Is there a central website to name and shame fraudulent sellers?

[joeysrun]

The number of people selling fakes on ebay is increasing, especially in the postage stamp and coin area.

Ebay will do nothing.  They have probably been overwhelmed.

Law enforcement will do nothing except advise "don't buy from them".

But how to know who they are is a problem.

Is there a cenral register of frauds that we can look up?

Self help is the only option left.

[countessalmirena]

I joined eBay in May, 2005. I don't think I ever explored the issue of when one could no longer leave feedback. I suppose in my innocence I somehow assumed that one ordered, the item arrived (or didn't), and one left feedback, irrespective of how long it took.

I do recall one horrendously long delivery time, because the seller sent the CD by ship. From memory - which I know is unreliable when it comes to specifics of events more than ten years ago! - the listing didn't state that the seller would be sending by ship. It's possible that I contacted the seller and asked if he'd send to Australia. As it was an out of print CD on which I'd set my heart, I'd have paid whatever was necessary to get the CD here (I anticpated the delivery method would be par avion). The poor seller was horrified by how long it took, and embarrassed that he'd not checked with me on preferred delivery method, and probably worried that I'd give negative feedback as it was taking so long. He and I kept in contact throughout the process, and exchanged philosphical grumblings, repeated apologies (his), and reassuring metaphorical pats on the hand (mine) about the slooooooow process. The whole thing took about three months, but it must have been under (probably just under) 90 days as I was able to leave positive feedback once the CD arrived.

brerrabbit, you are officially now a member of the Sherlock Club! I am impressed at your being able to find that message from eBay's Global Feedback Policy director dating back to 2008.

By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if there was quite a bit of "now you can, now you can't" at that time and even before that time with regard to the period during which one could leave feedback on eBay Australia... Technical glitches? Or behind-the-scenes try-outs for what was going to be announced in 2008? While the original announcement was in January 2008 (Bill Cobb, the president at that time of eBay US), it seems obvious that it's something that had been thought about and discussed for some time previously.

I think the reasons for shortening the feedback period, as stated at the time, were sound.

[brerrabbit585]

I googled and the first page I clicked on took me to what I assume was a forum thread that contained the link to the announcement. Sometimes you just have to google the right question.

I think it used to be that on the US site you could leave feedback up to 90 days after the seller left feedback, rather than 90 days after you bought. There was definitely a loophole of some sort at the time and someone else mentioned it on the site I found that led me to the announcement.

Changing the feedback limit to 60 days severely curtailed my buying from the UK because my postage costs doubled when I had to switch to airmail. I used to buy a lot of small, cheap items from the UK and sea mail was often cheaper than posting within the UK.