Posted on 12/03/2007 12:09:48 PM PST by george76
RCMP investigator says eBay trying to hide scam problem.
A Calgary man is one of 1,000 Canadians who have been scammed on eBay through a tactic known as hijacking, and the RCMP says the online auction service is not co-operating with their criminal investigations.
Shaqir Duraj, a Calgary bakery owner, won an eBay auction for a car in early October. He thought he was dealing with a reputable seller with a 98 per cent customer satisfaction rating.
When Duraj complained to eBay, the company wrote him a letter saying someone had temporarily taken over, or hijacked, the seller's page, and that he would have to contact police and the FBI.
About 1,000 Canadians have reported being victims of a similar scam since 2000...
Robertson said eBay is trying to hide the problem and has not returned any of his phone calls.
"They don't want to share this intelligence," he said. "I don't think it will be in the best interest of eBay to say that X number of Canadian consumers have been the victim of a fraud."
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
Here’s my $20,000.00... do you accept PayPal?
3 of 2
?
I will never use eBay - the company is the pits as far as I’m concerned although I do know that plenty of people have only had good experiences with them.
Who the hell buys a car on Ebay?
Sounds nasty.
eBay=bad, PayPal=worse. A friend of mine bid on an old car on an eBay auction and won. The seller refused to complete the deal, and eBay did nothing. I’ve bought and sold a lot of small stuff on eBay, but no way I would send somebody $20K and sit around waiting for a car to show up.
That said, eBay does tend to be a little optimistic about its security problems. Some of their Power Sellers don't get a lot of scrutiny, either.
I have bought a car from a dealer who used E-Bay as an advertsing method and I have conducted 2 private sales.
No different than the newspaper
LOL.
I know.
I’ve seen that happen a few times, usually just before the whole thing goes down.
Carolyn
Except for the fact that the transaction is done eye to eye.
You think thats bad, the car only cost a $1,500 but the S&H charges were $18,500.
Sounds like EBay Fraud....which should be prosecuted.
I am no big fan of giving anyone $$ on-line, for anything.
That’s why they offer the escrow feature. I have never used it nor know the details about it. I do know that I have obtained rare vintage parts on eBay that I could have never found elsewhere.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Sometimes a seller decides to go to the dark side too. They have a lot of positive reviews and start randomly ripping people off.
This might be the case here.
I bought from a 100% rating ebayer. Time had passed and I didn’t get the item. The seller gave me the usual BS routine.
When I finally had it and decided to give him a nasty review, 35 people beat me. He had 35 negative reviews and was kicked off ebay.
He snagged over $4000 of peoples money.
Both Ebay and Paypal SUCK. Their stupid little “Guarantee” of getting your money back if you dont get what you paid for is a SCAM.
What they do is monitor the bank account that your money went to (I have no idea how they do it - that’s what I was told by the paypal bimbo), and if anyone puts money in the account, they take it and give it to you. Huh?
We have had good experiences buying on e-bay.......I just got my copy of Hillary Uncensured from a FReeper recommendation. Worked just fine, not that we make a habit of it. ;^)
Escrow.
Ebay is as reliable a way of doing business as any other. If the item is of low value I don’t bother checking anything out. If it is a high dollar item, then due diligence should be used just as in any other transaction.
I haven’t bought or sold a car yet, but I have bought and sold items in the $10K range a couple times without problems.
I’ve had shippers be very late with items, but I have never had a transaction that I didn’t get what I paid for.
I bought two....but they were local sellers (individuals not dealers) and had the opportunity to test drive both cars prior to bidding. Plus a Carfax report.
They were both an outstanding deals, several thousand below dealer, one BMW 740i and one Jaguar XJ-8.
It’s been a year and no problems...
When you buy a car you always wind up doing the transaction in person unless you are a moron. You never hand over a check without having done a CarFax search and a visual inspection.
A friend and I were selling some stuff there and some one complained they did not get what we said we were selling, so eBay shut down our auctions (at the time they shut us down we had over $5,000 in bids) and still charged us well over $200 for the listings...........then fraudulently charged my bank account for the same amount for a “purchase.”
More power to those who have had luck with them, I just won’t do business with them.
A similar thing happened to Mrs Arkancide, and Ebay showed no interest in putting things right. Both of us have been scammed out of money by Paypal users and again we got no joy from Paypal. Advice to buyers: speak to the seller by phone before bidding and persuade them to accept a personal check at a verifiable address, otherwise don’t bid. Insist seller sends you a scan of the USPS receipt. Advice to sellers: insist on money orders or certified checks; if you accept personal checks wait for them to clear... send the buyer a scan of the USPS receipt. Log onto Ebay frequently even when not buying or selling, to make sure nobody else is using your account. Don’t use Paypal.
Best car-buying experience I have ever had was on EBay. Bought a Land Rover Discovery II, still under factory warranty. Where else can you ask customers of a car dealership if they were treated fairly and if the car was as good as advertised? My dealer had over 1500 vehicle transactions with a 99.7% favorable rating.
My wife did not trust EBay when we went to buy her a vehicle 1 month later and we dealt with local car dealers. Not “Used Car” dealers but local factory authorized dealerships. What a friiggin nightmare. It was beyond horrible. They were the worst. And the guy who walked in the next day to buy a car would never know that they all tried to screw me.
I subsequently searched Ebay and found HUNDREDS of instances of the same thing going on, it was easy to spot - you find one seller with a lot of stuff for sale at one time and when you look at their past sales they bear no correlation to the current auctions under their name. For instance, a guy in Des Moines, who, when you checked his past selling history, had only ever sold - say a few motorcycle parts, suddenly has 20 different brand new "authentic" Coach or Dolce and Gabbana purses up for auction and all listed within minutes of each other and all with a ridiculously low "buy it now" price. When I pointed out to Ebay that I could easily finds these, so why couldn't they? And why didn't they shut them down promptly? they basicly ignored me.
> Who the hell buys a car on Ebay?
Thousands of people. I may sell one there myself.
> How does one ‘hijack a sellers page’?
Hijack the account, then put up a listing.
Hijack based on phishing passwords, etc.
Normally, there will be warning signs on
hijacked listings, regarding email addresses,
contact details, and most especially payment.
The only sign the inept report mentions is:
> He wired the money? Oh, bad move!
Indeed. eBay screams warnings at users to NOT DO THIS.
Almost every Message from them (like “you’ve won”)
includes the warning.
Feel like I should speak up here....I am an eBay powerseller with almost 800 feedback. I hate it when a story like this comes out, because for weeks afterward people will say to me, “oh, I hear that most of the stuff sold on eBay is stolen”, or “oh, I hear that you won’t get your stuff”.
I sell sterling silver, fine china, and the odd collector’s object; nice things that are no longer made, things you could never buy at the mall and would have to comb a zillion antique stores in hopes of finding. My friends who are eBay sellers (and I know at least 20 or so) are the most conscientious business people you’d ever meet; we all really want our customers to be happpy. I find this to be a wonderful way to make a little extra $, and have dealt with truly delightful people all over the world (plus I am able to be at home if my teenagers need me). I have had 0 problems as far as fraudulent customers.
We are constantly bombarded, however, with “phishing” emails that try to trick us into “signing in” to eBay or PayPal. If a criminal gets my eBay password, he can sign into my account and do all kinds of terrible things (email my customers and tell them to send payment to a different address, steal others’ listings and put my reputable, high positive feedback seller’s name on them, etc.). That’s how an account gets “hijacked”.
Honestly, as long as you’re not buying things like electronics (i.e. laptop computers, iPods, etc.), you can pretty much relax and enjoy eBay buying. You can probably buy those electronics safely too; it’s just that there’s more potential for fraud there than there would be with sterling salt spoons and such. ;)
Just watch out for those phishing emails.
I use the Bay all the time, but you have to be really savvy to avoid the rip-offs. I’ve seen hi-jacked pages and I have reported many fraudulent listings. Once I saw an item on a legitimate (but probably hijacked) page that bounced to a perfect eBay clone in order to get eBay and/or PayPal passwords. One of the slickest scams I’ve seen.
You would think someone with that much skill, time and creativity could get rich without ripping people off.
jw
I bought a Harley Davidson on eBay.
From a Professional pilot in Fort Myers.
Got a great deal and the bike had been taken great care of.
I have been a buyer and seller of low-to-moderately priced items on e-bay for over six years, and the only problems I have had were with buyers who neglected to pay.
That said, I would never buy anything worth more than $200 on ebay, nor would I buy in any of the categories with high fraud potential, such as cars and electronics.
I know someone who bought an El Camino on Ebay.
Who the hell wires someone money for the full amount, for of all things, a car?
When you make a deal on eBay for a car it is a contingent sale, upon inspection and approval, unless it is sold, as-is, where-is.
I’ve done over 200 transactions and have only had one bad experience with a seller. I’ve also had my account hijacked once but it was cleared up by eBay within a day.
I have done very well both buying and selling on eBay; however, like with most things, you do have to know what you’re doing.
“I bought a Harley Davidson on eBay.”
So did I and I love this bike. Of course, I talked with the seller by phone several times before bidding and I finally bought it on a Buy-It-Now, but I decided it was worth the gamble to travel 1500 miles to inspect it before paying.
I’ve only had one deal go bad. It was an auto parts seller who got great feedback from the first few buyers who actually got something and then he sold hot air for two weeks and disappeared about the time he was being found out.
That’s out of 125 transactions. I’m sold on ebay.
“Who the hell buys a car on Ebay?”
I have bought and then sold the same car on EBAY. A 1999 Lexus coupe. Both sales went perfect.
However, the first thing EBAY warns you is to NEVER WIRE FUNDS to anyone.
Always have the auto inspected by a second party. I bought and sold to private parties. When I purchased I picked the car up myself and drove it home(700 miles).
When I sold , I called the bank the cashiers check was drawn on and verified the check with the teller who wrote it.
Rush had no problem with the “Dingy Harry” letter.
I've had good experiences 99.9% of the time. If things are too good to be true, then it's probably no good. .
Actually it’s just dangerous, if not more, to be a seller on Ebay. Many sellers using Ebay’s “paypal” system have reported Ebay freezing thier paypal accounts and not allowing them to take the proceeds of their sales. Ebay often gives no reason or says they received a complaint. After the accounts have been frozen for a few months, a time when Ebay collected the interest, the funds may be released without so much as a “sorry for the inconvenience.”
I bought a Cadillac 7 years ago on Ebay and still have it. It was a great experience!
I bought a Cadillac 7 years ago on Ebay and still have it. It was a great experience!
I use PayPal, and cover my butt at the same time. I make PayPal payments through my credit card. There's a load of legally-mandated consumer protection attached to the credit card. If and when PayPal decides to keep a bunch of my money, I don't mind. I'll just do a charge-back through the credit card company. It then becomes MasterCard's job to get their money back from PayPal, and they probably will... they've got people who do that full-time.
Better than me beating my head against the customer-service wall.
I recently tried to log in to my ebay account (a requirement in order to search completed auctions) and found that my account didn’t work. After resetting the password I found out why — someone overseas had “hijacked” my account and was using it to run bogus designer clothes auctions.
I have a feeling that there have been some very large security lapses and personal information theft against ebay, and ebay members — and also am concerned about other information may be compromised.
My experience is that fraud is very prevalent on Ebay - hijacked accounts are one thing, but I’ve had numerous experiences with chargeback fraud on the part of buyers. It was enough to make me walk away from Ebay clean, after 700 + auctions run.
I am no big fan of giving anyone $$ period, but sometimes I have to.
I do sporadic trading on Ebay myself. Most of the time I am looking for NOS or decent used Jeep parts for my 73 or 68 Willys. I have helped out friends and co-workers helping them sell stuff. So far my feedback is at 100%.
I got into web page design and some advanced photoshop because of Ebay. I like to make decent quality images and graphics and linking my stuff in an Ebay ad has worked out for me rather well. For cars and such that will run, I have put together short demo videos on Youtube that I taped and edited.
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