Let me preface this article by saying that I am a pretty experienced Ebayer. I have a feedback rating of nearly 500 and have been buying and selling (mostly buying) items on Ebay for years. And, I've had few problems with Ebay sellers over the years. I am disturbed, though, that if you do leave negative feedback for a fraudster you can be assured they will respond with negative feedback for you. Even after you've paid for their "not as described" or fraudulent auction. This is a big deterrent for Ebay buyers to leave negative feedback. Most buyers will just accept the loss and move on. I know because, shamefully, I've done this myself.
Recently I've noticed a trend in the auctions I see. Many more auctions are containing claims that can't possibly be true or include greatly exaggerated claims. And even worse, I see people bidding good sums of money on these auctions. I can only assume that the buyers are getting burned and leaving the Ebay community or they filing fraud complaints with Ebay and law enforcement and attempting to recover their loss.
Having seen this increase in apparent fictitious seller claims, I have been more careful when buying on Ebay. I check the seller's feedback, read the feedback comments others have left, email the seller with my questions or concerns and generally try my best to ascertain the truthfulness of the seller. Even with these precautions I have experienced the worse two buying experiences in my life with Ebay sellers recently. I've been defrauded to the tune of $3,000.00 in the last 30 days by Ebay sellers even after following my cautious approach. I'm now the proud owner of a nearly worthless domain and a handful of papers purporting to be a reputable business plan. Although I'm pursuing what remedies are available to me, I don't expect that I will ever recover any of this money.
The moral of this story is to ALWAYS make sure you pay for auctions with a payment processor that offers some sort of recovery method if you are defrauded or even if you receive shoddy merchandise. Either pay by credit card or Paypal (if under $1,000 and given the $1,000 guarantee) so you can dispute your payment directly. Also, as a buyer, don't fear retaliatory negative feedback. Firstly, you can always post a reply on your feedback page explaining that it is retaliatory, and secondly, as a buyer you are in the drivers seat and an occasional negative feedback with an explanation means nothing to sellers who are eager for your business. Other Ebayers already know there are numerous unscrupulous sellers lurking on Ebay.
I think it is time for Ebay to take a strong handed approach to ferreting out the fraud going on with some of their auctions. If they don't get this under control, they are going to lose more and more members to other buying sources. We are already seeing reports that Ebay traffic has been shrinking. I can only think that it is buyers leaving in droves after having a bad buying experience.
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