I've bought and sold about 800 "sides" on ebay through a couple of Ebay IDs - two are mine and one ID is mostly my spouses'. In that time I have seen all sorts of nonsense - and ocassionally been a potential victim. In fact, recently I bought a Canon zoom from a seller with everything looking right. You know... moderately high feedback in excess of 98% positive, listing with refund offer, proper english in listing, paypal, and other sales listed that fit the ordnary profile. Only to find that right after winning the auction I got a TKO email from ebay warning me NOT to complete the sale because the seller has had their account suspended for potential fraud or otherwise?
I have TURNED IN numerous suspicious listings where the seller apparently has stolen someone else's account (through PISHING most likely). Those listings try to bait a would be buyer into communicating OFF EBAY to make an irresistable offer... if only they could get the money WIRED to them in Nigeria or the Netherlands (or someplace similar). Also, those sellers often have many out of character items listed at too low to be possible, no reserve bid levels. Plus, these listings often are 1 day listings. AND, amusingly they change the ID location to places all over the globe from China to the UK to otherwise...and a quick check against their feedback on past sales shows their location WAS previously listed in the US or somewhere else in Europe. It seems a lot of Europeans are falling prey to PISHING because more and more of these scams seem to use stolen European accounts.
If you like - search Ebay's security pages for discussions on how to recognize and avoid being a victim of fraud.
SO - after having this one purchase TKO'd by Ebay... I went out and bought another identical Canon Zoom the next day. It came with a 7 day refund option stated in 3 places, nice photos, good feedback history with extended Paypal protection and so on. On reception of the lense - 10 days after the sale - I immediately noted 2 problems... a frozen manual focus ring and a radically shifting image as it focused! I emailed the seller to suggest there was a problem and to please
confirm that I am invoking the refund option. About 4 days later it was obvious the seller was in denial and refusing to honor his/her terms. SO - I filed a claim with ebay - who in turn switched it to paypal to manage.
Paypal froze the funds in question and took just one initial statement from each of us - and in about a week they asked me to provide PROOF of damage with a professional repair appraisal. Coincidentially, there was a professional camera repair shop just a mile from here who rendered a statement. I faxed it back to Paypal. 1 day later they approved me for the refund and instructed me to ship it back with on line tracking to arrive in less than 10 days. I sent it on the 4th day and it arrived on the 8th with FedEX ground. Simply on arrival reported via FedEX they refunded the full amount paid. No confirmation with the seller was apparently required ... as the seller was mildly belligerent and did not indicate he had to confirm that the contents were correct. I could have shipped a box of rocks?! I was impressed with the process and outcome.
Now on another amusing note... I did in fact neglect to enclose something in the returned package. I missed the front lense cap - so on the day I shipped the lense back I emailed the bad seller that I honestly missed the cap but would send it. I put it in an envelope and it fell to the floor of my car where it sat un-noticed for a week unshipped. In that week I fell ill to stomach flu - and the illness swept through the family - kids an' all. Plus the younger one had more symptoms from hand foot mouth and my spose went out of town for work. That was very disruptive as you can imagine. But at the end of this interval - the bad seller sent an email declaring I might as well keep the cap. SO - being amused over his angry offer I decided I would keep it. Then a week later he emailed asking for it? I sent him a reply asking whether he knew what he had been saying in his printed communications - since he kept changing his mind from he wrote to what he wanted. At one point his excuse for not honoring a refund in the original listing was that he had NOT intended to offer the refund - even though he wrote or marked that a refund would be honored in 3 places (2 places required he keystroke the instructions for a refund and the 3rd was a checked box). SO - here he was claiming to have
not intended to offer the cap when he had offerred the cap free already ... just like the error he claimed in the listing as the excuse to not honor the 3 refund offers.
Well.... because he was so amusingly confused over what he wrote versus what he now demands... I went back to examine the listing carefully for annomalies and coontradictions.
It was at this point I discovered ...he had been using FAKE duplicate ebay identities to bid on his own auction to push my bids higher! This is strictly forbidden by Ebay and referred to as SHILL BIDDING (look it up on Ebay). You see... one of the bidding IDs actually used his real surname and first initial with a number behind it!!!! On closer examination of ALL his sales I noticed that he actually had TWO IDs where he had been pushing up the bidding on EVERY SALE with multiple bids with 2 obvious fake IDs and possibly a 3rd suspicious ID. On a couple of listings he ended up winning his onw auction and leaving feedback to himself! Dumb.
I turned him into Ebay security. Then I posted negative feedback asserting he used fake IDs to manipulate bids AND had refused to honor a refund offer in the listing. He immediately changed the fake ID with his name in it - but I guess he did not realize that this would appear in the permanent ID public record for all to see! His guilt was obvious! He then emailed me to say I should keep the cap and please leave him alone now. So I sent duplicate emails to all the buyers who were defrauded to advise them of being cheated. About a third of them emailed back asking what to do or other queries. At this point the seller responded to my negative feedback entry denying some of the allegations I posted. The fellow did not realize that once he posts a feedback reply that entitles me to post an additional responce to his response. SO I added more details of his dishonesty. Also - I just noticed that EBAY just suspended one of his fake IDs.
I noticed he had 3 sales listings that prior to my ebay security complaint were already using his fake IDs to push the bidding up - and they abruptly disappeared after I filed the complaint. They do not even show in his history under advanjced search. I've seen this happen with some stolen account litings before. But not always. If I were a bidder on the listing then a page would come up from my point - but if searching externally it does not come up. Apparently Ebay canceled them and must have issued a formal warning... but no suspension (it takes 3 complaints to apply a extended or semi-permanent suspension). I did receive an email from ebay thanking me for flagging the shill bidder - and for privacy reasons they could not directly reveal te findings or actions they took. But - of course I can see one of his accounts was suspended and his listings were taken down abruptly.
His newest listings are now boasting admonishments for NO PAYPAL and only CASH or MONEY ORDERS only... plus they had a number of ZERO FEEDBACK bidders. More so then I think are typical for any auction. I suspect the seller is up to his old tricks with new identities. He does not realize that it takes no effort for ebay to check URLs to see if the users of these IDs are at the same terminal or possibly using the same credit card or bank info. OF course, ebay will not check anyone unless someone turns them in with good suspician or evidence. SO I am watching... with amusement. Good thing I am sort of semi-retired with a little time to watch this - and cross search if the same items he typically sell appear under another identity. He is a repeat seller of certain items.
I don't think ebay does enough in the way of managing a fraud free transaction. I think they could do more - a lot more - but since it is not a total epidemic they are leaving things as is. Letting a few people get ripped off is OK so long as the total volume of sales remains high and no one hears about who and how many get ripped off. I suspect that many uninformed people are being made victims - and those who are agile and knowledgible are in the minority. HECK, even being informed like myself I had ONE transaction TKO'd... that was sort of annoying.
At any rate, I would have to say that I have become a bit disillusioned with buying above a certain dollar level through ebay. I have always been
able to buy full price at retail - but thought it would be prudent to try and get the lowest price where reasonable. And Ebay seems less reasonable to me after these recent experiences. It is just not worth it anymore to buy used or near new on ebay to only save 20-40%. I bought my 70-300 IS new from B&H and figure it cost me 20% more - but it is brand new and fully GUARANTEED! The zoom I was shopping for will now be bought new - probably from B&H when I get around to it.
I have sold a G-1, an SD10 (new in sealed box~ a business gift), a digital rebel, a Canon 28-200 and a Tamron 18-200. Every buyer I sold to was happy as a puppy with a milk bone. In turn I have bought a Canon G-1, Canon 10D, Tamron 18-200, Canon 28-200, Canon 20-35 and several filters and memory cards without incident. The bad purchases were only a battery operated breast pump, a purse saturated with smoke (undisclosed but returned OK), a pair of ladies shoes that were never shipped and the last two attempts at Canon Zooms. On my sales I had 2 psychotic buyers who were simply rude and strange. SO - I must have had more than the 7 bad episodes I can recall - so lets' say I had 14 out of maybe 800 transactions - and I guess that's not so bad (less than 2%). I would rather have had NO bad transactions though.
I presume this discussion might help some - or at least amuse a few. In time I might return to buy a few things of significance. Just 2 weeks ago I bought a pair of $120 "Master Replica" LOTR collectible swords for $11 each and yesterday a new $250 chronograph alarm watch for $22. Shipping added about $8 to each. I already received the swords and they're new, amazing and beautiful - and the watch shipped today (email confirmed shipping one day after the sale)! That is the way it should be.
Cheers!
. Before I bid I typically do as much research as I can on a seller through the feedback and see what people have bought from them in the past. 
IE, plasma TVs, other DSLRs, high end electronic equipment, etc..... The feedback history of the poor young lady who had her account ID stolen shows she is new to Ebay and has bought 12 Louis Vitton (misspelled cuz I'm a guy who doen not buy those sort of expensive hand bags) hand bags. SO there is no matching history to the items listed for sale.
