SCAMMERS all over ebay lately....

Ive bought and sold on ebay for over 10 years now.

Over that time Ive been scammed just a very few times.

So far this month Ive been scammed three times for around 200 dollars.

The first one was some electronics my son wanted. I bid on two XBOX 360 consoles. What I got was two nearly empty XBOX cases, that were missing almost all the major components. I filed a paypal claim and of course the seller took all the money out of their account the day before I filed against them.

The second was for just a 3 dollar item. I'm not too worried even if it doesn't show up but the principle of the matter just pisses me off.

The last one is a USB thumb drive that was sold as new. Instead I get a heavily scratched and extensively used drive that is password protected and impossible to get into. I have already filed a claim against them on paypal and hopefully I beat them trying to cash out their paypal account.

This is more scamming than Ive seen in the past 10 years.

So far ebay and paypal have been their usual worthless selves, offering no real help in this matter either.

I guess I just had to get this off my chest before I had a heart attack.

Thanks for listening.

I got screwed for $1,200 on ebay an found out latter he got 8 others , of course Ebay an Pay Pal did nothing , sad part is there isn't really anybody you can go to , you just take it in the ass an these jerks make new accounts an go right back out after others , you'd think ebay an pay pal would find a better way to protect the honest buyers.

I have been on Ebay for a long time , but 2 yrs ago, my identity account was compromised and they cleaned out my bank accounts. I had to hire a Attorney to get my money back. I only use Ebay now to find the market value on things i want to sell elsewhere.

                                  Nova Treasure

Have you tried to format the USB drive? I know it isn't what you paid for, but at least maybe you will be able to use it.

I KEEP TELLING YOU GUYS!!           Don't buy electronics used unless you use it first!   And on fee-bay it's impossible...Be Careful!

Do you guys ever check their feedback?  If it's not 100% positive, I will not deal with them, never have gotten burned.........yet anyway.

There was a guy who sold the same  civil war Florida button about 6 times and never even owned the button. He took the pic off a well known relics dealers  website and when the button was sold asked the people to wire the money to Rome. I know one guy who won the button but was warned by a previous buyer before he paid for it. My friend contacted ebay and they said they had already thrown the seller off several times but he would get on again using different Id's and email addresses. For those of you who might not know a Florida button list for $2500.00+  I've been ripped on ebay too and as can be expected they didn't do a thing.

ya it would suck getting ripped off.if i was going to buy something for over  500 i'd drive to get it.out of country forget it i wouldnt give them a chance.

If you are able to determine the crooks true name and address you can contact the prosecutor in their home county and many times they will take up the matter. While true you will probably will never see your money again it is possible that justice can still be wrought upon the culprit.

Insects in amber.
I bought some of these from china on ebay.
Insects yes.
Amber, yes in color.
Resin, yes, the plastic kind.
Do you see how simple and stupid one can be and get stung,(no pun intended about the scorpion pendants).?!??
lol.
So I paid alot of money and thought I was getting a great steal! "Insects In Amber"!
Yu must Yuse caution.

[Coin Collecting is the only hobby in the world where you can spend money and always have money left over.]

I havn't used ebay in a while but I thought paypal held the sellers money for 21 days or something? They did this so that sellers could not cash out their accounts and rip off the buyers..maybe it changed? Like I said I havn't used it in a while. I never bought used electronics, or expensive items on ebay anyway..

I KEEP TELLING YOU GUYS!!           Don't buy electronics used unless you use it first!   And on fee-bay it's impossible...Be Careful!

sadly i agree about electronics...had a customer today with a new RIM Blackberry they had gotten from a company off E-bay.  Great customer service to him since they had replaced one before he got from them w/ a faulty trackball.  This one sadly was a unbranded...for lack of better words...a fraud Blackberry.  I'm just glad he had a backup phone to go back to that works.  Told him that if he has problems getting his money back to report the company to the BBB.

You can prevent the majority of Ebay fraud by making sure you only browse results from the USA.

"If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is"

I used to buy and sell a lot on ebay (mainly coins and refurbed PS2 consoles) and the chinese scammers got the better of me. I was buying wheaties in five pound lots, getting what I needed, and then breaking them up and reselling them in 50 cent lots. I only once had a problem there. Electronics? Another matter entirely.

With Christmas coming up, I strongly advise you to check into Craigs list for your local area. I have sold and bought thousands of dollars worth of items on CL, and have never been cheated.

What do you mean "the chinese scammers got the better of you"

I ordered a bunch of DVDs listed as coming from Ohio...they were all chinese bootlegs, in Chinese, with a postmark from china.

I ordered a bunch of DVDs listed as coming from Ohio...they were all chinese bootlegs, in Chinese, with a postmark from china.

Unless they thought you were Chinese by your actions, it's a wonder they bothered sending them
knowing what your reaction would be.

I've been buying and selling on ebay for 10+ years and I've lost about $500 in money and maybe 200 hours of life messing with the crooks which means I've been pretty lucky I guess. Most of the money I lost was back before ebay's new refund policy which usually works.

I've had to file claims with Paypal several times in the last couple years and each time I received a refund. The last deal was a crooked detector seller up in Canada who sells that Chinese crap. I deserved to get ripped for even buying one of those deals. I sent the machine back and he lied to Paypal telling them he never received it. It was a good thing I saved all paper work.

Paypal forced him to refund the $135 but I still lost the $30 postage it cost me to send that piece of crap back to him. By the way, this guy is still selling his imported trash and he has very excellent feedback. You can't always trust feedback scores. Probably less than 1 person in 10 will even post a negative.

Today when I buy I always use Paypal and also use my Visa for double protection. I think Paypal puts forth extra effort when they see you used a major credit card company.

I've purchased some electronics through ebay and every time I was disappointed. I'll never buy any electronics through them again.

Also, almost all "original" paintings are fakes.

Sorry to ramble but this post really got me going.

Ive bought and sold on ebay for over 10 years now.

Over that time Ive been scammed just a very few times.

So far this month Ive been scammed three times for around 200 dollars.

The first one was some electronics my son wanted. I bid on two XBOX 360 consoles. What I got was two nearly empty XBOX cases, that were missing almost all the major components. I filed a paypal claim and of course the seller took all the money out of their account the day before I filed against them.



Thanks for listening.

   Being on for over 10 years you should have known better to buy from someone who definitely sounds like a low feedback newer user. Had you stuck with a better selller with more listings you would have had your Paypal claim go through. I'm obviously not defending a theif, but sounds like you might have gone against your better judgement for a good deal...  and that's how people get burnt!

Do you guys ever check their feedback?  If it's not 100% positive, I will not deal with them, never have gotten burned.........yet anyway.

  100% is a little bit unrealistic considering the changes Ebay made with only the buyer being able to leave negative feedback.  Most of the best high volume sellers would not have 100% pos. feedback, they'd have to go an entire year without a negative. At least for many that is the case, very high volume might still round up to 100% instead of dropping it to 99%.  In any event, feedback is only part of the criteria when deciding to make a purchase.

  I've had about 40 positive xactions as a buyer over the last couple years.  I did get burned on one sale, bought a car fender and seller ran with my money order.  They had great feedback 500+ and I found out later they bilked about a half-dozen others right before they dissapeared. I was out $140.

 I have had an ebay store for a few years now (100% + feedback)  I have bought MANY coins. Sold many coins. Some ups and some downs, but overall a worth while venture so far.
 I have been burned once with a roll of UNC Morgan Dollars.  The roll I got was all AU.  The seller was willing to refund money, MINUS shipping!   I decided to keep the roll and emailed the seller to let them know that I was buying several more rolls and none of them will be from them.  I ended up buying 8 rolls in all.  Bottom line, they were not honest and lost business.

 I have been burned through mail order many times.



                                               VPR

 I've had about 40 positive xactions as a buyer over the last couple years.  I did get burned on one sale, bought a car fender and seller ran with my money order.  They had great feedback 500+ and I found out later they bilked about a half-dozen others right before they dissapeared. I was out $140.

Personally I don't send money orders anymore for anything. Of the $500 I lost on ebay over my 10-year time with them, most of that was via money order payments. You have little if any protection with money orders. All my bad used detector deals with forum members involved money orders. Sorry, but I've discovered that when someone insists on a money order payment ONLY there's often (not always) a somewhat shady reason. Some just fear "chargebacks" I know but in my experience they were almost all slippery deals (bad coils, cracked cases, defective wiring, etc.).

Today if one puts the words "money order" in ones ebay offering, ebay will pull the ad. Money order fraud accounted for much of their buyer complaints. Lots of people thought this was only due to ebay/Paypal greed but it wasn't all-together.

Several years ago, somebody got into my PayPal account and took $2,000 out of my bank account.  PayPal refunded the money.

You are required to have a bank account tied to your PayPal account, so I went to a bank that offers free checking accounts, opened a new account with $100 in it, and switched my PayPal bank from my real one to this new one. 

Now if someone were to get into my PayPal account and hit my bank, the most they could get is $100.

Scammers have always been on eBay. Now that there are more people using ebay, there are more reports of scammers and that's why we're hearing so much about them. I'm even hearing that eBay and PayPal aren't even trying to keep up with all the scams going on. Which makes the news as much as the scams them selves.

I don't buy unless they have very high feedback.  100% isn't necessary for me, especially for the people who have 10,000+ feedbacks - you can never please all the people all the time.

But, I do look at their feedback - and I do something else also - we got ripped off one time - a long time ago and the Feds will do nothing unless it is over 10 grand, but we filed anyway.

But, I learned a very valuable lesson.  One way to catch a rip-off guy(s).  After you check their feedback - ever if it is 100%, check and make sure that there feedback is coming from folks who have been around for awhile - not just from 5 or 10 of the same folks.

The guy that ripped us off had 60+ positive feedbacks - 100% positive.  If we had looked, we would have realized it was a "ring" of folks.  There were about 8-10 guys who were giving each other positive feedback, so they all looked like they were stellar sellers.  And they all were selling electronics of one type or another.  Actually, from solar panels to car stereo systems to playstations.

So, besides just checking feedback, find out who the feedback is coming from, and check THEIR feedback also.

B

Scammers have always been on eBay. Now that there are more people using ebay, there are more reports of scammers and that's why we're hearing so much about them. I'm even hearing that eBay and PayPal aren't even trying to keep up with all the scams going on. Which makes the news as much as the scams them selves.

   The first thing anyone should know about ebay is it's more just a public "trading" site and you are on your own.  The best way it can probably be explained is if you go to a park after dark in the bad part of town, and someone robs you, don't count on the police to save you.  We're talking millions and millions of people, of course they can't keep track of it all, and everyone should know that.  I have lost count of the number of deals I've done but it's a very high number with a very high dollar figure. To date I have only lost a few hundred dollars...  about the same amount I'd pay for shipping in a single week.  Two days ago I bought something for over 3k off a seller I never dealt with before and sent him a direct payment, not through ebay just so he wouldn't have to ship USPS to my confirmed postal box.  As long as you are smart about who you are sending your money to you will have very few, if any, problems.

    Knock on wood i don't receive an empty box. 

Ebay Xbox would be considered a high risk venture by any standards.
They are all over craigslist, probably cheaper, and probably someone within 10 miles of you.
Of course, some people would rather do mail transactions rather than face to face, thats understandable.
Its not like craigslist is 100% worry free.

I've been buying and selling for some years now, never got flat out scammed, but probably just a matter of time.

Scams across the board are bound to pick up, as people start hurting for $$ more and more, and looking to take the easy way out.

If you ever listen to the court cases on TV, a large percentage of lawsuits are about things purchased, or negotiated, on Ebay and Craigs List.

They are the top two places.  You have to remember the phrase "Caveat Emptor" - let the buyer beware.

When Yahoo had their auction site, the scams were rampant - worse than any other place toward the last few months. 

At least Ebay and Craigslist have some honest folks, and a way to at least TRY to protect a person.  They have the Ebay buyers insurance, paypal, etc.

B

If you ever listen to the court cases on TV, a large percentage of lawsuits are about things purchased, or negotiated, on Ebay and Craigs List.

They are the top two places.  You have to remember the phrase "Caveat Emptor" - let the buyer beware.

When Yahoo had their auction site, the scams were rampant - worse than any other place toward the last few months. 

At least Ebay and Craigslist have some honest folks, and a way to at least TRY to protect a person.  They have the Ebay buyers insurance, paypal, etc.

B

   It only makes sense the top places fro transactions will also be the top places for fraud.   There's no money to be made for scammers on dead sites!

I bought my Mac off e-bay.....very nervous did a lot of checking....turned out good for me....but the stress was great.   I never buy from oversees. 

Don't sell to overseas, either.


B