The Ol' Bait and Click

[wawadave]

The Ol' Bait and Click
Devices Meant to Reassure Online Buyers Are Often Used to Swindle Them
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/15/AR2007031501939.html

I found with ebay a 1 in 10 chance of getting ripped off. but that was the number of times i was ripped off in 10 purchases.
And find it to be a very risky deal at best.
i would like to hear your ideas or experiences with ebay.

[xpgeek]

I've never used ebay myself, but I knew someone that paid 150 bucks for a camera, and then received a photo of the camera in the mail, apparently there was some fine print and the photo of the camera is what the auction was actually for. Too risky for me.

[AmericanWoman]

I've used ebay a few times and always gotten exactly what I ordered. But I can see how that could happen to a person and wouldn't put out a lot of money for anything. All of the items I ordered were under $20 so if something did go wrong with the purchase then I wasn't out a lot of money.

[zimagirl79]

I've used eBay a few times, and generally got what I thought I was getting. One purchase for a camera was a little dodgy, but for the most part I've been very lucky. I've learned to read everything very carefully and ask questions. Often the picture they post is a stock photo and not the actual item they are selling.

I also check out the feedback, especially the negative ones to see just what the complaint was. If they are a power seller with hundreds or thousands of feedbacks, they usually have an eBay store and offer some sort of warranty. It's easy to get excited about a great deal on eBay, but you have to be cautious always.

[wawadave]

Well the camera i got off ebay little over a year ago to replace the one i had slipped on ice with and landed on that broke my ribs. was a good deal and still work very well!!
That was one off of a power seller with good reviews.
But in the article its showing how phony sellers inflate their reviews and steal accounts and more. have a read !!!

[zimagirl79]

I think it would be a lot of work to inflate your own feedback, since only someone doing business with you can leave feedback. You'd have to create new accounts, then devise a way for those accounts to win auctions - possibly utilizing the "buy it now" feature. Still, the investment for listings just to fake it would add up too. Although there are many other ways to inflate feedback too.

One thing the article mentions that's important to look at, and which I have come across, is that they will have all kinds of feedback for some other item and none for the item you're thinking of bidding on. They make it look like they sell tons of a certain item on a regular basis, but if you click on the item number in the feedback listings you will find out that the feedback was for something else and doesn't really help you decide whether they are legit.

Another key that usually makes me steer clear is if they are a relatively new eBay member and have tons of positive feedback accumulated already. If they've been around a long time, say years, I'm more likely to trust them. And as I said, always read everything and ask questions. A legit seller will welcome your questions and will give complete answers, not just reply with something like "uh, read the description, what you see is what you get"

A recent search for "new cell phone" turned up a lot of listings that at first glance on the listing page looked like new items, but were in fact refurbished. Only by reading the full description page could you see that. You just have to be careful and spend time instead of rushing into a purchase.

Has anyone had any really bad experiences with eBay thay want to share?

[wawadave]

I got nailed by an underage seller . Was selling a linux book suposedly. It was never sent. Because he never had one to send.

Well it was under $20.00 so ebay could not care less.
But as fate would have it friends of mine in the town where he lived were liveing across the street from him .And the friend allso being a cop led the kid to being charged with fraud under young ofenders act. thus i can say no more.

When helping out on computer forums you get to meet many people. and had remembered these. and contacted them to see if they knew who the kid was. Haveing helped clean spyware off of three of their computers they were very glad to help.

the odds of that happening again are 431,000,000,000, to 1

[wawadave]

speaking of fraudulent sales on ebay here is another that got caught!

INTERN SOLD CIVIL WAR ITEMS ON EBAY, March 16
(AP) -- An intern with the National Archives stole about 165 Civil War documents - including the War Department's announcement of President Lincoln's death - and sold most of them on eBay, prosecutors charged Thursday.
Full story at http://www.physorg.com/news93244744.html

[xpgeek]

Wow, bet he got a pretty penny for em too. Thats a whole other risk I'd never even thought of really. Possibility of buying stolen merchandise.

[wawadave]

i,m willing to estimate that 20% of whats sold is stolen,And 10% is scams

[wawadave]

eBay thief stole $42,000

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Edmund Tadros
March 19, 2007

A MAN stole $42,000 after hacking into eBay and Commonwealth Bank accounts last year, with eBay now set to trial individual security keys to protect members.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/security/ebay-thief-stole-42000/2007/03/18/1174152919439.html

[wawadave]

Anatomy of an eBay scam

i found an interesting artical on ebay scam and how it works.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/21/ebay_fraud_anatomy/