
One More Sign World Is Shrinking – eBay Is for Suckers - silverdrake11
http://matthewsag.com/?p=1642
======
StanislavPetrov
Its sad to see how far Ebay has regressed. I was a seller of lots of random
(and sometimes very expensive) things (mostly collectibles) on Ebay for many
years. I had 100% feedback, often going out of my way (and taking a small
loss) to deal with crazy and/or difficult people in order to keep my perfect
feedback status.

I would pinpoint the time Ebay went off the rails to many years ago, when they
changed their feedback system. The whole beauty of Ebay was that it was based
on reputation. If I was selling something for thousands of dollars, I would
only allow buyers that had plenty of good feedback. This simple system allowed
you to avoid 99% of scammers. The only scammers that got through were people
who spent a long time acting legit and building up lots of positive feedback,
then "going rogue" and using that built-up goodwill to pull off a scam. This
risk was small and worth taking (happened to me twice after hundreds of
sales).

At some point, though, Ebay changed their feedback system so that sellers
could not leave buyers negative feedback! You could only leave positive
feedback, or refuse to leave feedback at all. Overnight, the entire
reputation-based system of buyer/seller reputation was destroyed. Within three
months of the change I was hit by three scammers, after selling less then ten
total items. This was more scammers than I had to deal with in a decade of
prior Ebay sales. There was simply no way for me to figure out which buyers
were legit, and no way to warn other sellers which buyers were scammers. As
evidenced in the article above, Ebay has absolutely no interest in blocking
these scammers. Contacting Ebay inevitably results in a canned response that
has nothing to do with your issue. Shortly after they changed their feedback
system I stopped selling on Ebay all together. It just isn't worth dealing
with the scammers, and Ebay seems to think that their current business model
is fine.

~~~
nitemice
That's because eBay changed the way they want to be perceived.

They want to sell themselves as a place to buy stuff, like Amazon, not so much
as a marketplace of individual sellers selling stuff.

By basically removing buyer feedback, they've made the experience buyer-
centric. All the safeguards (which are still fairly questionable) focus on the
buyer's experience with the seller, and the possibility of the seller being
dodgy.

Also, I'm not sure how it use to work, but how can a seller reasonably refuse
a buyer when a transaction has already gone through, without their
intervention?

~~~
StanislavPetrov
>Also, I'm not sure how it use to work, but how can a seller reasonably refuse
a buyer when a transaction has already gone through, without their
intervention?

A couple of ways. For one, you were able to set up filters to filter out
anyone below a certain amount of feedbacks or anyone with X number of negative
feedbacks from bidding on your item. Obviously by eliminating the ability to
leave negative feedback to buyers eliminates this.

You could also cancel the bids of buyers and offer the item to a different
bidder if they violated the terms of the sale (or didn't pay). As absurd as it
sounds, someone can bid on your item, not pay, and still leave you a negative
feedback. For example, they place the "winning bid". After the auction ends
(and before they pay) they contact you and tell you they want the item shipped
to Nigeria. Even if Nigeria isn't listed as a place you sell too, and you
explicitly point out in the item description that you don't ship out of
country, they can still leave you a negative feedback - all without paying! In
the past buyers were hesitant to due that, because they'd certainly receive a
negative feedback in return. Now they can be as scummy as they want without
consequence.

------
zeahfj
I used to work at eBay Trust and Safety. The place is a nightmare and will not
improve. The culture was destroyed by Meg Whitman and never recovered.

This kind of fraud sticks out like a sore thumb in click stream. I had no
trouble finding fraud and building algorithms to automatically detect it but I
did find it impossible finding someone at eBay who cared enough to do anything
about it. eBay still gets paid so no one wants to be in charge of a revenue
hit. I doubt that's changed.

Mark Carges tried to turn it around in 2008 and failed.

I have high hopes Facebook can move into this space.

~~~
icefox
But how would Facebook prevent the same fraud?

~~~
shard972
Probably in a similar way they tackled fake news, with all the finesse of a
bull in a china shop.

~~~
zeahfj
The fake news was done badly on purpose so people would beg them for manual
curation ;)

~~~
zeahfj
Interestingly this comment was voted up a bunch and then voted down a bunch.

'fake news' can be easily detected, not by the content but by those who share
it. I've built similar stuff before but obviously can't talk about specifics
without outing myself.

------
noonespecial
For what its worth, thats the "brick scam". As in "you can't sell apple stuff
on ebay anymore because of the brick scam".

Usually, they send you a return package with a rock or brick inside
approximating the weight of the original package.

Its famous enough at this point that its impossible that ebay is unaware. They
are fully aware and are _choosing_ to continue to profit off of this. So much
so that the "shell game" the author faced is likely scripted by this point.

Ebay consumes sellers as a raw material as part of the process. That's their
business model.

~~~
JonDav
Could you record the opening of the box and then go after eBay for allowing
the fraud to occur?

~~~
noonespecial
Amazon actually accepts this as evidence and will find in your favor. Video
yourself packing the original and unpacking the "return" and you will likely
prevail selling on amazon. I have.

Ebay sadly does not even provide you with a way to submit such evidence.

~~~
nommm-nommm
I've submitted video evidence to eBay before. Just include a link to an
unlisted Youtube video.

~~~
JonDav
Thanks for letting us know, that is actually very helpful

------
manacit
As someone who casually sells their old computers/phones on the internet, eBay
is completely useless for something like this. It's frustrating that they
advertise it on TV as a place to sell old equipment, actually trying is
futile.

Their fee structure is pretty bad (10% of the the sale price?!) compared to
just selling it locally on Craigslist if you are in a big metro. The eBay UI
to figure all of this out is even less so, and I had to resort to Google to
figure basic information.

Less than 24 hours after listing an iPhone 6s for sale, it was 'bought' by
someone who was an obvious scammer.

They reached out and asked for my direct PayPal email, citing that eBay was
broken. Of course, I told them to pay through eBay or I wouldn't ship the
phone. Immediately after this, I reached out to customer support and reported
the account. This did absolutely nothing - the sale was locked up for a week
"pending payment" until the buyer 'reported their account stolen' and the sale
was reversed. Nobody responded to my ticket, absolutely nothing happened.

I ended up selling it in that time frame locally in less time than it took to
deal with all of the eBay BS, and I was able to get something like $50 more.

------
mperham
If you google the buyer's address, it's home to a package forwarding service.
Do not ever do business with a buyer using such a service. 100% guarantee it's
a scam.

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/78+McCullough+Dr,+New+Cast...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/78+McCullough+Dr,+New+Castle,+DE+19720/@39.6922734,-75.5688828,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x89c702fc680bcabd:0x4bf837ee53036895!8m2!3d39.6922734!4d-75.5666941)

~~~
ClassyJacket
Excuse me?

As someone who uses package forwarding services to get things that don't ship
outside America, I can assure you I'm not a "scam".

~~~
michaelmrose
You might be an awesome person and well worth doing business with but the
entire class of people you belong to might still be a bad risk.

~~~
xor1
This kind of thinking is the reason I have so many rental applications despite
having 3+ years at a great job, excellent credit, and references :(

~~~
michaelmrose
I'm sorry to hear that it's unfortunate. When prejudgment is based on race,
gender etc it sucks but there are legal resources. In fact we make
prejudgments all the time based on all kind of factors fair and unfair and we
don't always have any recourse except to keep trying.

------
rickyc091
Ugh, sorry you had to go through this. I was in a similar case not too long
ago. Basically the same start... the item arrived and a claim was filed
stating that the phone wasn't working. I offered to help since it was
perfectly fine before I shipped it, but I was ignored. I waited until the last
date before accepting the return. As Matt mentioned, eBay basically forces you
to accept the return or you lose the item.

The buyer never shipped it back so it finally timed out after another 30 days
and I was able to file a claim and get my money back. Good to know I can
unlink from PayPal since they pulled the funds directly from my account. I was
in a negative balance.

Here's the kicker. If you decide to checkout on any site using PayPal, they'll
actually authorize the full balance behind the scenes. I was definitely
surprised when I saw a $400 charge for a $11 item I paid for.

eBay sucks for sellers, but you typically still get the best value aside from
dealing with criagslist.

------
walrus01
I would never buy or sell consumer stuff like an iphone on eBay. On the other
hand, I buy used/refurb network equipment all the time, from sellers that have
like 8000+ positive feedback and 99.8% positive feedback ratings. Very rarely
a problem, and no higher rate of problems/DOA items than with any other refurb
equipment dealers. There are some amazing deals out there for things that are
fresh off 3-year corporate leases, or have been decommissioned from
telecom/ISP sites somewhere for whatever reason. Want a 48-port 802.3af PoE
1000BaseT switch for really cheap, with proper cisco IOS, to put in the wiring
closet of your house? It's a good place to look. For consumer goods, not so
much.

also: I confine my purchasing on ebay to and from US domestic vendors with
verified accounts, and I never sell to consumer end users...

------
hackuser
> eBay is an enormous company with over $8 billion in revenue a year, so
> naturally it's difficult to talk to anyone there who is not a computer

It's not naturally difficult, it's just a decision by eBay. With that kind of
money they could pay and train people to provide service to you. Larger
companies than eBay operate tech support services, and my guess is that tech
support is higher-skilled than the customer service eBay needs.

------
neutered_knot
This has been going on forever. Here is an example from 2007, almost identical
to the one in the post.

[https://ask.metafilter.com/77638/Can-I-trust-PayPals-
seller-...](https://ask.metafilter.com/77638/Can-I-trust-PayPals-seller-
protection-If-not-what-can-go-wrong#1208841)

------
jrs235
This is why I'm starting to consider taking video of me packing and placing
goods in the shipping box (while at the shipping company), placing the
shipping label on the package, and dropping them off directly with
UPS/USPS/FEDEX (all in a non clipped video). Then also recording the opening
of any packages received in returns. Problem is this probably still wouldn't
be enough evidence and sufficient for eBay.

~~~
dwyer
The problem that the author describes is that eBay does not accept proof and
offers no way to submit it.

~~~
awqrre
You could always include a URL in your claim, to youtube or something else...

~~~
pmlnr
Upload the video right after post to a service, maybe as private. Since normal
mortals don't have the power to backdate upload times, this might work as
proof.

------
ars
What I do to protect myself is record a video of me packaging and shipping the
item.

I record the video at the post office itself, and of course include a shot of
the post office.

Start the video showing a closeup of the item, then record yourself packaging
and sealing the box, and putting on the address label - then _very important_
record an image of the address label, and finally walk it over to the drop
box, put it in, and pan wide to record the building.

Make SURE never to have the item go off frame or people will say you pulled a
trick.

The post office where I am is open 24/7 and deserted at night, so it's easy.
When I shipped UPS the guy looked at me funny and warned me he didn't want to
be in the video, but other than that I was able to record (and I included the
tracking receipt I got from them in the video).

It's a lot easier if you have a second person holding the camera, but it's
also possible with a tripod, or even just holding it if you prepare all the
tape stuck on one side of the flap so you can work one-handed. Do a test shot
to make sure your video camera is good enough that you can actually read the
address label - and even better the serial number on the product.

Keep the video for a long time, several months.

I've never actually had to use any of the videos I've made, but I keep making
them anyway.

~~~
thenewwazoo
You missed the part of the article where eBay's appeals process has no
mechanism by which you can submit your carefully-filmed masterpiece. :)

~~~
ars
The article says:

“… but, unfortunately, we didn’t receive proof that the buyer caused the
issue.”

Sounds like there is a way to submit proof, and this video would be proof.

But, it's very important to "test" the buyer - have them document what they
claim they received. Then this video can refute that.

Once they ship it to you it's too late - they'll claim they shipped an iPhone.

~~~
duaneb
Video stopped being proof a long time ago.

~~~
ars
You are confusing irrefutable proof with evidence. Evidence does not require
absolute perfect proof.

~~~
duaneb
I think the person above me was. :) I agree.

photos have been considered proof for a long time, and this was difficult to
communicate before photoshop, just like DNA evidence and cell phone tower
records had massive, unjustified weight in US courts for a while in the
nineties. I was referring to the fact that it's no longer tenable to view any
of the above as "proof", whether or not it was ever a certain evidence medium.

I'm sure there's a lot of legal understanding that I miss.

------
teknologist
I'm from the UK. Some years ago we bought a game console on eBay and instead
received a photo (!) of one in the post. eBay were unwilling to act, so we
went to the local police station and reported it. To our surprise they
eventually found the seller and recovered the money.

~~~
sveme
Same here in Germany. A friend bought a MacBook off ebay and wire-transferred
some money to his bank account. He never shipped. So she contacted first his
bank (which coincidentally was the same as hers) and then the local police.
Both were very understanding and said that they could not do much officially,
but sent a police car to his location to "interview" him while the bank also
contacted him. He quickly sent all the money back. Doubt he'll try something
like that again. The guy in the OP commited fraud, the iphone was sent to a US
address - why is it so hard to get in contact with local police, even if just
an additional step?

~~~
codedokode
The buyer was from Eastern Europe and american address was a mail forwarder.
By the way mail forwarders usually make photos of items sent through them so
eBay could concact them and ask for photo (and see that the item was sent
properly) if only it was interested to find out the truth.

------
JumpCrisscross
Contact your state banking regulator and report eBay and PayPal. New York
State's Department of Financial Services is particularly strong and responsive
[1].

[1] [http://www.dfs.ny.gov](http://www.dfs.ny.gov)

------
prirun
First, sorry that you got screwed on your phone. That sucks.

I recently sold 50 4TB hard drives on eBay. I had 2 returns for broken drives
that were damaged in shipping (my fault - the first 2 drives I sent weren't
packed well enough), and one other drive returned that the buyer said was
broken.

I tested the 3rd drive and found it worked perfectly, so reported the buyer
for abuse of the return process (I did allow returns, but only for defective
drives). To its credit, eBay refunded to me the shipping charges both ways
that I had paid. The buyer was pissed off and still insisted that the drive
was defective (and he was a Microsoft Certified something or other, blah,
blah), but strangely enough, it had 60 more hours on it when I received it
back. Hmm...

I guess I was lucky I didn't get back a 40GB drive. I recertified the drive,
resold it, and had no complaints.

My point is, yes, you can get screwed on eBay. But I live in a podunk town of
35K in Indiana and there's no way I could have sold 50 4TB hard drives as
easily as I did on eBay. Guess I could have tried Craigslist, but I didn't
want to meet 50 strangers at a McDonald's, and I doubt people would even want
to buy them without seeing them actually work in a computer system.

If this phone thing had happened to me, I probably would have filed a small
claims against eBay, regardless of what their stupid user agreement says I can
or cannot do. You'd be surprised how seriously a company takes your complaint
if they get a legal document.

------
Dowwie
This is loosely related to the subject but I wanted to point out a scam that I
was victim to and nearly lost more than a grand:. PayPal doesn't protect
vacation rental by owner scams.

The reason that this was a close call rather than complete catastrophe was
that I had the listing reviewed by the service's internal investigation team
while I transacted. The team altered me of fraud, I responded immediately with
PayPal to learn that hey guess what - their fraud claims policy excludes
vacation rental services! They refused to help me. Further, the scammer knew
this policy limitation, and even left me a troll voicemail as I was escalating
the scam that was along the lines of "guess what? PayPal won't refund you!"

Fortunately, I used a credit card for payment. I managed to file a claim with
the credit card company and reverse the fraudulent charge.

The reason I escalated this listing as a concern was that it had zero reviews
and was new. The owner was also a bit too accommodative of my requests. I
proceeded with caution.

I went to the authorities about this, including the secret service, who for
whatever reason handles fraud like this. I never heard back from anyone.

~~~
eric_h
> I managed to file a claim with the credit card company and reverse the
> fraudulent charge.

The power of the chargeback is unappreciated by many, I think. I'm guessing a
large chunk of people who use that power are people who've lost money in their
business to it to scammers and scammers (which is not to say the chargeback is
always a scam - there are scammers who charge credit cards, too)

------
thisrod
So in Australia we have things called small claims courts, which are designed
to make it practical for an individual citizen to sue a billion dollar company
for a few hundred dollars. And I think that Australian consumer law would take
a very dim view of website terms and conditions that claimed to prevent it.
There's a tradition of "Yes, your thousand-dollar contract is enforcable, but
any attempt to enforce it would be an offence under the Trade Practices Act,
and we could fine you a million dollars if you tried."

------
imgabe
It sounds like they still have their money and eBay is "demanding payment". Is
there any reason to give into this demand? Obviously the Ukrainian scammer is
not going to sue. It seems unlikely that eBay is going to sue over $465. So,
keep the money and don't use eBay anymore (which it seems like was the case
anyway).

~~~
Sgt_Apone
I imagine it could work its way to collections eventually, but I'm not sure.

~~~
eric_h
Once the debt has been sold and resold a few times, I doubt collections
companies have much incentive to actually sue for this amount of money, let
alone an ability to actually win the case.

~~~
asp_hornet
They don't need to sue, they can just list your debt with credit listing
company and put a mark on your credit history. That can be annoying enough to
settle a debt.

~~~
eric_h
From personal experience neglecting debts I believed to be unjust, I've not
gotten any dings on my credit rating inspired by collections companies who
acquired the debt for the cable box that I never returned, after paying 3x its
value in rental fees.

This didn't stop them from calling me and threatening my credit rating, but it
seems their threats had no teeth. /anecdata

------
ignorantguy
I wouldn't recommend ebay to anyone at all. This article probably will help
potential scammers to actually cheat more people.

~~~
waterphone
I buy and sell on it regularly and have done so for many years, with no issues
ever. Fraud seems to be primarily focused in certain areas, and niche
items—old tools, auto and small engine parts, used outdoor equipment,
etc.—doesn't get impacted by those issues.

~~~
eric_h
Just wait until AI/ML gets good enough/easy enough to use that these scammers
can go full auto. You'll send them a lawnmower and they'll dispute and send
you back a pair of nail clippers.

------
ensignavenger
I only sell on ebay rarely, but I buy stuff all the time, big, small,
expensive, foreign and domestic, from big sellers (lots of feedback) and new
ones. I have never had any problems, some times I am disappointed by the cheap
junk I buy from China, but generally I am quite satisfied. I have had to
request a refund once or twice because something was not as described, but I
don't think I have ever had to escalate to ebay or PayPal on anything.

All this being said, anecdotes aren't data, and I worry every time I read an
article like this that I am going to get burned bad one day.

~~~
ryandrake
As a buyer, eBay is great. Where else can you buy a $0.25 component from
china, put it on a credit card, AND get free shipping? I've only had one bad
buyer experience on eBay and it was not their fault--someone inside the USPS
opened my package, replaced the expensive item with a heavy book, and
forwarded it along. The seller (who I continue to do business with) was very
accommodating and made good even though he didn't have to.

On the other hand I would never sell on eBay due to all the scammers. Props to
these brave souls who continue to sell there.

~~~
oomkiller
AliExpress works great for this, the shipping can be a bit slow sometimes
though. I like to buy random fun looking things on there and try to guess what
I ordered when it finally arrives. Things are so cheap.

------
No1
It's not just the buyers who are scammers - the amount of counterfeit and
significantly-not-as-described stuff being sold is astounding. Ebay is large
enough to do their own sample purchases, but clearly they just don't care. I
stopped using Ebay after they sent me a message saying that I had contested
too many transactions (all due to counterfeit goods) and could not contest
again for some period of time.

I'm interested in what will happen when Ebay becomes a site for scammers
sellers to transact with scammer buyers.

------
slezyr
Try to report it to Kharkiv's police.

[https://police.kh.ua/?lang=en](https://police.kh.ua/?lang=en)

~~~
Noseshine
Why do you mention a random country's police?

    
    
      For the record, the buyer...
      with a shipping address...
      New Castle, DE 19726-2079, United States.
    

Both buyer and seller are located in the US.

~~~
lobe
The return package has a label indicating it was sent from that town which is
in the Ukraine

------
timmaxw
Behind the specific problem of eBay prioritizing buyers over sellers, there's
a more general problem of how marketplaces can determine who's right in a
dispute. Other commenters have suggested taking a video while packing up the
item and unpacking the return. However, that could be vulnerable to fraud as
well; how can you prove that the package you film yourself opening is the
package the other party actually sent?

Perhaps UPS/Fedex could act as a verification service. For a small fee, the
UPS store employees could photograph the contents of the package before it
gets mailed, check if the electronics turn on, write down the serial numbers,
etc. and send a report to eBay.

------
annerajb
I had something like this happen.

The buyer from hungary filed a item not received claim and they took my money
from my paypal account (it has been negative ever since).

5 months later out of curiosity I sent a message to the buyer and he replied
that he did received. But since the case was closed in Ebay there is no way
for me to forward the email I received from him to get my account back up in
good standing...

I was sent to collections and filed a debt verification letter which they
didnt reply correctly and havent responded to it and two years later still
does not show on my credit report.

If it ever does I will just file the debt verification letter again and ask
for small claims court.

~~~
kagamine
Sounds like your Hungarian buyer was legit but it just took along time to
arrive. I've had that happen a number of times and every time it is because
the customs/toll people open my parcel to "check it". It frustrates me no en d
when I have to contact a seller a week past estimated delivery date, who then
supplies a tracking number or a promise, and then the item turns up 10 days
later with a govt. sticker on it and a hole in the packaging. I swear they
think I'm a drug dealer and not the owner of a 30+ year old 4x4 (a lot of
small packets!).

------
cbdfghh
Would it be possible to take ebay to a small claims court?

~~~
duaneb
Yup. Realistically that's your best chance.

Dunno about outside the US though.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Don't think so, Ebay has an arbitration clause in their user agreement.

[http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-
agreement.html](http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html)

~~~
duaneb
That's very expensive compared to small claims court. I doubt they'd use that
clause.

------
Spooky23
I'd never do business with eBay, ever. You can surf around there and spot
obvious scams in 5 minutes that have been run for a decade.

I consider them a co-conspirator.

The best bet for selling was Amazon, but now is Facebook groups.

------
qq66
I've had good experiences with hard-to-find items on eBay by following two
simple rules: 1) I will only buy an expensive item from a seller with
thousands of reviews and a 99.8% rating or higher, and 2) I will only sell an
expensive item to a buyer with an account older than three years, more than
100 transactions, a 100% rating, and other expensive and related items in
their history.

I don't typically get the best prices, of course, but I've never been scammed.

~~~
nommm-nommm
Buyers don't leave feedback most of the time. You're basically looking at only
buying from very high volume professional sellers. I that's ok if that's what
you're looking for but I like the low volume casual sellers myself, I think
they put more care into it. The only time I've ever been scammed as a buyer
was when I bought from a high volume professional seller.

>other expensive and related items in their history

Is there a way to view what someone has bought now? Last I knew they got rid
of showing the buyer's item on their feedback page a few years ago. Is there
another place to find this information?

------
jliptzin
Pretty much the same exact thing happened to me about 6 years ago. Nice to
know ebay's policy still hasn't changed. I'm still banned from paypal because
I refused to pay them back the money they refunded to the scammer. I used to
use ebay pretty frequently but since that incident I've only been back there a
couple of times to buy things (with a friend's paypal account) that I really
couldn't find anywhere else.

------
em3rgent0rdr
eBay is centralized moderation. Maybe a distributed p2p market-based
moderation with reputation scores for moderators in addition to sellers, like
openbazaar, is the solution: [https://blog.openbazaar.org/how-moderators-and-
dispute-resol...](https://blog.openbazaar.org/how-moderators-and-dispute-
resolution-work-in-openbazaar/)

~~~
edpichler
The same happens in Mercadolivre, an Ebay Company in Latin America.

They protect buyers, because where there are buyers always will have sellers.
Dishonest people paradise, unfortunatelly.

------
pmorici
Your problem was checking the box that said you would ship world wide. You can
eliminate 99% of fraudulent ebay buyers by only shipping within the US or your
local region. also keep and eye out for package forwarding addresses those can
be problematic as well but not as bad as a straight foreign shipping address.

~~~
morganvachon
It's buried at the end of the article, but the buyer shipped the phone to a
Delaware address. The scammer was using that address to buy the phone, and
then returned the scam phone from outside the US.

~~~
pmorici
Remailer addresses are pretty easy to spot and then cancel the sale. If it
looks suspicious googling the address will tell you if it is associated with a
package forwarding service.

------
simonhamp
I'm finding it hard to understand what's so difficult about eBay 'doing the
right thing' here... surely it can't be that hard to take seller evidence into
account and cross-reference that with buyer proof that they returned the
correct item in the condition they received it...

------
setq
Had this problem before. If you send something expensive, film yourself
putting it in the box, write the serial numbers down, send it recorded or
signed for delivery always, withdraw EVERYTHING from your paypal account
instantly into your bank account.

A friend of mine however ended up with a debt collection agency (Transcom)
after him for 6 months because he refused to refund the item. Eventually after
much letter writing with "fuck off" in it basically, they gave up because
there wasn't a genuine claim that would stand up in court.

I still buy and sell off ebay but it's usually very niche items which are on
1:1 interest and low value (vintage transistors for example). Anything
popular, I get the other half to stick it on Facebook and it's gone, in cash
usually within 72 hours. No fees, nothing.

------
dstaten
I will never use eBay again. It took over a month to get a refund for a
product that was never shipped. In fact the transaction was somehow canceled
by the seller within minutes of it being completed, but it still took a ton of
work on my end to get the refund. What a shame

------
intrasight
I've not used eBay in years as a seller - ever since they started withholding
my funds pending approval/release by buyer. Now I just use Craig's List and
Facebook and sell face-to-face. And as a bonus, I've met some pretty cool
people.

------
FrankenPC
This happened to me as well and the thief/buyer decided it would be funny to
leave negative feedback as well. I'm not selling on Ebay ever again. The
system is s __t

------
silverdrake11
UPDATE: It looks like eBay refunded him because of the reaction here on HN

[http://matthewsag.com/?p=1649](http://matthewsag.com/?p=1649)

------
catalystframe
Yeah had same kind of issue. Dispute management people told me "If I was
running a business, I'd accept every customer I can." My response "even if
they're using you as a free rental service?" Author is 100% right, they
totally side with the buyer and they're essentially churning through sellers
to make money. Even if they ever clean up, fuck em

------
codedokode
As I understand his mistake was to sell an item to Eastern Europe. He should
have sold it to US so in case if something goes wrong he could use the police.

Mail forwarders usually take photos of items sent through them (so their
customers could see what they would receive). Ebay could contact the forwarder
if they wanted to find out the truth.

------
morganvachon
I learned a while back to never, ever sell a phone or tablet on eBay. I only
use Swappa for this service now, and I've bought and sold several devices on
there with zero issues. Anecdotal, I know, but they give equal protection to
buyers and sellers, and their employees are actively involved in each sale.

------
rdlecler1
I stopped using eBay in 2003 when I had aweful service with PayPal. It's sad.
eBay could have been Amazon. It had so much going for it--too good to fail--
unfortunately poor leadership wronged the ship.

------
phjesusthatguy3
I just have to say I'm grateful this hasn't happened to me. I just started
using ebay again after a ~8 year break to sell off some LPs, and gotten
through about $1000 of sales without a problem.

------
amai
Why does eBay allow buyers to use remailer addresses? It should be very easy
for them to check that and not allow any buyers using these remailer
addresses.

------
conductr
Wonder what would happen if author filed a small claim in his local
jurisdiction? (Against eBay)

I tend to think eBay would not even respond and lose by default

------
ns8sl
I tried to sell Bitcoin on eBay and every single buyer attempted to commit
fraud.

------
jaimex2
Yeah, eBay is not a place to casually sell anymore. The 10% fee was bad enough
but now you have to place a bond account even if your account has a long
reputation of happy customers.

Facebook marketplace is the way to go. You get way more exposure and can
usually sell something in minutes.

------
fapjacks
Yeah absolutely fuck Ebay. It was broken years ago.

------
Scottn1
I have been a ebay user since 1999. Have accumulated 200 feedbacks and
currently at 100% positive. But I have entertained closing my account a few
times in past two years and have started to cut back drastically on ebay as
both a buyer and especially a seller.

First, as others have mentioned, they have a monopolistic marketplace where
they require one to use their own Paypal for transactions. The combined fee's
for selling on ebay + Paypal now are 10% of the final sold amount + the
shipping amount. Where margins are slim as it is and things are already
selling well below their value at times because of so many other competing
auctions, the fee's make it not worth it in many cases. They are making a
boatload in fees and I'm tired of it. I just sold $400 golf clubs and had to
give them $42? Ebay provides value as the market is so large. I had those
clubs on Craigslist for TWO months and not even a inquiry at that price. Ebay
got sold in 7 day auction. But to pay 10% for everything is too greedy imo.
They have NO competition.

Second, ebay has become a haven for scammers and overrun with them to point I
am leery of purchasing anything like electronics, phones, etc on there.
Software..forget it! DO NOT buy any licensed software from ebay no matter how
good buyer feedback. Even if it claims new/sealed. The pirates have gotten too
good. I'd venture to say 99% of software on there now is either a)counterfeit
from get go or b)legit but "used" and/or illegal Volume Licenses. The problem
is key will work when you get it but fail 5 months from now or when you need
to reinstall. I've been victim of this two times now and NO more will I buy
software off ebay. When it does fail, it is long enough you have zero
recourse. Ebay you can't even file a claim as they give you only like 14 days
after purchase. A pirate knows this and gets keys from a keygen. I had 8 legit
looking MS Office licenses in sealed retail boxes register then 4 months later
started to fail. Called Microsoft and they told me I had registered them too
many times and they are now flagged. Huh? I only installed them ONCE. Credit
card company didn't even help as it was past the time limit for a case. So
basically the seller sold many of the same key and whoever bought from him,
who knows how many of us, they are all worthless. Really upsets me that ebay
allows ANY software even on there. They clearly know that this must be going
on. I tried to inform them of the practice but couldn't even find a contact to
let know. They don't care as they are making their fees! Tons of them from
software. Their only concern is a small webpage to help identify counterfeit.
From now on, I will only buy hard items that can't be counterfeited or scammed
easily, like golf clubs.

Third, as this story is about, ebay is WAY to buyer-centric and I too was once
bitten by similar story as topic starter. Not as blatantly bad as the OP or
that amount of money, but bad enough I was pissed. Eventually also got someone
from ebay on the phone and as similar was brushed off and there was no
pleading my case. End of story, refund the money. It cost me out of my own
pocket by time it was returned and settled.

------
rick_perez
"I don’t accept payment by check or Western Union and I don’t accept returns."

If you sell me a broken phone, it gets broken in the mail because you didn't
package it correctly, or any other thing that can happen between the time you
send it out and when I receive it, you should refund my money or accept my
return.

I buy hundreds of thousands of products per month for my business on Ebay and
Amazon and many people outright lie about the products they are trying to sell
me. A good return policy is a must.

My theory is that it's one of the only reasons Amazon and Ebay became the
kings of the online marketplace. I've tried to purchase from the other sites
and because there are barely any protections in place for buyers, I always go
back.

~~~
vostrocity
This is what I was thinking.

I don't see ill will on eBay's part. What I see is a few badly-designed
processes: not soliciting proof when there is a buyer/seller dispute and not
integrating a "Money Back Guarantee" charge into eBay's account balance.

These seem like matters of incompetence.

Also, in my experience, when I refused to pay eBay for some charges I
disagreed with, they simply sent the debt to a collections agency.

~~~
jbmorgado
> "Also, in my experience, when I refused to pay eBay for some charges I
> disagreed with, they simply sent the debt to a collections agency."

Well, eBay does this because they know that legally they don't have a leg to
stand on in some cases, so they resource to harass their client into complying
and give them money they are not legally entitled to.

------
ionised
In my personal opinion, EBay and PayPal have both become seriously shady and
among my own awful experiences with the two companies I have family members
that have experienced varying levels of bullshit treatment, not limited to
PayPal hounding them for years for money they clearly did not owe and EBay
blacklisting them for this reason.

Then there are the horror stories like this all over the internet that just
cemented my decision to never use or recommend either service ever again.

------
andrewclunn
Okay... So how is this evidence that the world is small?

~~~
sooheon
Maybe because scammers that live worlds away, who you'd never have had to deal
with in physical life are "near" to you now?

~~~
Mathnerd314
Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn-
ym8y1_kw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn-ym8y1_kw)

The buyer is in the Ukraine, usually considered a faraway place.

------
djoldman
Why not just pick "no returns accepted" when selling?

~~~
wnissen
He did. You are still required to accept returns if buyer claims the item is
not as described.

