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eBay Scams So Easy A Child Could Do It
from the quite-a-success dept
It's probably not quite the advertisement that eBay was looking for, but it turns out that it's so damn easy to run a basic "sell expensive crap you don't have and never ship stuff" scam that even a 13-year-old can do it and score quite a bit of money. This particular 13-year-old became so successful at it that he dropped out of school, rented offices (which he didn't pay for) and hired two people (to do what is unclear). He also eventually hired a bodyguard to protect him from angry customers. Apparently, though, the bodyguard couldn't protect him from the police, who still took months to track him down. It does make you wonder, though, how such a scam could go on for so long without the boy getting caught.
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Ebay Scams... go figure
too many words in article to state what can be stated in three words... Ebay doesn't care. (okay, is that three or four words).
buyers can do whatever they want, and sellers are on their own. And there is no accountability or visibility into what they do for enforcement whatsoever, either to the wronged parties, or to the public in the form of how many scammers they found, how to identify possible current operators.
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Re: Ebay Scams... go figure
Too many letters in your post to state what can be stated in three letters... FUD.
Ebay has an amazing track record of being a safe place to buy and sell. I have sold numerous items and have purchased well over 100 items from ebay and have yet to be ripped off (knock on wood).
I had one non-paying bidder and I re-auctioned the item and sold it one week later. I purchased a digital camcorder that ended up not working - returned it to the seller for a replacement - it cost me $7 in S&H to send it back and I had to wait 3 days for the replacement. I tried to purchase some breast-enlargement pills for my (now) ex-girlfriend and they never showed up - I got my money cheerfully refunded. That's the worst of my ebay experiences.
Are there people who abuse ebay and treat it as their opportunity to scam? Sure.
Can you avoid them? You betcha.
Ebay tracks all the feedback that is left for a vendor. If the vendor has no feedback, or excessive negative feedback and the deal seems too good to be true - DON'T BUY FROM THEM!
If the auction itself seems too good to be true, re-read the entire auction and make sure you didn't miss some fine print somewhere.
I regularly buy from a vendor called BuyEssex and they have a huge number of negative feedback - 7,917 in the past 12 months - and they have had 5835 negative feedbacks - But... they've received over 305,000 postive feedbacks. Do a little checking and you'll see that in almost every instance the buyer bought a product that was clearly described as non-working and then leaves negative feedback claiming "it didn't work" - well, duh!
I personally don't know a single person who has had any ebay experiences worse than the three I describe above. I've seen lots of people on the 'net claiming they've been ripped off, but then I see lots of people claiming they were abducted by aliens and are now carrying Elvis's baby, too.
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Re: Ebay Scams... go figure
i mean if the average person who buys breat enlargement pills from ebay can avoid scams, what the hell is wrong with those sorry souls who get took?
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Re: Ebay Scams... go figure
i bought from buyessex. the ad said that the item (battery for laptop) was in good condition. it arrived dead as a doorknob, wouldn't take a charge if it was hit with lightning. tehy wouldn't credit or replace.
they have a high negative rating from individual buyers. they only have a decent rating because their
lotso_junk buyers post numerous positives.
this is why there is a lawsuit against them. btw, breast enlargement pills do not work you stoopid shit.
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Re: Ebay Scams... go figure
I don;t know why your pissed about the battery it clearly states that they do not guarantee the life of the battery as well as if it even works or not because they put either
"item doesn't work, or could not be tested" etc.
YOU DUMBASS
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i ernt 10,000,000 at it in ayear n im now only 19
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that sounds like an easy way to make money i should try it
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Re: Re: Ebay Scams... go figure
I am very careful who I buy from are even answer email from ... its so easy to be scammed, but its even easier not to. Ask a lot of questions, never send a western union or money order ... always keep a copy of the transaction. All this can help you avoid getting scammed.
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eBay are the problom
I got scammed buying a car on eBay only to find the scammer had about ten different eBay accounts and eBay seemed more interested in protecting the seller than helping any of his victims get a bit of justice so I opened a website www.EBuster.co.uk so that anyone can see who is selling lots of cars whilst pretending to be a private seller plus it gives guide prices and car reviews and lets people know if the reserve has been met.
The trading standards got on to eBay about my problem and have been held waiting over 6 weeks by eBay for information on the various accounts the scammer had but do watch out for a very overweight guy with short ginger hair and tattoos that operates from near junction 2 on the M5 in the UK and often used the name Garry Horton or Garry Saint.
In addition to the above I also monitor eBay motors for pages that have script injection and make regular reports to eBay who it seems are unable to protect against such attacks even if it only takes a few lines of code.
eBay have a habit of pulling the pages when something goes wrong as they try to brush it under the carpet so first port of call is to take a copy of the page before contacting eBay and if you need help linking various accounts together then I maybe able to help.
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