwarded these user ID's to the appropriate departments to be
reviewed. These accounts will be restored to its owner in accordance
with eBay policy or sanctioned for violations of the security of eBay.

Unfortunately, I am not at liberty to discuss the specific details of
the accounts for privacy reasons.

On behalf of the eBay community XXXX I want to thank you for the work
you do assisting victims of fraud. These online criminals destroy the
experiences of well meaning consumers who believe as eBay does that
people are basically good. eBay has no patience for these acts and works
to protect our members from being victims. With the help of watchful
people such as yourself who are able to recognise the signs of the scam
and who are devoted to assisting those who are victims, you reinforce
our belief that people are basically good.

Please keep being the supportive and human person you are. Your report
and the work you do makes a difference for so many people. I wish you
all the best this holiday season XXXX.

Again, I want to thank you for your report and keeping eBay a safe and
fun place to trade.

Regards,

XXYY.
Trust & Safety Team

Names changed to protect the innocent.

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 25 Jul 2010 Posts: 4

I am new and I was just reading about all the ebay scams. I am alarmed, because I do LOTS of buying from ebay. I have NEVER had a problem. Can someone please explain how a scam on ebay would go and what, as a buyer, can I watch out for?

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