Dodgy sellers and ongoing flaws in the system....

[parachuter2006]

Recent exeriences that I made and which were confirmed by friends and family members made me post here.
The reason is the increasing amount of sellers trying to take advantage of unsuspecting buyers.

Ebay introduced a better buyer protection and in some ways it works as advertised.
But with the easy option to solve a deal gone wrong troubles come too.
Increasing numbers of fraudulent sellers slip through through the Ebay detection system.
Sadly this is also supported by a flawed feedback system - which I was assured will be fixed.

To make the problem a bit clearer I will give you some examples of the new dodgy pratices:

1: A seller states a local location and fast, local shipping.
Right after the sale you get a message informing you that there is a delay for one reason or another.
Whatever reason given none of the seller's listings are updated to reflect the much longer shipping times.
And once it finally arrives at your doorstep you have the choice of two surprises.
a) The seller did post it just a day or two before you got it.
b) The item came directly from Asia.
In either case the tem was ordered from Asia after you paid for it.
Depending on the country you are in this can also result in troubles with your tax department if import duties were avoided.

2: A seller just tries to avoid shipping at all.
A few sellers now pop up again with xmas on the way trying to make a quick buck.
To save money they list a bunch of items they actually don't have.
Once all or most is sold and paid for they do a bulk order and re-ship or let it ship directly to you.
And as things here love to go wrong a seller sometimes never gets the item you paid for as now his buy in price is suddenly higher...

3: Group sellers....
I really hate them but there seems to be no way to stop them.
Some people set up multiple accounts to sell items.
Especially the Asian sellers seem to love involving their entire family with Ebay accounts and stores.
In some cases you can spot them, like when ordering a lot of electronics parts from a long list of different sellers.
Checking your Paypal account later often shows the same account popping up multiple times but originating from different Ebay sellers.
To add insult to the injury you might also get discount coupons from all of them to promote yet another store they have.
The problem I have with them is that the seller just disappears once feedback goes bad.
The listings come back with identical images, descriptions and even typos.

4: Multi-item listings...
Sure it makes sense to have this feature, but certainly not just as a promotional tool for dodgy sellers.
Sort by price and do a search electronics and you get endless amounts of dirt cheap results popping up.
Your high end keyboard seems to cost just a few bucks but when you check the listing then you have a drop down menu.
A mouse pad, dust cover or whatever is making the price shown in the search result but not the item you searched for.
Real sellers with the dignitiy to provide real prices appear far down the list - after all the highly promoted power sellers and stores....
If I search for a keyboard or phone and the listing shows this in the title and image than I expect to get the corresponding price.
If I would want to find a mousepad or dust cover I would search for it instead myself...

5: Misleading and fraudulent listings....
Especially when searching for phones, tablets or laptops you often get to see certain terms popping up.
Things like "manufacturer refurbished", "seller refurbished", "as new condition", "no visible marks"....
Sadly they do not mean a thing for most sellers unless it is a really private seller and not a store.
As for the multi item listings, searching for a brand new device also gives you these dodgy results with their drop down selections to choose from.
The fineprint or explanation for the terms used is clear as a good pea soup.
Real images are never provided, so you can't judge what you get until you actually have it.
If I take the listing pictures and think the "near new condition" looks awesome than I expect to get what I saw.
Sadly it is common to get polished surfaces that seem to look great, well until you get light sideways on them and see the wobble from the polished off scratches and marks.

6: Language suddenly lost...
Sometimes you have no other options and need to order something from an overseas seller.
The funny thing here is that quite often your questions before the buy are answered with great passion and detail.
No matter how complex your questions are the seller will do the best to make you feel happy.
Once you paid however and found a problem using your device due to not having a manual or even a way to get it working...
"Please provide pictures", We are sorry to hear this....", "We can't understand the problem, can you provide a video?"....
All of a sudden even the most basic english fails to make sense to the seller.
Some then even revert to online translators and make even less sense.
I wonder why a seller how is incapable of using english is allowed to sell on english Ebay sites...

The list goes on but some of you might already know from experience what I mean.
But why is that such a problem as the new buyer protection in almost all cases will help you to get your item or the money back?
Imagine someone operates a dodgy car selling business where the cars just look godd but wouldn't not really pass a proper safety check or similar.
This car yard would close down quite quickly once ripped off customers start legal actions.
For dodgy Ebay sellers the added buyer protection also means (at least for now) added seller protection.
If you come to an agreement with the seller that ends in a refund than you have to make sure you left your negative feedback before you get the refund.
Once refunded the item disapears from your history and only after quite some searching you can find the record of the actual transaction.
This one you can give feedback for in whatever way you like but it won't affect or reach the seller.
Even if a refund was issued through the use of the resolution center you can not leave feedback that makes it to a permanent record in the sellers feedback history.
A big flaw that I hope will be addressed soon.

Tracking info is often misused for a better rating too.
A bogus number that does not work for anything is provided.
But again you have no option to complain to Ebay about this in any easy way.

The feedback system itself is now quite outdated and really unflexible.
Sure nice stars and a short text make things easy but they fail to cover what really count when deals go bad.
You have to select if an item arrived on time or not but you can not state that said item was falsely listed with local shipping.
Same for the actual posting stuff, if free postage was offered you can't give any rating for it all and the seller gets full stars automatically.
If paying a few bucks for postage means getting an item in a few days instead of waiting a few weeks for it than this makes a big difference.
Negative feedback I left quite often disappeared quickly if it made it to the seller feedback page at all.
In recent years the amount of negative feedback visible seems to go down big time, especially for pricey items.
But following certain sellers with increasing negative feedback show the real reason.
They just disappear once the feedback goes too bad and start over with a fresh account.
Quite often even by using the same Paypal credentials as with the old account.
With no option to add a revised feedback like for quickly breaking of failing things it is even harder.

Here is how I would see a better protection system:
Items must be ready to ship right after they are listed.
No matter which shipping option or system is used a real proof of actually lodging the item must be presented.
A simple click to say you posted it is not enough to prevent fraud.
All items over a certain price limit must require tracking info and signature on delivery.
This is good for all involved!
Paypal is highly used throughout Ebay and the recommended payment option, so use it properly for crying out loud!
How hard can it be to check your databases for Paypal accounts linked to multiple Ebay ID's or linked to suspended or abandoned accounts?
Same for the need of providing a real and confirmed address for sellers.
Fake Paypal accounts, unregistered sim cards for their mobile phone numbers and only a P.O. used - this is a standard to promote fraud, so it has to improve!
Feedback must appear instantly and stay permantly without the option to render it private.
Feedback with no real info is no feedback at all, especially for the few negative feedbacks that make it through.
People give negative feedback for a good reason, so don't allow a seller to have it removed or reduced.
Postage must be done right after getting the money, within 2 working days as a limit.
If more time required then this must be made clear in the listing and during the checkout.
An option to report overseas shipping or greatly ignored posting times need to be added to the feedback system.
With all the ongoing and still increasing problems it might be best to just provide a dedicated button to activate a chat when leaving feedback.
This way all relevant info is right there to check and some real person can check where the computer failed to spot the problem in the system.

International entries....
When it comes to certain items Ebay is indeed very strict on what is allowed and what is not.
Be it waepons, especially of the hidden kind, certain chemicals, foods or even stuff related to past wars.
However when it comes consumer safety Ebay seems to look away.
It is quite common to get search results from overseas sellers.
And of course it a good thing to see that you can get you water fountain for your fish pond for half the price.
But then you get a power adapter that would not pass any of your local safety standards.
If not worse still and you just get a thingy to put between the adapter and your power outlet.
Where all electrical items sold by a local store in your country need to pass strict requirements and safety checks, Asian products do not need to pass this.
If a seller is allowed to list a product in another country or to import it then the seller shall be required to meet the local standards for electrical, mechanical and user safety.
LED lights that let direct mains voltage leak out to the LED's are available by the truck load.
Same for power adapters that have no overvoltage or other safety features included, quite often they even come with faked certification labels on the product.
People with the requirement to follow safety guidelines are often forced to pay more than the actual item price just to get a certified power adapter for their new device.
And if these dodgy adapters cause a houe fire then who is to blame?
Everyone will point to the person who used it but not the selling platform that allowed the hazardous product to enter the local market and bypassing all required safety checks.

As you can see it really could go on and on....
If protection for the buyer is taken serious then we are still very far away from a good working system.
With little to no option to actually highlight these problems the only way is to post them here in the hope Ebay wakes up and starts to see the same problems.
Money making is good, real protection where it counts and where users can benefit from it is better.
Just 3% of really dodgy deals would not mean muchm unless you consider the size of the platform and how much money this relates to.
3% from illions of deals do add up to quite a large number, even just 1% would be still impressive enough.
Buyers need to wake up and get active.
Contact Ebay to inform them about a dodgy deal or seller.
Report fraudulent listings and demand to have them taken down together with the seller.
Use the resolution center and start a claim instead of trying to deal with the seller through endless messages.
Make your negative experience visible to everyone so Ebay gets the help they need to weed out those dodgy sellers and practices.

[lyndal1838]

It could be a hijacked account.

You can always report it to ebay......it they agree that it is hijacked they will close it down.

Once the negs start rolling in it is only a matter of time before ebay steps in.

[south.coffee]

If you look at the timeline of the positive feedback, all the purchases are low value.  The account could of been hacked or set up as a SCAMMING account which is common practice.  Pointed one out to eBay a few months back, the seller had sold 23K of presale games, by the time they acted the seller had clocked up 60k in sales !

Had two buyers recently leave me over the top negative feedback.  Turns out they leave negative feedback for EVERY seller ?  Took ages to get eBay to act on both...

Next time you want a telly go see it in person at Hardly Normal !