GoRideSno

Bill,
I missed that but it looks like we were thinking exactly the same thing. I'm sure you know the saying.
Andy K

GoRideSno

He canceled all our bids.
If e-bay dosen't do anything how can we alert potential bidders from being scammed? I guess I could run an ad on e-bay UK? How does that work?
Andy K

Bill Ball

Jeez, you guys having fun? Well, Andy, I was going to be a little subtler. You can rebid, but you should create an alternate eBay ID that is registered to another email address that doesn't go back to you directly. Actually you can just rebid as is, but he can complain that you are harrassing him and get your ID cancelled. Also, you can message anyone who bids (except he had IDs hidden in this case) anonymously and let them know the guy's a fraud without revealing who you are. You really have no obligation to stop stupid people from bidding. Anybody with half a brain would do some checking and quickly see this is a fraud. Hopefully eBay will do the right thing, but it can take days if it is not obvious fraud on its face. They don't know you or him from Adam and can't quickly establish who copied who.

Jim_H

Andy,

He ended the auction.

Bill Ball

Good. You guys made it too much of a hassle for him. He'll find something else that doesn't have such a rabid commuinity behind it.

bfellows

I do like your style in dealing with these things!

heinrich

you guys are excellent. Man, that was great .... wish I had been here and not out with the guys having a 928 beer ... NICE WORK.

James-man

So eBay didn't end the auction?

In my mind, eBay is scammers' paradise. I would be concerned that they don't see auction plagiarism as evidence of potential fraud. They should have a policy of suspending and auction when such verifiable evidence is presented and a complaint registered. Auction could be resumed when the seller is cleared (unlikely in most cases).

eBay probably has huge legal team to keep themselves just within legal lines. Bounties for identifying scam auctions should be readily awarded, but that wouldn't be legally necessary to do would it? I dislike the wide span between what is right and what is legal. Doesn't this bother anyone else?

heinrich

I do not believe ebay looks at all incoming complaints. I've been on ebay since they were a very tiny cool bay area board, and they have changed immensely. I am sure they are incapable of managing each of the billions of issues that arise every hour. Which means, you are on your own.

James-man

That means for the average buyer, a neutral 3rd party is necessary to assure a fraudless and misrepresentation-free transaction. Funds held up in escrow account of sorts until the buyer signs off on the goods. UPS stores (if they were larger) could fulfill this role on modest sized items. The buyer would show up on this neutral turf, look over the item, sign off and $$$ hit.

Buyer beware is a good principle, but stupid people, and there are plenty of them out there, could use a little protection from their own poor judgment.

Bill Ball

James:

Fraud and scams bother me a lot. However, I see eBay as no different than the world at large. S#@t like this happens everywhere. Scams are everywhere. Andy reported this yesterday. They have to figure out that Andy is the originator with reasonable certainty. It's almost a chicken and egg thing unless it is obvious - e.g., say Andy is a well known corporate entity. You want guilty until proven innocent on eBay. You say that this would rarely be reversed. I've bought and sold hundreds of items on eBay, many of which I would have had almost no way of obtaining without great difficulty or inconveneience prior to eBay. I use a reasonable amount of skepticism and caution, and I spent some time learning how the signs of a scam are displayed on eBay (not very different from anywhere else) and how to use eBay to spot them. I've yet to be taken by a buyer or seller. I've seen scams. I've been approached by scammers wanting to send me supposed bank drafts for way over the purchase price and have me refund them the difference by wire transfer. You have to be plain stupid to do this, but people fall for it all the time, despite the fact that eBay warns you point blank not to do this. For major items (say, new home appliances and equipment), I don't buy unless I know exactly who I am dealing with. They must have an established business I can verify (long established web presence and/or brick and mortar store) and a long history of selling that item. The guy that has 100% positive feedback selling nothing but $2 baseball cars that suddenly is offering a truckload of $10K plasma TVs at crazy low prices, needs to be avoided. People can't resist an apparent bargain despite the warning signs (like zero feedback here) and they throw caution to the wind and end up buying a bridge. Yes, it bothers me, and I wish it were scam-free, but for me, eBay's giant yard sale has been a massively positive thing. I have a garage full of rapidly appreciating rare motorcycle parts that I would have had to travel the world trying to track down. Out of my house I can make about 50-100% profit in a year buying and selling these things. Thank you, eBay! My 89 S4 came from eBay as well.

James-man

Bill,

I would guess that you are above average on the intelligence scale. Scammers prey on the below average. Your successful transactions were probably the result of your due diligence and judgment, in addition to the fact that the majority of auctions are legitimate and truly in good faith.

This is different than a giant yard sale because you can physically see that the product exists and can return to the same house later than day after you find out what you bought doesn't work. Face to face requires more hutzpah to lie or commit fraud than the anonymous environment afforded by an online auction.

I just feel sorry for all of the poor suckers out there.

James-man

The chicken and egg thing can be proven on occasion. Andy's closed auction a couple of weeks before the fraudulent one is pretty good evidence. The one under investigation would then be responsible for proving that Andy was the copycat. Without evidence, the auction may have to continue.

bcdavis

Next time something like this happens, just let the person know that Ebay and the police have been notified, and that they had better end the auction. Just let them know that a lot of people know about these systems, and they are always watching ebay... So they should just try some other scam...

Helstrm

LOL it ended while I was bidding 1 billion.... I figured for that amount of cash I could just strap a seat and some wheels to it and drive it without the rest of the car.