BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

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Richard Kaufman
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BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Richard Kaufman » January 29th, 2006, 7:36 am

An article about fraud on eBay in today's New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/techn ... &th&emc=th
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Kevin Connolly
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Kevin Connolly » January 29th, 2006, 8:05 am

And I thought I was the only one carrying the torch with all the fake Houdini autographs on Ebay. I got the same response from them too.

Great article.
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Greg McNeil » January 29th, 2006, 11:04 am

Thanks for the link, Richard. I've spotted several magic items over the past few years that were, how shall we say, "misrepresented". I've emailed the seller in some cases to get a verification or correction. Most times this has met with some success, or at least positive responses. I have also emailed bidders with warnings that they should be very concerned about the authenticity of certain items. And I have notified eBay about shill bidders and other suspicious bidding activity. Those of us who participate in eBay trading can do a few small things to help keep the place clean and safe. But it is a big job.

eBay is a huge operation, and there's way more than one way to get ripped off on an eBay deal. Until/unless there is a better system of checks, it will always stand as good advice to eBay traders to become extremely well versed in the workings of the operation. Learn how it can be done right, and learn how it can work against you. I'm not trying to generate fear or to sound pessimistic or paranoid, but if you're not absolutely certain of the integrity of the seller, or if you're not willing to lose your money, avoid bidding.

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby David Alexander » January 29th, 2006, 12:48 pm

EBay's defense sounds like the Common Carrier defense that phone companies have used when faced with charges of obscenity. They're just the vehicle and have no way of policing what's sent over their wires. The last thing eBay wants to get into is policing the authenticity of what is sold through their service.

I have some degree of expertise in silhouettes. I've been collecting for decades and have a large collection. Over the years I've seen hundreds of fakes passed off as the real thing on eBay, some offered and sold for hundreds of dollars.

One guy in England recuts old silhouettes and sells them as "originals."

But eBay isn't alone. In the tiny world of silhouette collection I was reliably informed by one of the older collectors that one of the most respected auction houses in the world held a huge sale several decades back, hundreds of silhouettes from the 19th Century, "almost all of them fakes," to quote the old expert.

At least two magicians admitted to me to cutting counterfeits, one unwittingly and the other deliberately to "suppliment his retirement."

When I've written and offered an observations, seller's reactions have varied from thanks to outright hostility and threats of eBay retribution and a lawsuit. The extreme reactions make identifying the crooks so much easier. One dealer I used to advise got greedy and bought what was clearly a fake for less than $100. I told him it was a fake, a copy from a book in pen and ink when the artist never worked in that medium. A few weeks later it was on the dealer's site at $1200, touted as a "rare and unique" example of the artist's work. He sold it to some unsuspection decorator who was spending a client's money without thought.

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Richard Kaufman » January 29th, 2006, 1:11 pm

Shill bidding is one of the most egregious offenses on eBay. I'd like to wring the necks of some of the bastards who've run up my bids for their seller friends.
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Guest » January 30th, 2006, 1:56 am

Yeah, I was bidding on something (non-magic item)when just before closing the bid when up. Thinking it was fake, I raised my bid a couple of times--hoping at this point I wouldn't win.
Of course the next day I got a second chance because the bidder backed out and of course at the high price. Told the seller what I thought had gone on and never heard another thing...

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Eric Rose » January 30th, 2006, 5:37 am

I have a friend whose mother was part of a shill scam. She and some of her ebay friends were contacted by a seller who was sending them a percentage for shilling up the bids. He said they got nailed and booted. She couldn't see how what they were doing was wrong...

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Guest » January 30th, 2006, 6:32 am

Originally posted by Eric Rose:
I have a friend whose mother was part of a shill scam...... She couldn't see how what they were doing was wrong...
I hear this all the time from kids these days, but not often from the adults.

I have been a victim of counterfiet items several times, most notably are Al Mann manuscripts and Herb Dewey books.
At least the Mann manuscripts were attempts to be authentic looking, same color paper,etc,etc.
The Dewey Books were blatantly photocopied. And to add insult to injury,the guy had missed including pages.
From that point on for a bout a year,everytime there was an auction for those items, I would email all potential buyers with a buyer beware letter., never knew if it did any good or not tho.

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby John LeBlanc » January 30th, 2006, 7:54 am

Originally posted by Kim2:
From that point on for a bout a year,everytime there was an auction for those items, I would email all potential buyers with a buyer beware letter., never knew if it did any good or not tho.
Unfortunately, ebay doesn't even allow you to do that anymore. They call it "auction interference":
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa? ... 8&tstart=0

I can understand their point, but it doesn't appear to me they are very responsive to complants of fraudulent activity. I think self-policing amongst bidders is an effective way to keep sellers honest.

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Richard Kaufman » January 30th, 2006, 8:20 am

"At least the Mann manuscripts were attempts to be authentic looking, same color paper,etc,etc."

hahahaha--that just makes me laugh because Al Mann was the guy who counterfeited the Robert Harbin book! That's the funniest thing I've heard this week! Oh--wait--it's only Monday.

Seriously, I can't imagine how eBay can prevent shill bidding. How you react to having the seller's fist up your rectum really depends on how obsessed you are about owning something.
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby magicam » January 30th, 2006, 8:33 am

Thanks for posting the NY Times article, Richard. Regarding the Tiffanys lawsuit and the pleas for more control by Ebay, I have mixed feelings about that, not only because it is probably nearly administratively impossible for eBay, but also because of eBays poor (?) record of policing in matters of copyright and other intellectual rights enforcement (several threads exist here discussing, for example, how Busby and others have apparently abused the VERO program). I got my early laugh for the week when reading the eBay link provided by John LeBlanc, where an eBay rep. lectures the legitimate do gooders by saying Even though your intentions may be honorable, you are operating in a vacuum and do not have all the facts available to you.. Not having all the facts certainly doesn't seem to have deterred eBay from acting! Clay

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby John LeBlanc » January 30th, 2006, 8:58 am

Originally posted by Richard Kaufman:

Seriously, I can't imagine how eBay can prevent shill bidding. How you react to having the seller's fist up your rectum really depends on how obsessed you are about owning something.
There's nothing they can do and, frankly, I'm not sure they'd bother if they could.

Besides, most eBay auctions are proxy bid auctions. What's a bidder's top dollar on the item? If he plugs that figure in and goes about his business, it all works out in the end. The worst that can happen is some guy wants it worse than he does.

This is along the same lines of people complaining about "sniping." There's nothing at all wrong with bid sniping unless the little green man is sitting on the bidder's shoulder.

John
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby David Alexander » January 30th, 2006, 10:04 am

With several million auctions closing each day it would be impossible for them to police their listings with any real scrutiny, even if they wanted to, which, in my experience, they don't. Feedback and escrow seem to be the only "protection" a buyer has. That, and knowledge of what you're buying.

I've written to several bidders on fake silhouettes and found myself accused of lying to be able to buy the item myself cheaply.

Al Mann also counterfeited one of Richard Himber's magazine force books, the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. I have both an original and the fake. The fake was a better printing job and on better paper.

And shill bidding...I'm certain that a particular camera seller uses shill bidding rampantly because you could look at their listing and see the same person bidding on the same model camera on nearly every listing until it hit a certain dollar amount and then they would drop out. There always seemed to be a number of bidders going after these cameras to keep them above a certain dollar amount. That these bidders almost always only had two or three completed transactions and never seemed to buy anything else, made me suspicious.

I tracked several of them, all doing exactly the same thing for the same seller. I wrote to eBay with my suspicions and evidence. I did this several times. EBay's response was uniform: they simply blanded it away, saying there was no "evidence" of wrong doing. That translated to: "We don't investigate people who sell tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise."

Caveat emptor, indeed.

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Guest » January 30th, 2006, 10:41 am

While it is clearly wrong to sell items as one thing when it is a knock off I wonder how many of the buyers told the sellers "hey, you are about to sell a broach worth $150 at least for $30". Like they say, the best victims have a bit of larceny in 'em.
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby John LeBlanc » January 30th, 2006, 11:22 am

Originally posted by Steve V':
While it is clearly wrong to sell items as one thing when it is a knock off I wonder how many of the buyers told the sellers "hey, you are about to sell a broach worth $150 at least for $30". Like they say, the best victims have a bit of larceny in 'em.
I don't think that's a fair comparison to what we've been discussing. For the most part, on eBay sellers initiate the transaction. So the responsibility sits squarely on the shoulders of the seller to do at least a modest amount of due process (i.e. Googling the item) to determine some neighborhood of value. If a seller can't even be bothered to expend that minimal amount of effort he may well get what he's earned.

There's also the fact that much of what's listed on eBay has no real minimum price associated. I'd think for the most part whatever market there is determines value. Again, it's up to the seller to determine the best time(s) for his auctions to end in order to have the greatest number of eyeballs viewing his item. And, depending on the item and perceived value, marketing the auction listing is effort that's usually paid back in multiples.

I don't remember the last time H&R Magic Books listed anything for more than .99 starting bid. From what I can tell, the market works remarkably well on those auctions.

John
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Guest » January 30th, 2006, 1:10 pm

I'll go with what you said. To be honest I've never been to ebay or used them so I don't know exactly how it works. I know that a bit of a scoundrel in the soul makes it easier for the phonies. I do have a problem about people bidding just to raise a price though.
Steve V

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Q. Kumber » January 30th, 2006, 1:57 pm

Trying to get auction items authenticated isn't all that easy. I have sold a couple of rare items for a collector friend who doesn't have a computer. He's since asked me to list a very old
Coptic prayer scroll which I estimate could be from the 4th to the 12th century. He thinks it's Egyptian.

I've taken it to the British museum and the British Library but all I could find out was that they thought it was Ethiopian.

I believe it could be quite valuable but wouldn't dream of listing it unless I could date it and have an idea of its value.

Anyone know any Coptic experts?

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Greg McNeil » January 30th, 2006, 5:56 pm

I posted a description of one type of shill bidding on another magic forum, and decided to post a copy of the same material here...
When considering placing a bid on eBay, always check the bid history on the item. If there are canceled bids, you might want to be wary of the integrity of the seller. There's a fraudulent practice involving bid cancellations, and here's how it works...

Lets say the current bid on an item is $100, and you bid $150 for the item. Once you've made that bid eBay automatically places a $102.50 bid for you, the next acceptable bid above the current $100. But your full $150 bid remains in the background. Now let's say someone else bids $125. Since you have a background bid of $150, your bid will automatically go to $127.50, and you'll still be the high bidder. So far so good.

Now let's say the seller has his friend, the shill, bid $200. His bid will automatically go to $152.50, the next acceptable bid above your background bid of $150. So now the seller's friend knows how much your highest bid is. Now the shill cancels his bid, putting you back in the winning spot with $127.50. Okay, apparently no harm done. But wait.

Let's say nobody else was going to bid and you might have won that auction with your $127.50 bid. Here's where the fraud comes in. The seller's friend knows you have a background bid of $150. So shortly before the auction ends the seller has his shill bid $145. He knows he's not going to win, because he knows your background bid will still beat him. So that forces your bid up to $147.50, and you win the auction. But your final price is $20 more than it should have been. The seller had his accomplice place a bid, determine your background bid, cancel his bid, then bid just below your actual high background bid amount. Fraud complete.

So always check the feedback of the seller, and of course most of us already do that. But check the bid history, too. And check the feedback of the other bidders. You might just find some of those other bidders are in a habit of bidding on that same seller's items. You might just find some bidders are probing for the high background bids, then canceling their bids. This should be a red flag, especially if it happens more than once on any given item, or multiple times for a given bidder and/or seller.

When you see this sort of suspicious activity, notify eBay at their fraud email, fraud at eBay dot com. Let them know the item, the seller, and the bogus bidder. Now indeed a bid cancellation may come as a result of a legitimate mistake in entering the bid (or for a couple other valid reasons). But if eBay finds a particular user is in the habit of such bidding, they'll cancel that bidder's account, and likely also cancel that seller's account, too. This particular scam is perpetrated simply to raise bids to their highest possible amounts, and is only to the advantage of the seller. So when it does occur, it's likely that the seller is in on it.

Lately I've noticed a particular seller of magic items who appears to be utilizing this bit of fraud. I've informed eBay, and hopefully the shills' accounts will be removed and it will cease to be a problem. But it's not an uncommon practice among other unscrupulous sellers, so be wary.
This might give you a better idea of some particular types of activity to watch for.

Greg

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Kevin Connolly » January 30th, 2006, 6:55 pm

That's a good theory. Ebay will also notify you that after the winning bid is cancelled and your back on top gain with the high bid. You can go back and lower your proxy bid if you think there's something going on behind the scenes.

On the other hand, I have seen people bid on an item just to see what the reserve is on the item. They just state in their retraction excuse option(s) they hit the wrong amount. Now the bidder knows the reserve and can snipe it at the end if he so desires or just lay low if the reserve is too high.
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby BlueEyed Videot » January 30th, 2006, 7:24 pm

I usually just email the seller and ask them how much the reserve is. Has always worked so far!

What I hate are the deep pocket guys who are willing to post any insane amount just to win the bid.

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby John LeBlanc » January 30th, 2006, 7:31 pm

Originally posted by Richard Hart:
What I hate are the deep pocket guys who are willing to post any insane amount just to win the bid.
Well, that's sort of the point of an auction, isn't it? Last man standing? (I'm not saying it isn't irritating occasionally.)

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Kevin Connolly » January 30th, 2006, 8:34 pm

I ran into enough sellers that their policy is to not reveal their minimums. Why? I don't know.

As for the guy with the deep pockets, sometimes that works out for the under-bidder. I have heard, not me personally :o , that after an auction, another seller, sometimes the same seller, offers you the same item, sometimes better price/condition.
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby John Bodine » February 1st, 2006, 7:19 pm

eBay spends and enourmous amount of time and money combatting fraud, be it counterfeit items, shill bidders, unscrupulous sellers, etc. To say that the company doesn't care is simply incorrect.

The fact of the matter is that some percentage will always slip by when dealing with large numbers. As mentioned, millions of items end every single day, and the reality is that a very small (less than 1%) of those transactions are fraudulent.

If one is to blame eBay for creating a marketplace where bad things can occur and not preventing it; one would need to blame Smith & Wesson for enabling homicides and not preventing them and to blame the automobile industry for enabling getaway vehicles and not preventing them.

The reality is that whenever money is involved some segment of the population will attempt to manipulate the system for their own benefit.

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby John LeBlanc » February 1st, 2006, 7:46 pm

Originally posted by John Bodine:
If one is to blame eBay for creating a marketplace where bad things can occur and not preventing it; one would need to blame Smith & Wesson for enabling homicides and not preventing them and to blame the automobile industry for enabling getaway vehicles and not preventing them.
I would agree with you if all S&W owners could only fire their weapons on S&W's property at other S&W owners. That's not the case. Same for automobile manufacturers. Sorry, I think that was a poor analogy.

eBay is a corporation, and their primary responsibility is to stock holders. As Michael LeBoeuf has repeated, you get more of the behavior you reward. eBay's corporate structure is rewarded for making money, not for policing what I am certain they view as relatively minimal fraudulent behavior.

The VERO program was a good start, although I'm sure it was a convenient (low cost, low manpower) maneuver. Better than nothing I suppose, but most of us here have seen it abused as well.

John

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Dustin Stinett » February 2nd, 2006, 1:47 pm

Its all going to be decided for us in court. A lawsuit brought against eBay by Tiffany & Company is alleging it failed to take adequate steps to ensure counterfeit goods were not sold on its site. [From Retailwire.com.]

The same source reports:

Joseph Berghammer, an intellectual property attorney with the firm of Banner & Witcoff Ltd., told TechWeb News, If Tiffany wins, this is a ground-breaking case. It changes the electronic marketplace. EBay would no longer just provide a tent, it would also have to provide police.

But the article doesnt stop there. It goes on to report that lawmakers are looking into the situation. They quote Ina Steiner, editor and publisher of AuctionBytes.com:

It really may come down to lawmakers getting involved if consumers feel they are not being protected in the marketplace, he said. Ebay may have regulation thrust upon them.

A poll connected to the article shows 53% of respondents (most of who are, like me, sales and marketing types) believe eBay should be responsible for the products they sell.

Our little magic biz gets to sit back and watch the big boys duke it out.

Dustin

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Jason England » February 2nd, 2006, 5:11 pm

Originally posted by DustinStinett:
A poll connected to the article shows 53% of respondents (most of who are, like me, sales and marketing types) believe eBay should be responsible for the products they sell.
Dustin
That's the rub though...

Generally speaking, they don't "sell" anything. Should ABEBooks.com (a book listing service) be responsible for fraudulent activitiy on the part of the bookstores that advertise on their site? Should Genii be responsible for something I purchase (and get ripped off with) on the Collector's Marketplace page?

Where does one draw the line?

Jason

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Kevin Connolly » February 2nd, 2006, 5:52 pm

If the company profits from the sale it should. They are selling their services. A brick and mortar auction house doesn't have this freedom. My feelings are that Ebay will take a good hit.
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby magicam » February 2nd, 2006, 6:19 pm

Thats not a bad distinction. Kev, but it doesn't clear up all the issues and there are still grey areas. What about newspaper classifieds? They make money off of ads. Now, you may say that newspapers dont take a cut of the action when the item is sold, and maybe thats good analysis and a valid distinction. But there are papers in my area (the Pennysaver is one of them) who charge for the ad based on the sales price thats not very different from Ebay, is it?

You say that bricks and mortar auction houses dont have this freedom. By that, do you mean the freedom to be ignorant of what is being sold? Im not sure of your point there. One of the ways your comparison to Ebay is not apt is the fact that the bricks and mortar auction houses themselves do the cataloging Ebay does not, as we all know. And I would quibble with you if you think that auction houses have never unwittingly sold a forgery or a stolen item. I bet it happens more than we know. But what is the bricks and mortar auction houses liability on that? Do they owe civil liability? Or do they just have to refund the money?

I end up all over the place when it comes to corporate America and its responsibilities. But I still dont think Ebay should have to police sellers like this too much work unless it can be proven that Ebay knowingly refused to shut down a violating seller. Whats knowledge? Well that question, if answered in a legalistic manner, can lead to a long, convoluted answer. But to me, knowledge could be imputed when Ebay refuses to investigate a claim of a violating seller, or finds a seller to be a violator and refuses to shut him/her down.

As others have pointed out, the vast majority of transactions are done without hassle or fraud (a miracle, when you think about it). If Tiffany gets to push the limits to its preferred point, what result? Just how much protection results? Moreover, just who benefits from this protection? The little guy? Or the corporation?

My .02 of prediction: if the court does not bounce the lawsuit on a motion to dismiss, the court will formulate some sort of high standard of knowledge, which will not require Ebay to police all auctions.

Clay

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Magiphile » February 2nd, 2006, 7:41 pm

It is impossible for eBay to police all sellers/buyers and items on their own.Ebay has 147 million registered users, 33 international markets and 50,000 categories and subcategories. There are over 950,000 items listed at any once time. The fact is that magic (tricks, books ephemera etc) don't bring home the bacon for eBay as a diamond ring is sold every 2 minutes on eBay, a watch (and I don't mean timex) is sold every 15 seconds. The category of Jewelry and watches alone accounts for $1.6 billion in sales every year. As a matter of interest the highest price item evcer sold on eBay was a corporate jet which brought in $4.9 million to its seller. The staffing necessary to monitor this monster auction site would raise their commissions to unbearable heights.The onus is on us (the buyers) to monitor and expect that eBay will react to our input on dubious items, sellers and transactions. We have to live by the "Buyer beware" adage when dealing on eBay....unfortunately.
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Kevin Connolly » February 2nd, 2006, 8:40 pm

Bob,

I think they are open for legal problems once they have acknowledged some of the many fakes being sold on their site. There is a page on Ebay that bans certain autograpgh sellers and/or their COA's on future sales. You have to look pretty long to find it. It should be made more accesible for all autograph buyers.

I don't know all of Ebay. In my field, there are dozens of fake Houdini autographs. I would say 95% are not legit. This may be true of other sections of collectibles on Ebay. DVD's from China should be on the list too.

Yes, I know they sell tons of stuff. I think they are up 1.8 million in sales per minute now. And you know what? They're making money off all of them. They just might have to take some the profits and and make their site a safer place to buy and sell.
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby magicam » February 2nd, 2006, 10:19 pm

Kevin, would your view be different if eBay was losing money? It's all well and good to want to protect buyers (and sellers?), but bald calls for action aren't much help. Those who advocate for eBay to police sellers should come up with a workable, principled investigation and enforcement scheme. If they cant, then that should tell us something about the intractability of the problem at the margins, which to date is the case with eBay. We already have enough people in D.C. passing laws without thinking or caring about the costs or feasibility of implementation.

Clay

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Richard Hatch » February 2nd, 2006, 11:41 pm

As others have pointed out, eBay is NOT an auction house. They do not sell anything but access to a forum to bring buyers and sellers together. Clay's analogy to classified ads is much more apt than the auction model. It SEEMS like an auction because of the bidding process that determines pricing, but a real auction would eliminate sniping by extending the auction each time a bid came in. It is my understanding, from conversation with an eBay employee, that eBay cannot change to the normal auction bidding format (extension of time when a bid is received) because then they WOULD be defined under California law as an auction house, and would be open to all kinds of problems, such as those under discussion here and in the courts. I am guessing that they will succeed in pointing out how and why they are not an auction house, but merely a facilitator in bringing buyers and sellers together...

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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Kevin Connolly » February 3rd, 2006, 4:27 am

If sealed bids are used in some auction houses, than Ebay with Buy It Now may be too be considered an auction house.

If Ebay actually acknowledges the names people and companies that they have had problems with selling fakes, etc., and can't stop them, maybe it's time for regulation. This is just technology being ahead of the law for now.
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Frank Yuen
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Frank Yuen » February 3rd, 2006, 7:57 am

What a coincidence, it just so happens that I recently purchased a manuscript on eBay that turned out to be an obvious photocopy. I am looking into the options available to me to try to get all or at least some of my money back (seller has been unreceptive) and would like to pose a question to those who may have had to deal with this problem already (I believe Richard has mentioned it before in other posts).

If I used a credit card through Paypal to pay, is the best course of action to contact Paypal or my credit card company? Should I go through eBay at all?

Thanks,

Frank Yuen

John LeBlanc
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby John LeBlanc » February 3rd, 2006, 8:11 am

Originally posted by Kevin Connolly:
This is just technology being ahead of the law for now.
This is generally the rule rather than the exception. Just when you think you've won the rat race, along come faster rats.

John
Finding the next Siegfried and Roy
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Richard Hatch
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Richard Hatch » February 3rd, 2006, 8:55 am

Originally posted by Kevin Connolly:
If sealed bids are used in some auction houses, than Ebay with Buy It Now may be too be considered an auction house.
Sorry, I don't follow the logic of that at all...

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Kevin Connolly
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Kevin Connolly » February 3rd, 2006, 9:33 am

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Frank Yuen:
[QB]

If I used a credit card through Paypal to pay, is the best course of action to contact Paypal or my credit card company? Should I go through eBay at all?

The only time I went that route, I wasted my time with contacting Paypal. I went to my credit card company and they fixed it right away.
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I buy,sell + trade Houdini, Hardeen items.

Jason England
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Re: BUYER BEWARE ON EBAY

Postby Jason England » February 3rd, 2006, 8:39 pm

The funny thing is, there are already plenty of laws (for the most part) regarding the illegal items being sold on eBay.

Instead of demanding eBay "do something," why not demand that our current laws are enforced? I'll tell you one thing that 'might' reduce some of the illegal items being sold on eBay: if the cops showed up at your door the week after you knowingly sold a fake, copy, or fraudulent item.

If you guys want to do some good, go after the people posting fraudulent descriptions of themselves in the personal ads! Since when does "plenty of curves" mean 200lbs?! My friend John Lovick has been having the worst luck recently...

Jason


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