ebay is pure evil

[moribundman]

A friend of mine, an ebay member for the past six years with a 99.8% positive feedback rating had his ebay and PayPal accounts suspended without any explanation whatsoever. His inquiries, he's infuriated now, yielded nothing but this:

quote:

---

Hello,

This email is in response to your recent communication with eBay regarding the suspension of your account.

We suspended your account under Section 9 of the eBay User Agreement,which states that we may indefinitely suspend or terminate your membership and refuse to provide our services to you if we believe that your actions may cause financial loss for you, our users, or us.

We have reviewed your suspension appeal and have decided that this eBay account will remain suspended indefinitely. Our decision is based on
evidence from our records as well as any additional information you
provided.

Please note that we are unable to provide you with more specific information regarding our reasons for taking such action.

Although future appeals from you will be read, we may no longer respond to your inquiries.


Regards,

Nicholas
Investigations Team
eBay Trust & Safety

---

Translation:

"Hi! We cancelled your account without warning for no reason. You're welcome to appeal, but we ain't even gonna tell you WHY we cancelled your account, so good luck on that, sucka! HAHAHA! Oh, and by the way, we ain't gonna respond to your appeals, either!"

This leads me to concur and declare ebay an evil organization.

[ August 06, 2005, 02:28 PM: Message edited by: moribundman ]

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Well, that's pretty strange, Did he have any transactions recently?

 

[moribundman]

I don't know how frequently he does business on ebay, but he recently put up two auctions. That's when they terminated him out of the blue.

I myself have been an ebay member for 3 years, and I haven't done any business there for over a year during that time, but I didn't have any issues with them. I've had only 17 transactions in 3 years, he had over 90 transactions in six years.

 

[Bobert]

I'm wondering if it has something to do with not using some of the "premium" features of ebay. Kinda like when you pay your credit card off every month and they cancel your card.

"financial loss for you, our users, or us."

 

[moribundman]

quote:

---

Kinda like when you pay your credit card off every month and they cancel your card.

---

What!? You're supposed to be in debt? Yeah, it's a Bizarro World.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Do you know what he was auctioning? A couple of years ago, they pulled an auction I posted for Broadway Show tickets to "THE PRODUCERS".

It had everything to do with state law.

 

[Gary Allan]

That is odd. Ebay is about the last bastian of razor edged capitalism on the planet. Truly a "buyer beware" realm. Have you ever read the message boards? Chuck full of "if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen" type warm and fuzzy responses to noobs who get sucker punched by shrewd auctioneers or snipers.

It didn't take me long to figure out how the system worked.

Ebay is usually all about the money. One ebayer was being shilled by friends of a member selling a car. The car was auctioned twice and the same bidders were repeated bidders on the same members auctions in the past. He came in second ..and naturally the seller came to him with a "second chance" offer. He declined since he knew what was going on. He showed ebay all the fraudulent activity ..they did nothing.

Which is what makes this "odd"

 

[moribundman]

Groucho, I don't know what he was trying to sell. I don't think it was anything as questionable as theater tickets.

Gary, what you describe is the kind of thing I always watch out for. Anything is fair in love and war -- and on ebay.

 

[Pablo]

There is more to this than was posted or shared with mori.

 

[DockHoliday]

I have received a number of scam emails that appear to be from eBay or Paypal, but a fraudulant. These scams just try to get your login information. I wonder if this was one of those types of scams.

 

[moribundman]

Pablo, of course I can't say for absolutely sure if there is any more to this story.

Dock, I'm sure he knows if his account has really been suspended or not.

 

[Drew99GT]

I have never in my life bought or sold anything on ebay. I was talkin to my aunt who said it truely is safe to buy/sell stuff, even without paypal, because you don't have to release a product your selling until the buyer pays up. Or, on the other hand, if your buying something and you never recieve your product, Ebay will just take the money back out of the sellers account and give it right back to you. She apperently uses Ebay all the time, but from what I've read, that descroption of how it works is totally full of ****! Does Ebay or Paypal in any way act as like an escrow??

Guess I have no clue how the system works; heard so many horror stories, I just stay clear of it.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

If you saw the report on CNBC, EBAY has issues with fraud. A small fraction of the transactions, but a problem with policing them.

EBAY may have adopted a tactic of suspension and fact finding in that order.

There are other venues to sell online.

 

[moribundman]

Well, I have used PayPal a lot over the past few years for getting paid and for paying (some ebay, mostly other), and I have had absolutely no issues. A few fraud attempts by third parties have happened, but I have yet to fall for one.

 

[Pablo]

I buy some (and sell a little) stuff on ebay.

Heck - I bought a replacement Volvo radio and even a electrical oven element (new) for small fraction of the stuff at the "store"...with no real issues.

I alway wonder how "hot" the stuff is.

I'm not defending ebay - just the way they wrote that statement is customer unfriendly stoopid....but evil? I'm not there yet.....I was ****** when a hijacked account "bought" something from me...somebody phishing stole an account and was "buying" items. Ebay was OK with it, let me relist for free, it's just that ebay needs a better security algorithm

 

[DockHoliday]

quote:

---

Originally posted by moribundman:
Dock, I'm sure he knows if his account has really been suspended or not.

---

Moribumdman - The following is a well known eBay scam email, and the wording is very similar to what you posted:

quote:

---

Dear Valued Customer:

We regret to inform you that your eBay account could be suspended if you don't re-update your account information. To resolve this problems please click here and re-enter your account information. If your problems could not be resolved your account will be suspended for a period of 24 hours, after this period your account will be terminated.

[QB]For the User Agreement, Section 9, we may immediately issue a warning, temporarily suspend, indefinitely suspend or terminate your membership[QB] and refuse to provide our services to you if we believe that your actions may cause financial loss or legal liability for you, our users or us. We may also take these actions if we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us.

Due to the suspension of this account, please be advised you are prohibited from using eBay in any way. This includes the registering of a new account. Please note that this suspension does not relieve you of your agreed-upon obligation to pay any fees you may owe to eBay.

Regards, Safeharbor Department eBay, Inc

The eBay team.
This is an automatic message. Please do not reply.

---

 

[moribundman]

Dock, I think most of us have come across those attempts at getting our passwords, credit card numbers, etc. I don't think my buddy would fall for it, unless he's recently had a frontal lobotomy.

I'm also sure he can tell if his ebay and PayPal accounts have indeed been terminated, and I'm sure he made sure to email ebay and not some phisher. I've yet to encounter a fraud attempt that appeared legit. Just looking at the email header and the proxy routers (ebay doesn't send emails from Hunduras via Taiwan and Mexico) usually reveals something fishy, not to mention that the requests made ("We want your credit card number/password") in fraudulent emails are usually absurd, which makes their criminal intent clear.

 

[XS650]

I got a Phish from a fake Paypall place last week. They are usually pretty obvious but this one was good.

The letter was well written, decent grammar and only one spelling error.

The URL it had was also different that the normal obvious fake.

It was a secure site and the URL read just like the ebay URL, except for the .info at the end of the URL. The site it connected to was real well done.

The URL was something like this, but not exactly, this one is made up:

https://www.paypal.com/us/eBay/cgi-bin/login_access=111235.info

 

[obbop]

Started selling on eBay in 1996. Back then, I was lucky if 1 in 10 winners would leave feedback, leaving me with 200+ feedbacks when I actually sold at least a couple thousand items over a several year period.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh..... the "early days" of eBay. It was a seller's market then. I actually wandered thrift stores grabbing stuff to sell. Paying a buck or two for stuff that would go as high as $27!!!!

Even paid $300 for a goody knowing it would go for more... $550 plus the buyer always paid the shipping and insurance.

Had to stop after I read about eBay preparing to allow the IRS to peek into the transaction records so the IRS could attack those they said were actually running an on-line business. That ended my "wild days" at eBay.

Never had any troubles to speak of. A handfull of deadbit bidders who didn't go through with the deal but not enough to really matter.

Never had a bad check. I started with a waiting period for it to clear but, after awhile, though I still warned of a waiting period I stopped doing it.

I was surprised how many folks sent cash wrapped in paper to hide it, mostly from foreign buyers. Sent stuff to Australia, Finland, Italy, Japan, and elsewhere.... mostly vinyl record albums.

Also did a lotta' sales where I contacted folks that had bid on goodies others were selling that were the same or nearly the same as what I had. Despite going outside eBay never had trouble.

Of course, back then, the scum putrid criminal element was an extremely small minority of Web users. Spam wasn't even nearly as bad back then. It took awhile for those who I believe should be hung in the village square to figger' out the Web offered a great way to commit their crimes.

eBay ain't what it used to be. The "good old days" were truly that.... better than the eBay you see today.

 

[TooManyWheels]

quote:

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Or, on the other hand, if your buying something and you never recieve your product, Ebay will just take the money back out of the sellers account and give it right back to you.

---

I can say from personal experience that it does not always work like this. I bought software, guaranteed by the seller to work and to be delivered. He offered no shipping insurance, but offered a complete money back guarantee on function and delivery.

I bought, he shipped, the post office did not deliver. I complained to ebay, they said that the seller fullfilled his obligation, even though he defaulted on his guarantee. Goodbye $55.