A Victim of eBay Fraud

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I work at a credit card company here in Des Moines, IA in their dispute department. We get stuff like this all the time. If you paid via credit card or debit card, call and request to “dispute” the charge. They can often recover these funds for you (as long as you’ve documented your good faith attempt to fix this on your own which can include e-mails to seller, copy of auction, etc.)

We have a pretty huge success rate on these :)

I’ve been a part of eBay fraud before and from my experience and many other, I think eBay is simply ignoring the fact that this is happening. Ignorant!

I claimed on the Paypal Refund scheme they have and they took a processing fee out of it ($35). I was in shock to find that I have been the one charged for the fraud and not the seller. I sent them an email detailing this and they simply ignored it.

They are killing their own market by simply ignoring this issue, people are becoming afraid of purchasing online (again) and this affects eBay directly and many others.

I was scammed about six months ago - the dollar amount was a lot less (about $45), but the same thing happened. I filed a dispute with eBay and Paypal, they found in my favor, and in my case they recovered 38 cents. The person is continuing to sell on eBay (using another Paypal account apparently) and I’m stuck with 38 cents and a broken coffee pot. Ebay doesn’t take this sort of fraud very seriously - or at least it doesn’t seem that way to me.

Sorry to hear of this problem, but ANYONE who is still buying stuff via has to have their head examined. eBay doesn’t care if you get ripped off, nor does paypal. You can only get lucky if someone else gets taken to get your money back. So to save $100 for Dell’s normal price, you’re out $313.00.

I will only deal with people that live in my area and will accept payment after I see the item. Other than that eff eBay. The last thing I purchased was over 1 1/2 yrs ago. As long as people keep using it, those who own eBay are the only one winning, because they don’t care. Paypal should be used as an escrow account. When the buyer get the item, the seller gets the money. Or maybe get 50% when shipped and the rest when buyer agrees.

I had a similar issue with Paypal/Ebay where I thought I was buying a laptop and what I received was a piece of paper that had a URL printed on it. $700 out of pocket for a piece of paper, and paypal tells me that they can’t cover it because an image (which could have been changed, since it was hosted off site) said that the auction wasn’t for the laptop but a “chance to win” the laptop.

I think it is appaulling that ebay/PayPal won’t cover you for the full amount. Especially with ebay trying to get everyone to pay using PayPal and keep trying to tell you “why this is safe.”

Time to get the word out!

I think travis was stupid for buying a Dell Monitor off Ebay for $515 when the same model is available from Dell’s site for less than $100 more (with free shipping offers that appear intermittantly)

PayPal’s $200 policy is clearly stated on their website. They also have a $2,000 program for sellers who meet their standards. If you care about the gap between $200 and $2,000, you need to limit yourself to the auctions that qualify for the $2,000 plan.

I cannot emphasize enough use a credit card on EBAY for major purchases even if using Paypal! Your credit card will protect you You can call them directly have the charge reversed.

I have been in contact with paypal for the fast days and it still hasn’t resolved, but worst case scenario I file a Small Claims suit.

I have also switched my Paypal account to use a credit card instead of bank.

Fraud is common on eBay, but what makes my scenario different is 10+ other people were scammed, I am in contact with many of them any we are deciding what to do.

dribblesnort: Dell dropped their prices in the past month, when I ordered the price for the 24″ was closer to $700

PayPal Australia provides $3000 fraud protection for some items:

All items paid for by PayPal on eBay.com.au will be eligible for at least AU$400 PayPal Purchase Protection if you don’t receive the item or it is significantly not as described by the seller. Certain items may be eligible for up to AU$3,000 Conditions apply. PayPal Buyer Protection covers tangible or physical goods that can be shipped. It does not cover intangibles, services, licences and other access to digital content, vehicles, airline flight tickets, and items prohibited in the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy.

This is not fraud exactly, but I’ve been caught twice with “free” kits designed to make me a millionaire in a fortnight :-) It pays to scan the conditions for “$” or “fee”or similar because after a short period they start charging you $50 or $60 web site hosting each month. In both cases the kit never arrived so my 30-day “trial” period didn’t really exist. I got my money back after a lot of trouble.

Anyone who uses PayPal to pay for an auction and does not ensure that their credit card is used as the funding method is “a fool soon parted with his money.” If you fund you PayPal payment with a VISA or Mastercard, they allow what is know as “third party” chargebacks. I teach a class at our community college, “Successful Selling on eBay” and I instruct all my students to never fund a PayPal payment with either a checking account or a debit card….ONLY use a Mastercard or VISA card. In my 9 years on eBay I have with almost 900 Feebacks and well over a 1000 buy/sell actions, I have used the charge back feature at least a dozen times, never with any problem. You also get your shipping charges back this way.

[...] Here is a case to prove the point. I was out researching and came across an article here, http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/07/02/a-victim-of-ebay-fraud/. Travis is really peeved at PayPal when he should be peeved at eBay as well. As eBay is the parent and the auction was ran on their site, I believe that they owe Travis a full refund if he has proof of all the mess. [...]

I think the feedback system is broken as well. Dishonest sellers withhold their feedback until you give feedback. That way if you give them negative feedback they can retaliate with negative feedback to you even if you did nothing wrong. I recently got riped off on shipping (was charge for air, it went ground), but I can not leave feedback about that unless I want to risk a red mark on my account. Very lame.

I buy things from Ebay periodically. The trick is, you’ve got to buy from sellers whom you’ve bought from before, or someone you know personally has bought from. Ebay is a great idea, and it’s also a great big thieves market. The company behind it supports their sellers, from whom they get a percentage. They have no interest in their honesty. Ebay will never support you, or come to your aid, or do anything but make it as difficult as possible for you to claim your rights.

Paypal is also a kind of criminal enterprise, and they’re already in trouble in some countries. That’s another story in itself, but if you possibly can, you’re way ahead of the game by paying with a credit card.

The day will come when at least some the bosses behind Ebay will be in prison. No doubt they know they’re playing with fire. But for the time being they’re just cashing in big-time and hoping for the best. Buyer beware indeed!

Still, there are bargains to be had.

Everyone I know has stopped using eBay, due to the fraud. Too bad, eBay.

There are enough honest dealers on other auction sites and on the web, at local flea markets, and through local computer dealers!

If eBay spent any effort cleaning up the fraud, actually responding to the customers like Travis and the other ten folks who were cheated, they would have a chance to retain their auction empire.

I have shut down several of the lottery auctions of chances to win computers. It is so obvious a fraud that you should have reported it, instead of playing it!

All this Paypal/Ebay this and that. I bought quite a while back off
Ebay and only used U. S. Postal Service Money Order. Figured if some
one was going to try to rip me off, would let them get involved with the
USPS investigators, they don’t cotton to mail fraud.

As mentioned by a couple of other responses, as a card member, Visa, Mastercard and American Express will stand behind you through their chargeback programs. Regarding the bankcards (VI & MC), be sure you are not using a “Check Card” when making these purchases. This is just another name for off line debit. Once the transaction is consummated, the money is no longer in your possession. You may well get your refund, but you will also not have the cash until the matter is settled.

This is exactly why I will never use Ebay or PayPal again. There just isn’t a good enough guarantee that I’ll get what I bought.

I have included the URL of an article in my blog about how I believe ebay / paypal appears to condone fraud. An international buyer used the same NAME and ADDRESS to set up an account 3 separate times. Each time he quickly bought 10-25 items then since he is international he reversed the Paypal payment before a 1 month period was up. Moral of the story: You could get better service than from eBay but you couldn’t pay more!

In my case I’ve bought from a Ebay.de 2 sellers which dissapeared with my money and left me a hole of 90 Euro..
In Germany as you probably don’t know Paypal is almost invisible.
Only money Bank transfers.
In this case you can talk to the moon.
No money refund and no one to complaint

My boyfriend is new to ebay and just learned a hard lesson. He bid on an old truck. Was told to send half the money as down payment and that the truck would be delivered. He sent half the money then got a notice that his payment had been received and to send the rest. He was suspicious and didn’t send the rest and has had no luck getting ebay to respond to his complaints. It looked like a ligitimate ebay website and the correspondance look official. It’s sad that ebay doesn’t seem to care. When we tried to get the sellers information, ebay stated that they couldn’t give it to us because the truck was no longer on the site. Do they not have records of previous auctions? - bad business.

i recently purchased tickets thru ebay and paid via paypal (i have done this multiple times in the past). the seller stated that the tickets would not be sent until the week of the concert. i didn’t feel that was a big deal, he had very good feedback, and based on the feedback he was in the ticket buisness. well, guess what? i never recieved the tickets. paypal won’t touch it because it is past the 45 day reporting period, and ebay won’t touch it because i paid thru paypal. based on the comments above, i am hoping my credit card company will come thru.

I , after having a go-around with ebay billing dept, am leaving ebay for another site. seems they don’t care about anybody getting burned as long as they get their fees. What do you do when you walk into a retail store and they treat you like ****? Go to another store.

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sale to the chat room. Nothing is wrong with either of them… in fact, they aren’t really even old. Then it hit me. Why not throw these up on Ebay in auctions?   Related Content: The Blogosphere Has Jumped the Shark eBay Stories Atom AuctionsA Victim of eBay FraudeBay Problems The Highest Bidder Your eBay Auctions in RSS How to Make Money Online Isabella Fiore Handbags eBay Auctions for Business read more

that would suck to be him….
i really hope you’ve gotten your money back buddy…
it sucks to be frauded like that, my brother got frauded like that once.