While I'm sure that there are probably thousands, if not tens-of- and hundres-of, perfectly happy and valid sales of high-value electronics on eBay every day using Paypal, I would rather give something like that away as a Christmas present than try to sell it on eBay.
Note, I think PayPal are in many cases some sly devils doing some nasty things, in this case it sounds like they went to bat, had the credit companies say 'nope' and that's that. Credit card companies will usually go in the favour of the buyer, because technically the buyer is them. This is an odd, and bizarre situation, but its why you always should buy fancy items on credit cards, as the credit companies don't like their money being mucked about with. The situation is heavily broken though, scammers on every side, the only option becomes taking legal action and that's very much a minefield.
Definitely, it seems super obvious to us that fraud has occurred and that's the long and short, to the credit card companies all they can see is that they might be severely out of pocket. They will generally fight back against it, and side with their money. It sucks.
One gamer used a bank account to deposit funds into his account. 2-3 months later, he uses that same bank account, then files a chargeback for $680.
Even though he'd used that same bank account months earlier, on the same site without filing a chargeback somehow this time around he won the chargeback dispute.
> " If youre thinking of selling an expensive item on eBay, think again. "
I would say, this type of fraud is exclusively targeted at cellphones, ipods, netbooks etc. If you're selling something like an antique grandfather clock, you should be fine. Of course anything that requires collection, or couriering is going to be more traceable and secure.
I have sold hundreds or maybe thousands of items on eBay. The only one I ever had a problem with was trying to sell an old iPod. As soon as it was listed the scamming started by fraudsters.
One could say the same thing about OP's post.
Yet, it isn't unique by a long shot.
I've also given up on selling via CL because of the scammers. Now I donate to the local Goodwill or other charity (women's shelters want cellphones, for example), and take the tax write-off.
I think it isn't that you end up getting scammed on craigslist, but that 9 out of ten replies are from scammers. It creates annoying overhead in sorting them out.
--
Hi!
I am buying this as gift for my Son. Are you firm on the price? Email me back please,though, you may send me a text on the number below because I am hearing impaired but I think email is the best for me.
--
Hello, i saw your listing on craigslist and Am wondering if the item is still for sale. Please do let me know if I'm still able to purchase as i am willing and ready to make purchase,get back to me with the condition asap.Thanks
No, because most cellphones/iPods etc will be subject to scammers.
These devices are absolutely simple for scammers to work with. They're high value, cheap to post, and can easily be swapped with phoney/broken identical devices.
I think you're misusing the word "precedent" here. This absolutely does set a precedent but whether it constitutes a trend or policy change is debatable.
It's just that the scamming is more common with iPhones. There are many public cases where the similar scam was pulled as the buyer returned an "item not as described" as an empty guitar case full of rocks/synth box full of books/etc.
Being the grinch that I am, I stopped giving any feedback at all for buying or selling on eBay. The principal being if anything ever goes wrong, feedback is your only weapon.
After a seller started harrassing me by telephone after I gave them neutral feedback for shipping crap (not negative because they did refund me after I sent it back) I stopped giving feedback altogether. Never again. I avoid ebay altogether now for anything of value, and avoid paypal for everything.
I thought my case with a virtual product, and a clear fraudulent act was bad. After hearing about this, with a physical product, it makes a local electronics dealer seem much more appealing.
The only way I would sell an expensive piece of electronics would be via local Craigslist, in person, probably for cash that I'd prefer to witness the buyer withdraw out of an ATM.
Just like anything else, selling in person to a stranger is not without risk either. I wonder how the frequency of robberies associated with Craigslist sales compares against eBay fraud like this one. Personally, I'd rather get hit with a chargeback than a baseball bat.
I'm curious why you think you should see the buyer actually withdraw from an ATM? If I was a buyer and the seller asked to follow me to my ATM, I'd be concerned.
To jump on a point totally unrelated to the post's complaint but related to selling smartphones, I've found that if I'm selling electronics (especially generation-behind iPhones for the family) I can do much better than eBay, even before you discount both their listing fee and paypal use fees. And there's comparatively no risk.
For cash: gazelle
For slightly more cash (usually just a few percent), in the form of a gift card: amazon trade-ins
That's not quite genuine. You need to look at probability of a scammer winning your auction, not the probability that a scammer still has room under his/her chargeback cap. And even after that, I somehow doubt that those statistics are satisfying to the person who lost 100% of their money after selling 100% of their phone inventory (one phone).
If you plan to sell 100 iPhones, you are absolutely right.
If you are selling an iPhone and actually need the money, a 2% risk of being left with neither may be worse than just getting 50% of the money, safely.
2% is a way higher number than reality. The amount of fraud on eBay is well, well below a 10th of a percent.
Selling on craigslist and gazelle does not solve the issue. It could be lost in the mail or you could be robbed. Il take a 99% chance at getting twice my money than a 100% chance of getting half. To each his own though./
It's heavily skewed by category. For every Macbook or iPhone sale that goes awry, 10,000 Beanie Babies are traded between elderly housewives without incident.
It's less than 2% in the aggregate across eBay, but it's probably significantly higher for small high-value electronics like recent smartphones, especially if you're a small seller relying on eBay to detect scammers.
I sold my iPhone 4 on Gazelle. I know I could have got more through Craigslist or eBay, but it wasn't worth my time.
With eBay I have to photograph it, write it up, list it, answer ridiculous questions about shipping it to the 3rd world and take payment in the form of casino chips mailed to me in a few months. Then I have to deal with the buyer, ship it, and the whole time I have to be worried about scammers. All the time I'm competing against companies that are listing 50 iPhones a day because that's their fulltime job and my account hasn't been used in 4 years. I wouldn't buy from me in that circumstance.
With Craigslist, things are a bit worse. Not only do you get occasional scammer emails, but I have to meet the person to physically sell the item. I've had people stand me up numerous times, be continually able to schedule, etc. And when I do meet up with someone, they could give me fake money, or just steal the item, or refuse to buy it meaning I have to go through the whole thing again.
With Gazelle I got a perfectly fair bid. I hit accept and in a day or two a box showed up on my door. Put the phone in it, dropped it off at a UPS store, and in a few days I got my Amazon gift card. No weird fraudsters, and I spent a total of about 10 minutes of my time. In return I got a price I was quite happy with, an easy experience, and I was able to use the money to help support my Amazon habit.
Worst case scenario, Gazelle could have said no and shipped the phone back to me. I wouldn't be out any money (unlike if I paid for eBay shipping), and I could have sold it on Craigslist.
If you were willing to take $250 less for saving 5 minutes time, by all means. Most of your complaints are made up though (casino chips, third world, etc.. )
I dont use craigslist, so I cant answer to that. I find the eBay process mostly fine, with the exception of not being able to specify who can bid/buy. If they did that it would be a way more reliable experience.
Unless you're a regular eBay seller, selling one phone on eBay is going to eat up a lot more than 5 minutes of your time. And that's the whole point - eBay is terrible for selling newish electronics unless you're a frequent eBay seller like yourself. To the point that people will willingly accept $200 less (eBay fees!) to avoid it.
It was two years old and it wasn't in great condition. I priced it out and I think it cost me about $50 or so, which was worth it for the total lack of hassle.
The complaints for eBay etc. are exaggerated, but they are a problem. The last few times I listed things on eBay it didn't matter that I set the item to only be sold in the US, only paid through PayPal, etc. I got messages from people offering to buy it if I would just ship it out of the country and accept a money order. Then there are the messages offering to buy it if I contact them directly and cancel the auction so they can save the fee. You see that kind of stuff now and then on Craigslist too.
The amount of time and hassle I saved was worth far more than $50. If it had been $250, I would have certainly gone with Craigslist.
I've used the first 2 with excellent results. Obviously you get slightly less than selling on the open market, but you don't have to deal with scammers, and get the cash quickly and without issues.
I stopped selling things like this on eBay a long time ago because I do not sell things frequently enough to keep up with the scams du jour.
My local craigslist is where my for-sale items now go. Sure, I may get a little less than top-dollar for an item, or it might take a little longer to sell, but I'm never left with some after-the-fact dispute where I have no control (note: I'll only accept cash).
eBay was fun while it lasted, but then it became a giant flea market with basically semi-pro retailers looking to sell things, and a whole bunch of random scammers. Intermixed in all that was the occasional legitimate "amateur" seller.
For the very few times I've purchased something on Ebay in the last few years, it's always been from "pro" sellers with storefront type setups. The hassles of dealing with amateurs selling poorly described items, taking too long to ship, etc. was also not worth the "deal" I was getting.
A true "amateur to amateur" auction type sales website is an area begging for competition...
Our target is to serve the C2C market and make shipping less painless as well as eliminate some of the risk on the buyer's side. With the current climate for buying goods online companies serving the space are at risk for opening themselves up to scams like this one by buyers. The reality for anyone accepting credit cards is that you're at the mercy of the buyer.
Because we're targeting consumers, they're less familiar with shipping than businesses. Our system provides buyers with accurate shipping costs and prepares labels for sellers when their parts have been purchased.
All they have to do is put it in a box and drop the package off.
This also means that we can eventually grow each seller's addressable market within our system as we'll handle cross-border shipping on their behalf.
I think grandfather comment is poking fun at your (presumed) typo: your earlier comment should probably say "making shipping less painful" rather than "making shipping less painless."
Small UI gripe, why do I have to click a button that says "Engine Start" just to realize its a registration link? No idea what that context is supposed to mean.
I think "Sticky-D" is a much better interpretation. It is got "swag" or "je ne sais quoi" for the more literate crowd. But "stickied" makes me think of old ladies and post-it notes.
To me, it looks like Stuck Kyd (kid). The link underlinining combined with the lack of other vowels is messing with my brain. (Also, I tend to read things from the last syllable to first when learning how to pronounce.)
You need to get a proper domain name if you are serious about this as a business. Go get $10,000 and buy stickypost.com if you still like the name. Look at the comments in this thread discussing what it means.
Dude, why can't I just browse a bunch of products for sale? That's all I want to do, I don't want to sign up to your site. I just want to see what's listed and possibly buy some parts. I'll probably check back again tomorrow if I see a few interesting things, probably in my lunch break at work. I've been thinking about getting a Garrett 3071 turbo kit but haven't given into the temptation yet -- but probably after seeing one listed for a few days I might cave in and buy it on impulse.
But I won't, because I don't want to sign up to be able to window shop...
and I stopped looking at your site after about 15 seconds as a result.
Being terse in this post bc I'm working atm and don't have much time.
a) Link either doesn't exist on main page or isn't immediately apparent enough.
b) Consider this page - http://www.boostclassifieds.com.au. Today is the first time I've seen it - visually it looks horrible and potentially untrustworthy. If I may say so, your site looks freakin' incredible. But on their site, the first thing my eyes land on is a gigantic list of categories. It takes me FIVE seconds to find the link to "turbos and superchargers" and one click later I'm where I want to be, looking at what I want to buy. Which I guarantee I'm doing right now - in fact I've spotted a couple of GT280RS that look pretty good to me.
I had to navigate through so much shit to find the search page and look for turbos on your site that I didn't actually want to bother.
I'm having trouble with the balancing act. I definitely need to improve the searchability of the site. At the same time if I put everything front and center it'll become pretty apparent that we don't have many listings yet. Will that just turn people away? I'm not sure yet, I don't have the data to say.
Yes, not having a lot of listing will definitely turn people away.
But so will a site with no listings at all, as yours appears.
The first thing you should do is split the site: A big "For sellers" / "For buyers" right at the start, then each group can navigate their own section. Perhaps a third button to talk about what you do, what's special about your site.
You've gone too far in the style over substance balance.
The site has so much style it's unusable. And what's with the B/W photos? They look horrible. Even on the detail page I have to mouse over it to get color.
People go a site like yours to get stuff done, not to chill out and look around.
P.S. I apologize if I sound too harsh, I'm not always good at giving criticism online.
> A true "amateur to amateur" auction type sales website is an area begging for competition...
Really? Because this is the area eBay started in, and they pivoted to more "online retail" than "online yard sale" because (surprise!) there is a lot more money in retail. Really, eBay is more today's Viaweb than an evolution of either p2p sales or auctions.
While it's true that eBay pivoted to a more profitable niche, their original niche was still quite profitable: they were a successful IPO and pulling down cash back in the days when most sellers were regular people. So if they're abandoning that market to focus on a more lucrative one, it might [1] leave an opening for someone else to focus on it, and make good, even if not eBay-sized, profits.
[1] With all sorts of uncertainties I haven't properly investigated, such as whether there's been a significant shift that would make old-ebay-style auctions much less profitable today than they were 10 years ago.
There's a lesson to be learnt. If you want to build a niche, build one that anyone can access. Better still, build a niche which stops people being locked out. Later on, you can screw the unwashed masses, and turn it into a B2C channel. See - Youtube, eBay, the iApp stores, the internet in general.
Keep in mind a LOT has changed since the beginning. When eBay did that pivot, there were far less options for small retails sellers to put their products online easily and efficiently.
Ultimately, I think it would be near impossible to serve both markets well. eBay certainly serves the amateurs poorly, so that area is ripe for competition (IMO). Maybe serving the "pro" market would be bigger overall, and maybe even more profitable, but an "amateur eBay" executed properly would make someone a metric fuckton of dollars.
I'm the same, just don't want the hassle of eBay/Paypal scams. Unless it is a very specialist item for which I need to reach a large audience, which I have very little of worth any value anyway.
You may say you get less for your money than through Craigslist(/Kijiji/Gumtree) but after eBay and Paypal have both taken their cut I often find it is not a huge amount of difference!
Does anyone know of such a site? I recently came into possession of a deceased relatives various stuffs, and have a bunch of semi-recent semi-old computer parts to sell off, but have been hesitant to use ebay for this reason, but I don't live anywhere a local Craigslist would work (yay for rural).
A few years ago I sold an Android phone on eBay. A scammer bought it, claimed it was broken, and filed a claim with PayPal. The guy sent me back a different phone of the same model that was indeed quite broken. I appealed to PayPal and lost. I got screwed in this case, but frankly I'm not sure what PayPal/eBay is supposed to do about this sort of scam. Dude even swapped the sticker with the serial number from inside the case.
Mine had a small but distinctive scratch on the back. The sticker was also off-center and poorly applied. Though I did briefly question my sanity. I suppose I don't know for certain, though the phone was working when I mailed it.
The buyer's profile showed he was frequently buying and selling cell phones, both working and broken.
It's hard, as a paranoid person I try to document things as much as I can, filmed tests, clean pictures, filmed packaging process. It's not perfect but for what it's worth, I had an issue on priceminister (european website) involving an old motherboard being flagged as failing by the buyer, they were thorough and rejected his claims after all. Nothing major it was 20$, but it's good to see that some websites go the other way too.
I'm the same. I sold a few things on eBay a few months ago, nothing of great value, some old Nokia 8850's I had lying around and 2 Raspberry Pi's I had purchased but not used. I photographed everything, against a verifiable backdrop (in this the BBC website on my monitor) and filmed the product in use and put it up on Photobucket so that the upload was also time stamped. No problems whatsoever with the sales, but you know, just in case!
I actually did film my opening of his return package because it was very obvious at that point that I was getting scammed. But I was expecting an empty box or a brick or something, not a similar phone.
Especially for sellers with thousands of sales. They would get no benefit from scamming you even if they could because bad feedback = lots of lost sales.
This seems like a credit card/bank problem, it's not unique to paypal.
I was thinking about upgrading my phone and ebaying the old one. After reading this, I'm thinking maybe I'll go the craigslist route, or one of the online trade-in deals.
Does gazelle have this same issue? I'm not sure if Gazelle the company buys the product and sells it, or if they just connect me with a buyer like ebay does.
Another vote for Swappa. I bought a phone using the service. As pdubs said, it still goes through PayPal but the site employees keep an eye on the transactions and there are reviews and negative feedback.
Everyone who's been in the internet for a long time know that there are dozens of sites for people to go tell their "got screwed by paypal" stories.
Why paypal has always been the most used site for online transactions? That i don't know.. I know i would never use it.
Maybe because people who have bad experiences tend to want to publish them more than people who have good experiences. I sold a damaged iPhone 4 (listed as such) on eBay+Paypal earlier this year. I got paid, the buyer was happy, and I did not write a blog post about it.
Im with you, i sold a number of things without problems, but I did it assuming that if I follow the rules of Paypals Seller Protection, i would be covered.
This is not the case here. I now know that Seller Protection means nothing to the fraudster in the know
Heres the issue (and a opportunity for a startup?) - eBay remains the main place to sell second hand goods.
There are other options (craigslist, amazon) but the fact is it takes longer to sell and still flush with scammers.
What does the solution look like? A costco style paid membership with more information given back to the user? Ability to 'vouch' for yourself via facebook/twitter/etc. ?
With all of this, its still chicken and the egg. Hard problem to solve.
Bitcoins (no chargebacks) and a preference for buying through friends of friends on social networks (almost like a darknet) could be worth looking into.
Bitcoins tip the pendulum too far in the other direction; there needs to be a way for a buyer scammed to reclaim their money in the case of a seller scam. (And that's not even getting into the instability of the currency.. I'm a fan of bitcoin and I can't imagine using it in a serious enterprise)
A third party escrow service that examines all goods for compliance with their description and then sends them on could be a useful tool..
Have you called an attorney? If you have one that you're on any kind of friendly basis, I've generally found that you can get a quick read on your case (30 minutes' worth of time) without any cost.
IANAL -- first and foremost -- but I would think the best tactic may be to go after PayPal to get them to discharge your supposed debt to them, given that you've already swept the money out. Their seller's assurance contract terms would seem to be vague around what is required for the item to be determined "not as received" -- also, as you mention, there is a a pattern on behalf of the seller -- is EBay/Paypal acting dilligently to protect your interest in return for your seller's fees and auction fees?
LOL! What attorney would give a crap about a $500 phone? The sad truth is that in this system of ours, you can screw someone for up to $50-100k and get away with it because that's the minimum potential damages amount that would pique a decent attorney's interest.
The attorney will make millions, the guy will walk away with a coupon for 5% of his next Ebay purchase.
There has been some success recently in suing corporations in small claims court. There is an argument that a genreal delivery address should not have been 'verified'.
The point of a class-action suit isn't for the victims to recoup damages. It's to force the corporation (in this case, eBay) to change some sort of behavior that a suit from a single person wouldn't have been able to accomplish.
I think that depends a lot on what you mean "a decent attorney". Sure, a partner at Proskauer isn't going to take your call, but in my experience, the nice woman with the office down the street might be glad to help you put together a plan, critique your demand letter, etc. This kind of "decent attorney" is willing to work with you on the small stuff, in the hopes that you'll come back to her in the future with bigger business, and refer your friends and family as well.
A piece of advice -- as you mature and your life becomes more complex, it's not a bad thing to have a good relationship with an attorney. Here are some situations that have come up in my life:
Reviewing my ISO and non-compete agreements when I took a start-up job
Getting my security deposit back from a landlord who would not pay up
Reviewing the sale agreement for same start-up 10 years later
Representing me at closing when I bought my first home
Advising me when my bank "misplaced" a $10,000 deposit for over a month (they cashed the check but didn't credit my account)
Discussing will and estate planning when my first child was born
For all of this, and probably some other things I'm forgetting, I probably paid him less than $2,000 total -- and half of that was in closing costs on the house.
More recently, a different attorney (I moved) handled another landlord-tenant dispute for me with a couple of letters to the landlord's attorney, and never even sent me a bill.
I have had similar experiences with attorneys that are single person practices or a partnership. As the firms get larger, they are less likely to miss any minutes of billing. In fact I am meeting my lawyer tomorrow for lunch, I am sure I will pay and I am sure I will not get a bill for his time. I am also sure that we will spend an hour talking about a small legal issue that I need advice on. URSpider is correct, it is good to have a friendly lawyer.
That's a variant of one of the oldest scams in the book on EBay. Removing seller feedback actually fixed the issue, at least for buyers.
Back in the day, the formula for an EBay sell-side scammer was to:
1 - Setup a phony account, or network of accounts.
2 - start selling small value things to each other. (Postcards, keychains, digital pictures, etc) Leave positive feedback, including nonsensical feedback (ie. My laptop works great, A++++ for a $0.99 recipie).
3 - Wait a few months for the active links to the auctions to be de-activated by EBay
4 - Start selling a dozen high-value items like laptops. Ship nothing or empty boxes.
5 - Withdraw funds asap.
Now the same scheme works, but only in reverse for high-value items that have immediate cash value.
"Item not as described" is the secret passphrase. Seller has absolutely no recourse. I've never tried it as a buyer, but as a seller it's been 100% effective in the scammer getting their money back from me.
I had an issue, as a buyer, very recently. The item was not as described. I was frankly flabbergasted how quickly and decisively eBay worked in my direction. A little too quickly. (There were issues with my purchase that could have been fixed with a partial refund, but instead I got everything back, while I still have the item. I actually feel a little bad about it, like I don't want to use eBay again, even though they probably think they made me happy.)
Exactly. It doesn't make sense unless eBay just considers all sellers to be high volume resellers who write off small item losses as part of doing business.
I have, eBay ignored all my complaints and requests. Never got anything but the odd automated 'we have received your report' emails. I'll never use eBay again for any reason.
Actually, I have. I got a knock-off memory card once. I threatened the seller with all kinds of things (basically send the feds after him), and he sent me the money back. Didn't even need to involve Ebay/PayPal.
Regarding #3, it's shocking that Ebay feel the need to remove all auction information after a few months. Is hard drive space that expensive?! The Ebay site is a remnant of the 90s, it's crazy they're still a viable company.
That is just plain silly... I'm "paranoid" and don't want to be ripped off $500 or $1000.
Biggest I was ever scammed was $70 (it's ok, I can stomach that).
So I don't use eBay for big transactions which I have no recourse on in case something bad happen (e.g. I'm not a famous blogger so it's unlikely eBay / PayPal would ever help me like they helped OP).
But I do still use eBay a lot:
- for tiny transactions / items I really want that are cheap (e.g. some cheap but rare to find obsolete hardware I need to fix one of my old-but-cool printers)
- for big transactions where I can go to the seller's place to pay in cash and take delivery of the item.
Saying "don't use Ebay for anything" doesn't make sense, even if you're paranoid.
This would only work in major cities, but I always thought there was a business in having a physical escrow service aimed specifically at selling small, high-value items. You sell an item online, deposit it with the company (who takes a small cut; you could even mail it to them), who then pass it on to the buyer when payment is confirmed. The company can confirm it's in working order, and take some photographs for proof.
Much more pleasant for both buyer and seller. No more news stories of people getting mugged after an online ad, no more scammy eBay purchasers, the lot.
This would be a great value-added service option for the Post Office. Deposit money in an account, have it shipped to a local post office, postal worker witnesses the acceptance and opening of the package, if everything is kosher, the buyer signs a release and the money is leased to the seller.
USPS already provide "witness" services for packages that are picked (for free!), just add an escrow account for 1 to 5%.
Still doesn't help you, which postal employee is going to sit for 1/2 hour while you test your iphone and make sure it connects to your computer etc? They can only say, "yup it looks like an iphone", not whether or not it works.
Most things can be tested pretty easily and quickly. This would reduce fraud considerably, since you'd have to come up with an item that would pass a cursory inspection, but still fail later. Not at all easy to do.
OP here.
Interestingly enough, my conversations with Paypal became more and more surreal and I felt more and more powerless with every one in the end.
I had a trail of information and there was evidence of multiple fraud, but I never felt as powerless as I did after my phone calls with Paypal.
I am in contact with the police captain in the small town where the item was shipped, but I have very little faith in their ability to recover it.
I will file a local police report as well and try to appeal with paypal.
Meanwhile i want everyone to be aware that the so-called Seller Protection is totally worthless, since thats how Paypal chooses to pursue a legit fraud case.
Sigh.
He paid through paypal, remember.
There is apparently also a credit card provider, and the credit card provider claims to have handled the dispute.
Which means they either heard from this guy, or ...
Again, it's just not this complicated.
It's expensive and time consuming, but rarely complicated.
Sigh or not, you are sighing to someone who already went through this (me) and was told by the Las Vegas Police that it was a dead end. The buyer used a fake name and hijacked someone else's paypal account (or claimed such had happened to him). So, you are right on two out of three counts: it was expensive, time consuming, and complicated =D
Presumably the OP has an address where he sent his iPhone. Not sure as IANAL, but he theoretically could sue a Doe at a given address and subpoena for an identity.
The scammer had it sent General Delivery. For those not familiar with the term (it's not used commonly these days), it's possible to have something shipped General Delivery to any post office, then walk in and pick it up. See https://www.usps.com/manage/forward-mail.htm for more info. This seems like one of those arcane system hacks that's ripe for abuse.
He/she presumably had to show some ID and sign something to get the package, but I'm betting that the ID was fake.
You think general delivery is also his credit card billing address?
Do you think he walks in with different fake ids every time he does this?
Do you think he also uses different credit cards with paypal?
Or do you picture him as a nomad, like the old guy from Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, traveling the country collecting fake ids, credit cards, and iphones?
If he is super-master-ninja and all else failed, do you think it would be more or less expensive than court to honey pot him, ship him a box of rocks (or something that takes continual pictures and uploads it instantly) in a very bright pink package, fly super-economy to the place he is supposed to pick it up, and then sit in the post office a few days waiting to see your package picked up, and take pictures of the guy and his car plates?
Unless of course, he only uses public transportation to cover his tracks (or steals random cars every time he needs to travel to the post office!), and wears facial disguises, sunglasses, and a hat to make sure no camera gets a good look at him. Never the same motel room twice, always paying cash, blah blah blah.
Reality: It's actually very hard to hide when your fraud requires picking up physical items at a known location.
It's easier to hide remotely, but not so much otherwise.
Even remotely, i'd put 20 bucks down that given only the info the seller has about the guy, 4chan or reddit could find in 2 days or less.
Dude, funny reply, but I never said that he was un-findable. The parent suggested sending a subpoena to the shipping address, which isn't likely to work in this case. Also keep in mind that the OP doesn't have the guy's credit card number, PayPal does -- and I bet they are not handing it over.
Sorry, I was in a snarky mood :)
It seems every 2 months there is another popular blog post about how impossible it is to be a seller and how there is just no way to deal with the fraud. They act like once it involves more than email or phone, it's all impossible.
But, yes, sending to shipping address is unlikely to work.
Paypal will turn over the info if you subpoena them (you will have to open a miscellaneous matter in california and subpoena them there, but this is not a big deal).
If you are law enforcement, they will turn it over much faster, but unlike Google/et al, they generally do not object.
"Google has not produced documents, paypal has" :)
They are in a pretty different position, so i can't blame them. Your bank would turn over records in response to a simple subpoena as well.
Unlike your bank, Paypal will give notice and time to object to the guy, but if he objects, he will have to do so in court (and then you'd know who it is or otherwise be able to sue them directly as a doe, and so it won't matter), or paypal will turn over the records.
You make this process seem so simple that im eager to learn it.
Can you outline steps necessary to subpoena paypal without having access to an expensive legal letterhead(that comes with an hourly legal bill attached) and to actually follow through this subpoena into getting requested documents.
I was able to get a phone number for supposedly a legal department, but I was told in so many terms to only have a lawyer call them. Im sure if pressed, paypal would give out their legal teams address.
Being a lawyer, I can't really give you actual legal advice on how to do this stuff without you being my client, but i can explain a very very generalized process.
Note that if you are not a lawyer, you will end up spending some time reading rulebooks and filling out forms that lawyers know how to fill out. There are usually legal aid folks/etc in most state courts that can help.
So let me give you an example process (Again, this is not legal advice, just an example process):
1. Open a small claims case against the pseudonym of the paypal person (to be filled in later), or what they claim their name to be if you have it, in the state you believe them to be in (assuming that state allows subpoenas in small claims. If not, you may have to open a real case in their district court, which is more expensive and requires more paperwork). This will require service of process, which will be initially hard, but there are fallbacks in case the person is deliberately making themselves unreachable, like publishing service in newspapers, etc.
2a. Start by getting a subpoena from the small claims/etc court, see if that's enough to get what you want.
They may want a subpoena from their local court. In that case
2b. Contact the relevant court for paypal (northern district of california, I believe), and get them to issue an out-of-district subpoena. For the central district, you can see the exact process here: http://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/court-procedures/filing-procedu...
It should be roughly the same process for northern district (the form numbers are the same, though the form content will say northern district instead).
Note that the envelope should be addressed to you.
They will assign a miscellaneous action number, and mail you an endorsed subpoena.
3. Send a copy of the endorsed subpoena (keep the original since you are likely to end up playing mail tag a few times) to the address paypal provides.
Again, i don't have this address handy, but as a registered corporation, you should be able to lookup where they receive service of process. They are required to have a registered agent that accepts service of process.
If they fail to respond, file a motion to enforce the subpoena (this is covered in the URL linked above in the case of northern district, if it's another local court subpoena, they will have a similar way).
They do have a fraud investigation team which you could contact with the subpoena first, and see if they will respond.
They may work only with law enforcement.
Again none of this is legal advice, there may be intermediate or more steps, i'm not responsible if the steps are not right or in the right order, or if following these steps causes you to lose all your legal rights, etc.
No idea if you should sue or not, but surely in this case it would be the credit card company who didn't investigate the chargeback who is the culprit, Paypal is somewhat beholden to their investigation. By just approving any chargeback and not doing any investigations to appeals they are abusing the system
You're assuming that Paypal didn't purposely withhold any provided proof of scam, to avoid further action on this issue. That appears to be exactly what Paypal did.
Pretty sure that's a losing battle for you. If you can get the money back somehow later, then all the better, but I'd settle with PayPal for now. Ask for a money order next time, cashing it before sending the item.
That is exactly what happened with me. The way they hide behind poor communication and offshore CS reps is amazing. I'd receive answers to my emails that had nothing to do with the content itself, recommendations to check a FAQ in response to three hours of phone calls with detailed information about the incident, etc.
I'm happy you are publicizing this, but the thing is, this is happening everywhere, to all kinds of people, and eBay/PayPal are not doing anything about it.
After striking out with appeals and the Better Business Bureau, I believe the only way forward is to pressure the FTC through our government representatives.
Have you tried contacting the PostMaster for that city? They should be able to assist you in finding the owner of the P.O. Box. From there you can start the motions for filing charges or a lawsuit.
It's not a PO Box, it's General Delivery (https://www.usps.com/manage/forward-mail.htm). There is no owner, but you may be able to get the info they recorded when the person showed up (undoubtedly fake).
Wouldn't doing something like that (providing fake ID at pickup) be considered Mail Fraud? I seem to recall mail fraud investigations having really big teeth.
IANAL (I've said that a lot in this thread), but I believe so. Actually, I think it may be mail fraud in any regard, if he's using the US Mail to take delivery of his booty and you can show that he had prior intent to commit this scam (which is why he didn't have the packages shipped to his home address). So, maybe the right place to start is with the Postal Inspector, especially since this guy seems like a repeat offender with the same MO.
FYI--what you describe is not limited to eBay. I sell software through PayPal and I have been defrauded by someone who downloaded, marked it as "Significantly not as described". Once they did that, my money was pulled. I proved the buyer still had my software installed on their site, PayPal refunded my money, the buyer contacted their credit card, PayPal pulled the money again.
PayPal can be gamed in many different ways, but the credit card is the buyer's shield that even PayPal can't defend against. :(
He went straight to his credit card and they took his side.
Took his side as far as the chargeback, OK, I can see that. It's not very encouraging, but I can see it.
But took his side as far as keeping the item and getting his money back? That I don't see at all. How is that possible? And how would PayPal, and eBay for that matter, not expect a return?
What's to stop buyer from claiming the box contained a pair of old headphones ('significantly not as described')? The problem is the buyer is being taken at their word; forcing a return of bogus items won't help.
Yes, I can see that being an issue, and as a seller, you would want to somehow document what was actually shipped, otherwise the buyer could indeed ship back a bogus item.
But to not even raise the question of a return at all? That doesn't make sense to me.
Can you call up your (father's?) provider and report the phone stolen? Aren't those IMEI's blacklisted? If so, that might make it difficult for the buyer to unload. I guess you could also threaten to do that to said buyer, first, to see if that provokes anything.
Either way, a bummer of a story. I've had my own issues with eBay and rarely check there except for infrequently needed (cheap) odds and ends. I hope it works out.
Credit cards and Paypals both take a piece of a transaction fee and creating an illusion of a safety net is cost of doing business to them.
Paypal has a much better chance of having direct contacts with fraud departments of other institutions than individuals do, so they should take it upon themselves to sort it out.
Of course Im not being objective here, but their Seller Protection wording could be a lot more forthcoming in communicating the lack of protection for this case.
The whole tech culture is also to blame. I'm sure there have been a LOT of great alternate ebay, paypal start ups who just didn't get traction. Bloggers won't talk about you if you haven't raised a million and you won't get much traction on google without bloggers or spending major bucks.
My Dreamybids.com site for example, is an awesome service that uses the quibids model. It allows anyone to host their own auctions for products or services. Meaning a graphic designer could auction $200 of services. 10 people pay $20 to participate in the auction, one person wins and gets $200 of graphic design for $20.
Good luck getting traction with that if you aren't in the tech crunch, mashables, stanford, in club.
It doesn't really sound like an auction - more like a raffle. i.e. If 10 people pay $20 but only one wins it...
I actually looked at making a site like this for selling my house a couple of years ago. Fortunately I did some analysis before building it as in NZ it came under the gambling commission rules. This meant that I could only build a site like this if I donated all the proceeds to charity - unfortunately that was against what I was trying to achieve so never went through with it.
Quibids is one of the scammy-iest "auction" site abound. It's name is called Penny-Scam Auction
The gist for those that do now know: you buy bid-packs. A bid costs .60$, per BID. This doesn't matter if you "win" the item. If you do "win" (gamification abound), then you pay what the bid was brought up to. The other scam-note is that bids increase usually by $.01 so you see shit like "XYZ WON AN IPAD FOR 2.73$ !!!". While in reality, the "winner" pays $2.73+$40 in bids, along with everyone else to get the permission to bid.
If you type in quibids in google, the top auto-fill is SCAM. Just go look it up.
Btw UnFundedHype: I hope your scam of a business fails, and fails hard. You know better than this shit.
I can get just as many links for ebay and craigslist "scams"
It's no different than a gaming tournament where you pay a $10 entry fee.
You'd keep yourself from popping a vein if you just asked how does yours prevent the headaches of quibids.
Everything I didn't like about quibids I removed from dreamybids.
1. There are plenty of ways to get free bids, you don't even have to buy 1 bid.
2. One of the auction formats, everyone in the auction gets x amount of free bids. Each bid the final price goes up x amount of cents. At the end of the auction the winner pays the final price, if you didn't win the auction it costs you nothing since you never bought bids. Like this free auction http://www.dreamybids.com/contest.php?id=332
3. You can host your own auctions. So even if you did lose $50 in bids, put up an item of your own and make your money back. If we collect 30% more than the retail price of the item, you'd get 50% of the overage, so you can make way more than you would from selling an item on ebay or craigslist.
4. There are some great gamification tools that allow you to freeze the bid of the next bidder, or buy the timer down, or block a power bidder from joining an auction. Also once the auction starts new participants can't jump in.
Asking questions keeps you from being theamazingidiot
It is, and in most US states, is heavily regulated, something I don't see addressed by the OP (who in another post makes some veiled reference to Real Money Trading of in-game currencies, another "sketchy" industry).
This article goes into my "arguments for Bitcoin" pile. More sellers need to recognize the risks involved in doing transactions through PayPal/any other credit card processor and protect themselves.
There just needs to be an easier way to buy bitcoins. I added it to my gamerholic site and a couple users were just confused on where they can buy coins. You have to click one link after another.
No, the current ecosystem of Bitcoin is just fine. You have to click one link after another because you just don't _know_ anybody who has bitcoins.
One day you will get robbed by one of these exchanges, and you will blame bitcoins (or the bad man) and swear to never work with Bitcoins again. But they will be just one link in a chain of exchanges that you've trusted each one, hundreds of times, to bring you music and movies for bitcash, and nobody will write an article about it.
I am a small volume user but I have never been scammed by anybody in Bitcoin, except for that Bitscalper fellow.
I'd vote mtgox, but they actually require to see your voter registration to allow trading into US dollars, my local currency, and I haven't furnished it. As well as state issued photo ident. You can buy them from me! I will accept either document as authentic proof, otherwise in #bitcoin-OTC on Irc.free node.net they are rather partial to the Gpg key as the mode for proving identity and tracking of scammers.
Don't you want to upgrade your currency, to the one where charge backs can not ever be issued against you, and its the whole world and science that keeps your money safe from hackers?
Bitinstant.com is the easiest. Just create a pending transaction on theie site (give them one of your bitcoin addresses, and tell them how much you want to buy) They give you a bank account #, and you just walk into that nearby bank with cash, fill out the deposit slip, and wait about 30 mins.
Shouldn't the item be shipped to dispute resolution (or their agents). On confirmation of the ID of the item (eg IMEI match or serial number or whatever) they can asses the item against the description.
If the item matches then return to the complainant (buyer) at the buyer's cost + add a service charge. Seller keeps all their money. Buyer's account marked for fraud watch.
If the item doesn't match then refund the buyer with a chargeback, return item to seller at the seller's cost + add a service charge. Seller loses their money. Seller's account marked for fraud watch; selling fees increased.
Items not paid to be returned can be sold on to help cover admin costs for items that buyer's or sellers do not want returning.
Note that in the OP ebay claim to have assessed that the items didn't match the description and so buyer protection is invalidated. But they haven't checked and so are defrauding the seller in respect to this claim.
If only eBay accepted Bitcoin. Though that would open the door up to a host of new scams which eBay would be equally slow/unable to respond to and when they do, would probably only enable the scammers even more. Bottom line is no one there seems to give a shit anymore. Just stay away from that cesspool
Don't know if they're any good but the Economist just wrote up EcoATM (http://www.ecoatm.com/) which lets you sell used phones at kiosks. You show up with your used phone and put it into the machine, which can apparently verify its make/model and condition, and lets a network of buyers instantly bid on it. If you choose to sell, the kiosk keeps your phone and you leave with cash.
Meanwhile, as a purchaser on Paypal, you only get 45 days after the day of the transaction - which caught us out last week.
We ordered some stuff from (at least theoretically) a reputable company. We had to pay about 2 months ago, but kept getting emails telling us that the stock hadn't arrived yet and to just be patient. Then a couple of weeks ago, they told us that they actualy didn't have the stock and that we'd have to get a refund. But they were refusing to respond to any of our requests for the refund, so we contacted Paypal and they told us that we'd missed out on the 45 day window and they couldn't help us.
The company we ordered from eventually (after over a week of chasing) paid up, but if they hadn't we would have been left high and dry by Paypal.
I pay for stuff once in a while on PayPal. However, I do not maintain a cash balance with them, nor do I have a linked bank account. I have only my American Express card linked to my account.
A few years ago, I ordered some dirt cheap magazine subscriptions on eBay. I had done the same on eBay once before without a problem, but that was before the scamsters caught on.
You see, there is an inherent vulnerability with magazine subscriptions: they are not expected to start serving until approximately eight weeks after you order them. That's plenty of time for you to give positive feedback and a crooked seller to make more sales. It's also beyond that 45-day window you mention.
In the event, a couple of months passed. No magazines. I checked the magazine subscriber service sites and found that no subscriptions had been entered for me. I had paid on PayPal, via my American Express card. The action I took was to dispute the charge on the Amex website. It didn't occur to me take up the matter with PayPal first, so I didn't run into the problem you had. In any case, the chargeback was resolved in my favor.
Not long after that, eBay stopped allowing subscription sales on their site.
This happened to me. I ordered something, it took time to build and then by the time i figured out something was up i was out my cash. paypal wouldn't do anything. still trying to get it back over a year later.
397 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 290 ms ] threadOne gamer used a bank account to deposit funds into his account. 2-3 months later, he uses that same bank account, then files a chargeback for $680.
Even though he'd used that same bank account months earlier, on the same site without filing a chargeback somehow this time around he won the chargeback dispute.
I have no idea how that is common sense possible
I would say, this type of fraud is exclusively targeted at cellphones, ipods, netbooks etc. If you're selling something like an antique grandfather clock, you should be fine. Of course anything that requires collection, or couriering is going to be more traceable and secure.
I have sold hundreds or maybe thousands of items on eBay. The only one I ever had a problem with was trying to sell an old iPod. As soon as it was listed the scamming started by fraudsters.
Paypal orders buyer to destroy antique violin:
http://www.regretsy.com/2012/01/03/from-the-mailbag-27/
I've also given up on selling via CL because of the scammers. Now I donate to the local Goodwill or other charity (women's shelters want cellphones, for example), and take the tax write-off.
-- Hi! I am buying this as gift for my Son. Are you firm on the price? Email me back please,though, you may send me a text on the number below because I am hearing impaired but I think email is the best for me. -- Hello, i saw your listing on craigslist and Am wondering if the item is still for sale. Please do let me know if I'm still able to purchase as i am willing and ready to make purchase,get back to me with the condition asap.Thanks
These devices are absolutely simple for scammers to work with. They're high value, cheap to post, and can easily be swapped with phoney/broken identical devices.
http://www.amazon.com/s/field-keywords=counterfeit+money+pen
For cash: gazelle
For slightly more cash (usually just a few percent), in the form of a gift card: amazon trade-ins
http://www.gazelle.com/iphone/iphone-4s/at-t/iphone-4s-64gb-...
vs
http://www.ebay.com/sch/Cell-Phones-Smartphones-/9355/i.html...
Gazelle and Amazon present almost zero risk to the seller, hence the price differential.
Hence you are better selling 100 iPhones on eBay and taking the hit for two then sell all 100 on gazelle and not.
If you are selling an iPhone and actually need the money, a 2% risk of being left with neither may be worse than just getting 50% of the money, safely.
Selling on craigslist and gazelle does not solve the issue. It could be lost in the mail or you could be robbed. Il take a 99% chance at getting twice my money than a 100% chance of getting half. To each his own though./
With eBay I have to photograph it, write it up, list it, answer ridiculous questions about shipping it to the 3rd world and take payment in the form of casino chips mailed to me in a few months. Then I have to deal with the buyer, ship it, and the whole time I have to be worried about scammers. All the time I'm competing against companies that are listing 50 iPhones a day because that's their fulltime job and my account hasn't been used in 4 years. I wouldn't buy from me in that circumstance.
With Craigslist, things are a bit worse. Not only do you get occasional scammer emails, but I have to meet the person to physically sell the item. I've had people stand me up numerous times, be continually able to schedule, etc. And when I do meet up with someone, they could give me fake money, or just steal the item, or refuse to buy it meaning I have to go through the whole thing again.
With Gazelle I got a perfectly fair bid. I hit accept and in a day or two a box showed up on my door. Put the phone in it, dropped it off at a UPS store, and in a few days I got my Amazon gift card. No weird fraudsters, and I spent a total of about 10 minutes of my time. In return I got a price I was quite happy with, an easy experience, and I was able to use the money to help support my Amazon habit.
Worst case scenario, Gazelle could have said no and shipped the phone back to me. I wouldn't be out any money (unlike if I paid for eBay shipping), and I could have sold it on Craigslist.
I dont use craigslist, so I cant answer to that. I find the eBay process mostly fine, with the exception of not being able to specify who can bid/buy. If they did that it would be a way more reliable experience.
The complaints for eBay etc. are exaggerated, but they are a problem. The last few times I listed things on eBay it didn't matter that I set the item to only be sold in the US, only paid through PayPal, etc. I got messages from people offering to buy it if I would just ship it out of the country and accept a money order. Then there are the messages offering to buy it if I contact them directly and cancel the auction so they can save the fee. You see that kind of stuff now and then on Craigslist too.
The amount of time and hassle I saved was worth far more than $50. If it had been $250, I would have certainly gone with Craigslist.
I've used the first 2 with excellent results. Obviously you get slightly less than selling on the open market, but you don't have to deal with scammers, and get the cash quickly and without issues.
My local craigslist is where my for-sale items now go. Sure, I may get a little less than top-dollar for an item, or it might take a little longer to sell, but I'm never left with some after-the-fact dispute where I have no control (note: I'll only accept cash).
eBay was fun while it lasted, but then it became a giant flea market with basically semi-pro retailers looking to sell things, and a whole bunch of random scammers. Intermixed in all that was the occasional legitimate "amateur" seller.
For the very few times I've purchased something on Ebay in the last few years, it's always been from "pro" sellers with storefront type setups. The hassles of dealing with amateurs selling poorly described items, taking too long to ship, etc. was also not worth the "deal" I was getting.
A true "amateur to amateur" auction type sales website is an area begging for competition...
Our target is to serve the C2C market and make shipping less painless as well as eliminate some of the risk on the buyer's side. With the current climate for buying goods online companies serving the space are at risk for opening themselves up to scams like this one by buyers. The reality for anyone accepting credit cards is that you're at the mercy of the buyer.
All they have to do is put it in a box and drop the package off.
This also means that we can eventually grow each seller's addressable market within our system as we'll handle cross-border shipping on their behalf.
We built it to integrate with vBulletin forums: https://partners.styckyd.com
Our brand name is taken from "stickying" a post on a forum.
But I won't, because I don't want to sign up to be able to window shop...
and I stopped looking at your site after about 15 seconds as a result.
a) Link either doesn't exist on main page or isn't immediately apparent enough.
b) Consider this page - http://www.boostclassifieds.com.au. Today is the first time I've seen it - visually it looks horrible and potentially untrustworthy. If I may say so, your site looks freakin' incredible. But on their site, the first thing my eyes land on is a gigantic list of categories. It takes me FIVE seconds to find the link to "turbos and superchargers" and one click later I'm where I want to be, looking at what I want to buy. Which I guarantee I'm doing right now - in fact I've spotted a couple of GT280RS that look pretty good to me.
I had to navigate through so much shit to find the search page and look for turbos on your site that I didn't actually want to bother.
I'm having trouble with the balancing act. I definitely need to improve the searchability of the site. At the same time if I put everything front and center it'll become pretty apparent that we don't have many listings yet. Will that just turn people away? I'm not sure yet, I don't have the data to say.
I'll think more on this.
But so will a site with no listings at all, as yours appears.
The first thing you should do is split the site: A big "For sellers" / "For buyers" right at the start, then each group can navigate their own section. Perhaps a third button to talk about what you do, what's special about your site.
The site has so much style it's unusable. And what's with the B/W photos? They look horrible. Even on the detail page I have to mouse over it to get color.
People go a site like yours to get stuff done, not to chill out and look around.
P.S. I apologize if I sound too harsh, I'm not always good at giving criticism online.
Really? Because this is the area eBay started in, and they pivoted to more "online retail" than "online yard sale" because (surprise!) there is a lot more money in retail. Really, eBay is more today's Viaweb than an evolution of either p2p sales or auctions.
[1] With all sorts of uncertainties I haven't properly investigated, such as whether there's been a significant shift that would make old-ebay-style auctions much less profitable today than they were 10 years ago.
There's a lesson to be learnt. If you want to build a niche, build one that anyone can access. Better still, build a niche which stops people being locked out. Later on, you can screw the unwashed masses, and turn it into a B2C channel. See - Youtube, eBay, the iApp stores, the internet in general.
Keep in mind a LOT has changed since the beginning. When eBay did that pivot, there were far less options for small retails sellers to put their products online easily and efficiently.
Ultimately, I think it would be near impossible to serve both markets well. eBay certainly serves the amateurs poorly, so that area is ripe for competition (IMO). Maybe serving the "pro" market would be bigger overall, and maybe even more profitable, but an "amateur eBay" executed properly would make someone a metric fuckton of dollars.
You may say you get less for your money than through Craigslist(/Kijiji/Gumtree) but after eBay and Paypal have both taken their cut I often find it is not a huge amount of difference!
Eg. If you have a website / forum devoted to say knitting, being able to simply plug in an auction commerce application would be quite nice.
eBay has a fairly reliable system in place, even if there's occasional issues. craigslist is filled with scammers.
The buyer's profile showed he was frequently buying and selling cell phones, both working and broken.
If you look, you can find stories like this every week since about 1999. This sort of behavior isn't new yet eBay continues to grow.
I was thinking about upgrading my phone and ebaying the old one. After reading this, I'm thinking maybe I'll go the craigslist route, or one of the online trade-in deals.
Does gazelle have this same issue? I'm not sure if Gazelle the company buys the product and sells it, or if they just connect me with a buyer like ebay does.
Swappa.com had six for sale, with asking prices averaging around $450 (there was an outlier at $360).
A quick look at Craigslist Boston shows recent asking prices of $380 to $550.
Of course, I don't have data on what prices the Swappa and Craigslist sellers are actually getting.
I think, if I were really lazy, I'd sell to Gazelle. Otherwise, I would use Craigslist, cash only, meet in a public place.
There are other options (craigslist, amazon) but the fact is it takes longer to sell and still flush with scammers.
What does the solution look like? A costco style paid membership with more information given back to the user? Ability to 'vouch' for yourself via facebook/twitter/etc. ?
With all of this, its still chicken and the egg. Hard problem to solve.
A third party escrow service that examines all goods for compliance with their description and then sends them on could be a useful tool..
IANAL -- first and foremost -- but I would think the best tactic may be to go after PayPal to get them to discharge your supposed debt to them, given that you've already swept the money out. Their seller's assurance contract terms would seem to be vague around what is required for the item to be determined "not as received" -- also, as you mention, there is a a pattern on behalf of the seller -- is EBay/Paypal acting dilligently to protect your interest in return for your seller's fees and auction fees?
A class-action attorney?
There has been some success recently in suing corporations in small claims court. There is an argument that a genreal delivery address should not have been 'verified'.
I think that depends a lot on what you mean "a decent attorney". Sure, a partner at Proskauer isn't going to take your call, but in my experience, the nice woman with the office down the street might be glad to help you put together a plan, critique your demand letter, etc. This kind of "decent attorney" is willing to work with you on the small stuff, in the hopes that you'll come back to her in the future with bigger business, and refer your friends and family as well.
A piece of advice -- as you mature and your life becomes more complex, it's not a bad thing to have a good relationship with an attorney. Here are some situations that have come up in my life:
Reviewing my ISO and non-compete agreements when I took a start-up job
Getting my security deposit back from a landlord who would not pay up
Reviewing the sale agreement for same start-up 10 years later
Representing me at closing when I bought my first home
Advising me when my bank "misplaced" a $10,000 deposit for over a month (they cashed the check but didn't credit my account)
Discussing will and estate planning when my first child was born
For all of this, and probably some other things I'm forgetting, I probably paid him less than $2,000 total -- and half of that was in closing costs on the house.
More recently, a different attorney (I moved) handled another landlord-tenant dispute for me with a couple of letters to the landlord's attorney, and never even sent me a bill.
Back in the day, the formula for an EBay sell-side scammer was to:
1 - Setup a phony account, or network of accounts.
2 - start selling small value things to each other. (Postcards, keychains, digital pictures, etc) Leave positive feedback, including nonsensical feedback (ie. My laptop works great, A++++ for a $0.99 recipie).
3 - Wait a few months for the active links to the auctions to be de-activated by EBay
4 - Start selling a dozen high-value items like laptops. Ship nothing or empty boxes.
5 - Withdraw funds asap.
Now the same scheme works, but only in reverse for high-value items that have immediate cash value.
Solution: Never use EBay for anything.
I buy on Ebay all the time, you can find all kinds of things there really cheap.
Except, I suppose, how do you validate THAT?
If I'm the seller, and you send me back an empty box or an old iPhone 3GS, what do I do then?
But, really, it's okay to lose money on some transactions, especially if you reduce buyer/seller stress on other transactions.
That is just plain silly... I'm "paranoid" and don't want to be ripped off $500 or $1000.
Biggest I was ever scammed was $70 (it's ok, I can stomach that).
So I don't use eBay for big transactions which I have no recourse on in case something bad happen (e.g. I'm not a famous blogger so it's unlikely eBay / PayPal would ever help me like they helped OP).
But I do still use eBay a lot:
- for tiny transactions / items I really want that are cheap (e.g. some cheap but rare to find obsolete hardware I need to fix one of my old-but-cool printers)
- for big transactions where I can go to the seller's place to pay in cash and take delivery of the item.
Saying "don't use Ebay for anything" doesn't make sense, even if you're paranoid.
Much more pleasant for both buyer and seller. No more news stories of people getting mugged after an online ad, no more scammy eBay purchasers, the lot.
USPS already provide "witness" services for packages that are picked (for free!), just add an escrow account for 1 to 5%.
I am in contact with the police captain in the small town where the item was shipped, but I have very little faith in their ability to recover it.
I will file a local police report as well and try to appeal with paypal.
Meanwhile i want everyone to be aware that the so-called Seller Protection is totally worthless, since thats how Paypal chooses to pursue a legit fraud case.
Contact the state AG and local federal AG's as well, just for kicks.
Note that if you go to file a small claims action, you will actually have to be present in Ohio. They require in-personam jurisdiction.
(You do have the option of filing in local federal district court against the person, but this is very expensive)
Besides that, most of these scams are not that sophisticated as you see in spy movies. You subpoena a few folks, and you get the identity.
It usually turns out to be a 16 year old, but you still get it.
Again, it's just not this complicated. It's expensive and time consuming, but rarely complicated.
I wish it had been easier, trust me!
He/she presumably had to show some ID and sign something to get the package, but I'm betting that the ID was fake.
Do you think he walks in with different fake ids every time he does this?
Do you think he also uses different credit cards with paypal?
Or do you picture him as a nomad, like the old guy from Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, traveling the country collecting fake ids, credit cards, and iphones?
If he is super-master-ninja and all else failed, do you think it would be more or less expensive than court to honey pot him, ship him a box of rocks (or something that takes continual pictures and uploads it instantly) in a very bright pink package, fly super-economy to the place he is supposed to pick it up, and then sit in the post office a few days waiting to see your package picked up, and take pictures of the guy and his car plates?
Unless of course, he only uses public transportation to cover his tracks (or steals random cars every time he needs to travel to the post office!), and wears facial disguises, sunglasses, and a hat to make sure no camera gets a good look at him. Never the same motel room twice, always paying cash, blah blah blah.
Reality: It's actually very hard to hide when your fraud requires picking up physical items at a known location.
It's easier to hide remotely, but not so much otherwise. Even remotely, i'd put 20 bucks down that given only the info the seller has about the guy, 4chan or reddit could find in 2 days or less.
But, yes, sending to shipping address is unlikely to work.
Paypal will turn over the info if you subpoena them (you will have to open a miscellaneous matter in california and subpoena them there, but this is not a big deal).
If you are law enforcement, they will turn it over much faster, but unlike Google/et al, they generally do not object.
In fact, here's a great example of this: http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/califor...
"Google has not produced documents, paypal has" :)
They are in a pretty different position, so i can't blame them. Your bank would turn over records in response to a simple subpoena as well.
Unlike your bank, Paypal will give notice and time to object to the guy, but if he objects, he will have to do so in court (and then you'd know who it is or otherwise be able to sue them directly as a doe, and so it won't matter), or paypal will turn over the records.
You make this process seem so simple that im eager to learn it.
Can you outline steps necessary to subpoena paypal without having access to an expensive legal letterhead(that comes with an hourly legal bill attached) and to actually follow through this subpoena into getting requested documents.
I was able to get a phone number for supposedly a legal department, but I was told in so many terms to only have a lawyer call them. Im sure if pressed, paypal would give out their legal teams address.
Note that if you are not a lawyer, you will end up spending some time reading rulebooks and filling out forms that lawyers know how to fill out. There are usually legal aid folks/etc in most state courts that can help.
So let me give you an example process (Again, this is not legal advice, just an example process):
1. Open a small claims case against the pseudonym of the paypal person (to be filled in later), or what they claim their name to be if you have it, in the state you believe them to be in (assuming that state allows subpoenas in small claims. If not, you may have to open a real case in their district court, which is more expensive and requires more paperwork). This will require service of process, which will be initially hard, but there are fallbacks in case the person is deliberately making themselves unreachable, like publishing service in newspapers, etc.
2a. Start by getting a subpoena from the small claims/etc court, see if that's enough to get what you want. They may want a subpoena from their local court. In that case
2b. Contact the relevant court for paypal (northern district of california, I believe), and get them to issue an out-of-district subpoena. For the central district, you can see the exact process here: http://www.cacd.uscourts.gov/court-procedures/filing-procedu...
It should be roughly the same process for northern district (the form numbers are the same, though the form content will say northern district instead).
Note that the envelope should be addressed to you.
They will assign a miscellaneous action number, and mail you an endorsed subpoena.
3. Send a copy of the endorsed subpoena (keep the original since you are likely to end up playing mail tag a few times) to the address paypal provides. Again, i don't have this address handy, but as a registered corporation, you should be able to lookup where they receive service of process. They are required to have a registered agent that accepts service of process.
If they fail to respond, file a motion to enforce the subpoena (this is covered in the URL linked above in the case of northern district, if it's another local court subpoena, they will have a similar way).
They do have a fraud investigation team which you could contact with the subpoena first, and see if they will respond. They may work only with law enforcement.
Again none of this is legal advice, there may be intermediate or more steps, i'm not responsible if the steps are not right or in the right order, or if following these steps causes you to lose all your legal rights, etc.
(Unless you were being facetious, in which case, carry on.)
Sue them for your money, for the time you spent dealing with them. Check out small claims court limits in your state, and sue them for the maximum.
I bet you will win with all the documentation you have.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120907/15424120313/barne...
http://www.mashedreport.com/2010/07/29/website-terms-of-serv...
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090508/0212134792.shtml
Though there have been cases where ToS were enforced.
I'm happy you are publicizing this, but the thing is, this is happening everywhere, to all kinds of people, and eBay/PayPal are not doing anything about it.
After striking out with appeals and the Better Business Bureau, I believe the only way forward is to pressure the FTC through our government representatives.
+1, this. Please, please file a complaint about Paypal/Ebay with the FTC about this. Enough complaining, and they will be forced to change or leave.
PayPal can be gamed in many different ways, but the credit card is the buyer's shield that even PayPal can't defend against. :(
Isn't this the obvious step that is missing from the whole equation?
I had no chance of appealing because Paypal would not disclose the Credit Card issuer contact info to me so that I could contact them directly
Took his side as far as the chargeback, OK, I can see that. It's not very encouraging, but I can see it.
But took his side as far as keeping the item and getting his money back? That I don't see at all. How is that possible? And how would PayPal, and eBay for that matter, not expect a return?
But to not even raise the question of a return at all? That doesn't make sense to me.
Even if the buyer sent back the original item, the seller could always claim that he received just a brick.
It's all just borked, pretty scary selling any one of items on ebay once you realise this :-(
Either way, a bummer of a story. I've had my own issues with eBay and rarely check there except for infrequently needed (cheap) odds and ends. I hope it works out.
Did the police do anything?
It really sucks that the seller took the hit. Who should? The credit card companies? The banks of the scammers?
Of course Im not being objective here, but their Seller Protection wording could be a lot more forthcoming in communicating the lack of protection for this case.
My Dreamybids.com site for example, is an awesome service that uses the quibids model. It allows anyone to host their own auctions for products or services. Meaning a graphic designer could auction $200 of services. 10 people pay $20 to participate in the auction, one person wins and gets $200 of graphic design for $20.
Good luck getting traction with that if you aren't in the tech crunch, mashables, stanford, in club.
That doesn't seem like an auction and to be honest I don't really like the idea either.
I actually looked at making a site like this for selling my house a couple of years ago. Fortunately I did some analysis before building it as in NZ it came under the gambling commission rules. This meant that I could only build a site like this if I donated all the proceeds to charity - unfortunately that was against what I was trying to achieve so never went through with it.
The gist for those that do now know: you buy bid-packs. A bid costs .60$, per BID. This doesn't matter if you "win" the item. If you do "win" (gamification abound), then you pay what the bid was brought up to. The other scam-note is that bids increase usually by $.01 so you see shit like "XYZ WON AN IPAD FOR 2.73$ !!!". While in reality, the "winner" pays $2.73+$40 in bids, along with everyone else to get the permission to bid.
If you type in quibids in google, the top auto-fill is SCAM. Just go look it up.
Btw UnFundedHype: I hope your scam of a business fails, and fails hard. You know better than this shit.
It's no different than a gaming tournament where you pay a $10 entry fee.
You'd keep yourself from popping a vein if you just asked how does yours prevent the headaches of quibids.
Everything I didn't like about quibids I removed from dreamybids.
1. There are plenty of ways to get free bids, you don't even have to buy 1 bid.
2. One of the auction formats, everyone in the auction gets x amount of free bids. Each bid the final price goes up x amount of cents. At the end of the auction the winner pays the final price, if you didn't win the auction it costs you nothing since you never bought bids. Like this free auction http://www.dreamybids.com/contest.php?id=332
3. You can host your own auctions. So even if you did lose $50 in bids, put up an item of your own and make your money back. If we collect 30% more than the retail price of the item, you'd get 50% of the overage, so you can make way more than you would from selling an item on ebay or craigslist.
4. There are some great gamification tools that allow you to freeze the bid of the next bidder, or buy the timer down, or block a power bidder from joining an auction. Also once the auction starts new participants can't jump in.
Asking questions keeps you from being theamazingidiot
One day you will get robbed by one of these exchanges, and you will blame bitcoins (or the bad man) and swear to never work with Bitcoins again. But they will be just one link in a chain of exchanges that you've trusted each one, hundreds of times, to bring you music and movies for bitcash, and nobody will write an article about it.
I am a small volume user but I have never been scammed by anybody in Bitcoin, except for that Bitscalper fellow.
Don't you want to upgrade your currency, to the one where charge backs can not ever be issued against you, and its the whole world and science that keeps your money safe from hackers?
Then what?
Edit for accuracy: It's easier to verify the trustworthiness of a seller than that of a buyer.
If the item matches then return to the complainant (buyer) at the buyer's cost + add a service charge. Seller keeps all their money. Buyer's account marked for fraud watch.
If the item doesn't match then refund the buyer with a chargeback, return item to seller at the seller's cost + add a service charge. Seller loses their money. Seller's account marked for fraud watch; selling fees increased.
Items not paid to be returned can be sold on to help cover admin costs for items that buyer's or sellers do not want returning.
Note that in the OP ebay claim to have assessed that the items didn't match the description and so buyer protection is invalidated. But they haven't checked and so are defrauding the seller in respect to this claim.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/mobile-recycling
Which will link you to a whole bunch of reputable bricks and mortar companies who'll buy your old phone.
We ordered some stuff from (at least theoretically) a reputable company. We had to pay about 2 months ago, but kept getting emails telling us that the stock hadn't arrived yet and to just be patient. Then a couple of weeks ago, they told us that they actualy didn't have the stock and that we'd have to get a refund. But they were refusing to respond to any of our requests for the refund, so we contacted Paypal and they told us that we'd missed out on the 45 day window and they couldn't help us.
The company we ordered from eventually (after over a week of chasing) paid up, but if they hadn't we would have been left high and dry by Paypal.
A few years ago, I ordered some dirt cheap magazine subscriptions on eBay. I had done the same on eBay once before without a problem, but that was before the scamsters caught on.
You see, there is an inherent vulnerability with magazine subscriptions: they are not expected to start serving until approximately eight weeks after you order them. That's plenty of time for you to give positive feedback and a crooked seller to make more sales. It's also beyond that 45-day window you mention.
In the event, a couple of months passed. No magazines. I checked the magazine subscriber service sites and found that no subscriptions had been entered for me. I had paid on PayPal, via my American Express card. The action I took was to dispute the charge on the Amex website. It didn't occur to me take up the matter with PayPal first, so I didn't run into the problem you had. In any case, the chargeback was resolved in my favor.
Not long after that, eBay stopped allowing subscription sales on their site.