Cheaters,
Liars & Thieves
‘ve been an eBay member for quite a while having sold and
purchased a fair number of items. It’s a great place to sell those things that just
don’t do well at yard sales. How many people cruising by on a Saturday morning
on the way to a soccer game are really going to be interested in a tone remote
communications console? Or maybe an 800 MHz yagi antenna or DTMF decoder?
Exactly.
Most of my trading experiences have been good. On the
other hand, I’ve also been ripped off more on eBay that every other trading
venue I’ve ever used combined. Even though there are obviously a number of good
people using eBay who deal fairly and honestly, it seems that as time has
progressed, I find myself more often than not breathing a sigh of relief when a
transaction actually goes smoothly. That’s because eBay has become a haven for
dirt bags—more specifically; greedy, selfish, opportunistic, scum-sucking, dishonest,
thieving dirt bags. And maybe it’s just me, but it doesn’t seem to be getting
any better. When you go onto eBay now, almost every page has some sort of
reference to fraud and scams. The simple reality is that eBay is rampant with
fraud, and I think more could be done to police sellers and help protect
buyers.
First of all, yes, the whole issue of online trading
ultimately comes down to “Buyer Beware.” If you don’t want to run the risk of
being ripped off then you need to stay off of online trading venues such as
eBay. And for heaven’s sake use common sense. A few programs have been
instituted for users to report possible fraud and for some to even get their
money back in a few very isolated instances. Other than that, and warning signs
posted everywhere, you’re on your own. Unfortunately because of the type and
volume of trading that goes on there, getting your money back for most
fraudulent transactions isn’t going to happen.
Knowing when a potential purchase or sale on eBay will go
south because of an unscrupulous member is almost impossible. However, sellers
give you hints sometimes if you take the time to look—like poorly written ads
with unclear pictures and vague descriptions neglecting to describe an item in
detail. Also watch out for the ones that overcharge for shipping. When you see
an ad for something that you know darn well shouldn’t cost more than $10 to
ship, but has a listed shipping cost of $20 or $25, it’s ‘Buyer Beware.’ Why is
this potential fraud? Because shipping costs are almost always non-refundable.
The actual cost of shipping may only be $10. But if the seller charges $25 and
you pay it, that extra $15 you pay for essentially nothing goes straight into
their pockets where it stays regardless of whether you return the item or not.
It’s kind of like when a recurring services company
(utility, bank, cellphone, cable, etc.) decides to add a small ‘fee’ to
something you regularly pay for. You may not even realize the fee is there, or
question what it is—just accepting it as one of your responsibilities to pay.
And that’s what they’re depending on. A 50-cent monthly fee quietly
added to the accounts of a million people and presto, there’s an extra $500,000
a month of added revenue. That’s $6 million a year just from one,
little, tiny, insignificant 50 cents per person. Many service companies have a
million customers just in a few large cities. Talk about scam’s in plain
sight…err, I mean, adjustments in customer billing to offset variations in
operating expenditures…
But back at the eBay table, one of the programs they employ
to help monitor and weed out suspect sellers and buyers is their Feedback
system. On the whole, the concept is sound. But unfortunately it has several
problems that many times work against the honest buyer, and actually favor
the dishonest seller. It has been a problem, is still a problem,
and will continue to be a problem as long as eBay keeps the status quo
on their feedback policies.
The point of eBay Feedback is to publicly display the
ratings given to members by other members regarding the quality of service or
product in any given transaction. Once the auction is over and a transaction is
made, both parties are supposed to leave feedback for the other. A member’s
‘feedback rating’ is the primary method of determining the integrity of a
member on eBay. The problem is that many sellers use this system to intimidate
buyers by stating or implying that positive feedback will be left for the buyer
only after the buyer leaves positive feedback for the seller. Some unscrupulous
sellers even brazenly post this policy in the small print at the bottom of
their auction someplace where most people don’t catch it until it’s too late.
And even when a seller isn’t arrogant enough to actually post this policy, all
you have to do is go to a few members’ feedback pages and look at the dates of
when feedback was left for the seller vs. the dates the seller left feedback
for the buyer. Many times you’ll find the buyer’s feedback was left first. If
the buyer waits for the seller to leave positive feedback after the payment is
made, a standoff ensues and no feedback is left at all. So in other words, the
seller can hold a negative feedback over the head of the buyer if the buyer
doesn’t leave the seller a favorable feedback first. In a few cases it also
works the other way around.
The heart of this type of intimidation is the ‘retaliatory’
feedback. I have one of those on my otherwise perfect feedback score left by a
total scumbag seller representing a good, working cellphone that ended up being
an unusable piece of garbage. I contacted the seller and demanded a refund.
They gave me instructions on how to return the item, which I followed. After
two weeks of hearing nothing back, I contacted the seller. No response. I tried
to contact the seller several more times with no response. Finally I contacted
eBay and reported the incident. There was a lot of email chitchat and ‘dispute
resolution’ that went nowhere. Finally I left the seller a negative feedback
indicating that the item I purchased was misrepresented, that the item was
returned but no refund was issued. Within hours of this action, the seller left
a negative feedback for me stating that “BUYER LEAVES NEGATIVE FEEDBACK FOR NO
REASON.’ Nice.
I sent a correspondence to eBay stating that this feedback
was completely retaliatory, had no basis in fact and that the seller had
committed fraud. They responded by stating that the only way the feedback could
be removed was by mutual agreement of both parties, or if I got a court order. What?
A court order? Give me a break. And if I ‘mutually’ agreed to remove the
feedback then no one else out there would ever know that this seller ripped me
off. I ended up having to report the buyer to the Federal Trade Commission, the
State’s Attorney General and several other Internet Fraud reporting agencies.
This seller’s feedback rating didn’t appear that bad overall. That was likely
because there were a lot of members whose negative feedbacks had been
‘mutually’ withdrawn so the retaliatory feedback left by the seller for the
buyer didn’t show up on their account. The Seller eventually left eBay after no
doubt ripping off a few hundred more people, and the retaliatory feedback they
left for me is still on my account. Thank you.
A good business practice, and what can only be seen as
simple common sense in the interest of protecting eBay buyers and keeping their
sellers honest regarding the feedback system, would be to allow eBay sellers to
leave only two kinds of feedback; Positive—indicating the buyer paid within the
specified time frame, or Negative—indicating that they did not. That’s all
that’s needed. When a buyer purchases an item from a seller, their only
requirement at that time is to pay for the item. Nothing else. So why should
the seller be allowed to wait until the buyer leaves feedback first? They
shouldn’t. That’s the whole point. And buyer feedback for the seller should
not be initiated until after the seller has left their feedback
regarding paying status. Until this long-standing feedback loophole is
corrected, eBay sellers will continue using it as a racketeering method of
intimidation over buyers, and continue making eBay a great place for the
dishonest to do business.
Here’s another seller bonehead for you. A while ago I
purchased a camcorder from a supposedly reputable eBay seller. It was ‘almost
new’ in excellent condition with original box. But when the dipstick shipped it
to me, in the original box, they used no plastic, bubble wrap or any other form
of cushioning or protection around the camcorder. By the time it got to me,
sections of the silver paint on the camcorder had rubbed off against the inside
of the box. This member sold these types of items frequently and should have
known better. I told him the item wasn’t packed properly and it did not arrive
in the same condition as it was described. He basically ripped me a new one in
an email and told me what I could do with my ‘problem.’ EBay didn’t care so I
decided to let other eBay members know how this guy did business by disclosing
the buyer’s behavior in the eBay forum pages. Other members thanked me for
warning them of this seller until eBay moderators blocked my discussion for
reasons that I had ‘broken policy’ by naming the seller. Once again, policy
protected the rights of the ill-mannered so their antics would be hidden from
unsuspecting buyers.
Next, four used wheels from an eBay seller in Michigan. The
wheels were advertised as clean and in good condition. When they arrived they
were pitted with an abnormal amount of corrosion. I tried to clean them up, but
decided they were too far-gone. One wheel had a dented rim and a replacement
wheel the seller sent was corroded just as badly as the others. The seller had
failed to disclose that the wheels came from Ford’s proving grounds and had
been subjection to intensive wear and weather tests, which I discovered later.
The seller agreed to take them back and told me he’d have DHL pick them up. DHL
picked up the very well-packed boxes of wheels the next day, then later I get a
bill from them for about $60 for shipping. The seller decided not to pay the
shipping charges once the wheels got back to him. DHL tried to stick me with
the cost and we almost went to court over the matter.
The seller never did respond to emails after that and didn’t
issue a refund. Going through eBay’s dispute resolution was pointless once
again. Their resolution process only works if a problem is the result of an
honest misunderstanding or mistake. When one member willfully decides to engage
in criminal behavior, the whole situation changes. I finally received a refund
of only about half what was owed after I filed a complaint with the Michigan
Attorney General’s office. The seller claimed that I had sent him back
different wheels than the ones he had originally sent me—a devious idea from
the mind of a devious seller. The wheels I returned were cleaner, but that was
all. No one was willing to pursue the matter further. It’s times like that when
I digress and wish I had connections to the mafia.
Another seller in Texas listed wheels that were advertised
as the correct fit for the model of car I had recently purchased. On this
seller’s website in great big letters he even stated, ‘MONEY BACK GUARANTEE.’
How could I go wrong? Must have been on Prozac or something. Not only did the
wheels not fit, the seller hadn’t used one speck of packing material in the
individual, oversize boxes in which the wheels were free to bang around during
shipment (aluminum wheels are soft and the rims easily dent with blunt force).
The seller had also been instructed to strap two boxes together to lower
shipping costs. He claimed the shipping carrier must have separated the boxes
after he dropped them off. Yeah, I’m sure that was it. Two wheels showed up one
day and the other two the next. After discovering that the first wheels to
arrive didn’t fit anyway, I boxed them back up and refused the next shipment
explaining that the contents had been improperly packaged, damaged and should
be returned to the seller. After receiving the wheels back, the seller then
told me I hadn’t ‘preauthorized’ the return so he wasn’t going to issue a
refund. I was so sick of dealing with these idiots on eBay that I finally just
decided to call it quits.
Oh, but there are so many good deals and nifty, cute, neat
little things on eBay. So when I recently decided I wanted to get a cheap PDA,
I slogged my way back there. Not sure which model or style I’d like best, I
purchased a couple of different ones to try; one with a Palm operating system
and one with Windows. I selected the operating system I liked but decided on
another brand of PDA, so I bought yet another. The first two had arrived pretty
much in the condition expected. However, the last PDA that was listed as
‘almost new’ showed up in good condition, but the speaker didn’t work and it
failed the self-diagnostic for the audio test. Fortunately, this seller
responded to my email and so far seems willing to work out a solution. I’m
hopeful, but not holding my breath.
Shortly after listing the other PDA’s for sale, my message
box began filling with ‘questions from buyers’—none of them legit. One that
epitomized most of them went something like, “I want buy you item for my son in
Nigeria. Send you asking price plus $100 for shipping by certified check…”
Could any scam possibly be more cliché?
I only recieved one bid on one of the PDA’s. But that’s fine
because one bid is all it takes. That is, of course, unless the buyer then
sends you an email stating that ‘there was some confusion on his end about the
bidding’ and that he won’t be buying the item. Yeah, right. It doesn’t work
that way. If you bid and you win the item, you pay for the item. If you make an
incorrect bid (like imputing $10,000 instead of $100.00), you can retract your
bid. Other than that, you bid, you win, you pay. But for many people it seems
that this casual indifference to responsibility has now become a normal way of
doing business. Filing an ‘Unpaid Item’ report is the next step because that’s
the only way to get a credit for the ‘final value’ fees you incur when someone
buys your item. EBay also suggests I leave the buyer ‘appropriate’ feedback. I
think we’ve already covered the problem with doing that now haven’t we? Do you
think eBay would remove the retaliatory feedback that this particular
‘non-paying’ buyer would undoubtedly leave me? Not likely. EBay might issue a
non-payment strike against the member, but the member would just close their
account and open another one under a different name. They do it all the time.
Last one, I promise. Several years ago I purchased an
authentic 1970 Dodge Challenger RT instrument cluster for a car I was starting
to restore. I made sure to describe the proper features exactly to the seller
to make sure it was the authentic ’70-’71 RT cluster and not the ’72-’74 RT
cluster which is different. The cluster arrived still mounted in a rusty dash
in a huge box. I’ll bet you can guess what happened next. Yep, wrong year. I
contacted the seller, he apologized greatly and promised a refund. I sent the
dash back paying $45 for shipping and never heard from the seller again. My
loss? About $500. Just add it to my list. This first experience in restoring my
beloved Challenger was so pathetic that I decided to just cut my losses right
there and I sold the car to avoid dealing with more dishonest people like that.
However, I’ve heard stories of others losing a great deal more to these
low-lifes than I have so relatively speaking, I’ll count myself lucky.
But what happens when the tables are turned? What do you do
when you’re the one that screws up? While in the fray of selling off an
inventory of surplus business equipment on eBay several years ago, I
accidentally sold some defective equipment to a customer in New York. I had
completely forgotten that two of the items had problems and they were
accidentally sold as being in ‘good working order.’ When the man who had
purchased the items sent me an email stating that the two units didn’t work, I
was mortified. I immediately refunded the man his entire amount with shipping
plus the stupid extra fees that PayPal charges for using their service. I
apologized for the mistake and told him to keep the equipment anyway in case he
could use them for parts. This buyer left me a positive feedback for at least
being honest.
Personally I can’t imagine purposefully tarnishing my own
reputation by doing something like cheating someone out of a few dollars of
merchandise. There is a saying that goes something like, “If money is all you
want, then money is all you will have.” What is the price of one’s
integrity? Apparently for some it isn’t much.
Money comes and goes, and those who cheat others are really
only cheating themselves out of something infinitely more valuable that no
amount of money can ever compensate. When we leave this short existence for the
next, we will leave behind everything to take with us only our knowledge,
dignity and reputation earned through our deeds and actions for which we will
all be held accountable. Put a price on that.
- Ranse
Parker
Circle
of Doors
