Posted on 12/26/2002 4:41:29 PM PST by MissBaby
eBay Auction Fraud Spawns Vigilantism Trend
By Ina Steiner
October 12, 2002
Vigilante: One who takes or advocates the taking of law enforcement into one's own hands
A new trend has emerged in online auctions: vigilantism. People are banding together to report auction fraud and are coordinating their efforts in contacting law enforcement officials.
Our story begins with Mark, the high bidder on an auction for a Toshiba Protege 2000 laptop computer on eBay. On August 10, 2002, Mark says he sent a cashier's check for $1,485 to eBay seller Tech-Surplus.
By September 1, after corresponding with the seller several times, Mark became concerned that he would never see his computer. He emailed other winning bidders to see if they had received their items from the seller. According to several buyers, it quickly became apparent that something was wrong – no one had yet received their computers.
Karen Christian replied to Mark that evening and volunteered to create a Web site to publish information about the seller, whom they worried was operating in bad faith. Karen had also purchased a laptop computer from Tech-Surplus on August 15 and had not yet received it.
Karen, with Mark's encouragement, set up a site on GeoCities and later moved it to http://www.techsurplusvictim.com. The job of Vigilante was full-time for Karen as she built the site. Another victim, Cory, set up a mailing list on Yahoo Groups so victims could keep in touch with each other. The list quickly grew to 83 members.
If that is understood by both parties before money changes hands, then good for you and for them, and they've got nothing to whine about.
Paypal isn't much better. Bank transfers are free, and I never let them hold more than $50 of my money at any time. They have an annoying habit of freezing people's accounts without any explanation or method of recourse.
With over 200 transactions, I've only had problems with one pirate software scammer. $20 down the drain. But it's like the saying goes--you pays your money, you takes your chances.
But if someone pays by personal check, which is often the case, I only ship immediately if they have 100 positive feedbacks or more, otherwise I wait till the check clears.
Do you pay by PayPal or personal check? As you can see that makes a difference to me.
Also, my auctions mention SHIPPING & HANDLING. And, I ship by media mail. When postage doesn't add up to all the shipping money they sent, some complain. Here is the email I send those customers:
You have enquired why we did not ship your merchandise by priority mail. Shipping fees on your merchandise is $4 for your first item and $1 for each additional item. In our catalogs, fliers, and in our ebay auctions, this is always referred to as "shipping AND HANDLING".
Please let us explain the "AND HANDLING" part.
IF YOU BOUGHT YOUR MERCHANDISE ON EBAY, we paid eBay 55 cents to list that item for sale. When you bought it, we also paid ebay 5% of your total purchase price.
IF YOU PAID BY PAYPAL, we paid Paypal 2.2% of your TOTAL amount, + 30 cents.
IF YOU SENT US A CREDIT CARD NUMBER, our carrier took 4.2% of your TOTAL amount.
IF YOU USED OUR TOLL FREE NUMBER, we paid the long distance charges. We also paid 60 cents a minute to the answering service for each minute you were on the line.
THE CARDBOARD BOX OR BUBBLE BAG we shipped your item in costs somewhere between 36-78 cents.
ANY FUNDS LEFT OVER go to pay our employees who pack your item, carry it to the post office, and stand in line to ship your item.
In short, your item was shipped by MEDIA MAIL so that there would at least be partial funding of the "AND HANDLING" part of "shipping AND HANDLING". If we had to ship your item by priority mail, there would be no funds left to cover the "AND HANDLING", and we would not be in business.
Thanks for your inquiry!
I have never had anyone fail to deliver and only a couple of slow ones. The worst problem is about half the items I have purchased have undisclosed damage. Maybe 10% so bad as to be worthless.
The only times I have returned items I have gotten a refund but as I usually buy items costing less than $50, the cost of shipping makes returns not very attractive.
True enough, but I prefer to avoid complications. For me, it's faster and easier to take the hit rather than waste more of my precious time on earth trying to track down $20.
I try to make sure that a) the people I deal with are somewhat reputable, based on their feedback, and b) that the transaction doesn't involve anything of great value (the most I've ever bought was a $100, and sold was $300).
I have. I did send the payment right away though.
I have been buying items on ebay for almost three years (using money orders to pay for the items) and I have not had one problem yet because I ALWAYS check the seller's feedback page for the number of each negitive, neutral and positive feedbacks that seller has.
By the way, most people I deal with ship UPS, Priority Mail or Fedex.
You can get both good deals and ripoffs on ebay, you just need to know what you are looking for, how much it is really worth and what the seller's feedback from previous bids are.
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