Anybody else noticed this going on on Ebay?

Nah,
I just try and pay extra attention while I'm on ebay.

I've been hit with the fake emails.....AND the fake auction pop ups.

The fake auction pop ups are most dangerous because they are inside ebay itself. The only clue that its wrong is that URL is wrong for ebay....AND that there is NOT that little lock down in the corner of the screen telling you that its a SECURE CONNECTION.

I almost got snagged by one of those once.



Watch for the secure connection. (my computer tells me when its secure with a little message box and the lock)

...and always enter your info inside ebay itself. NEVER through a link in your email.



Ebay isn't bad.
....but you have to be on the lookout.

Its just like the real world. Its no utopia.

 

I am new to the whole E-bay Car buying, bought lots of other stuff off Ebay and have had very good luck, but this car stuff is out of control

I have bid only on two cars, one was a fake listing, guy did not own the car, the other, the car was sold, but someone tried the 2nd chance scam on me. 2 for 2. 100% scam.... not a good track record.

 

eBay doesn't care about buyers or sellers they are a business and they only care about the share holders and the bottom line. They have gone so far as to say this in interviews and TV.

It is however a great service if you can navigate the waters safely.

The best thing you can do as a buyer is use PayPal. If you do not receive your item and the seller does not have a tracking nubmer PayPal will refund your money. I know this beacause as a seller I have gotten screwed by people that knew the system and got refunds even after getting the item. They even had the cajones to put it back up online and sell the item. Now I don't send anything without tracking.

So expect it from all sides. I have been screwed by sellers, buyers, eBay, and PayPal.

But as with anything I have learned and tried to make my business better/safer for me and my customers.

 

I've only used one tool to see if I want to bid on something or not. My gut. If I get a squirrelly feeling or even just not a warm-fuzzy about a seller or an auction I do not bid. I also am a 'looser' since I tend to put my high bid at however much I would happily pay for something. If it goes higher, oh well. I never go after things that I need. That I buy locally or from a reputable website.

My wife and I used to have a VERY low-numbered account, but due to issues we brought on ourselves we lost that account. Now, instead of an account that has a NINE YEAR track record we only have feedback in the double-digits. No biggie, we don't sell there much anymore.

There used to be a TON of online auction houses. Now there's either eBay or speciallized ones.

I personally would NOT buy anthing over $100 on eBay w/o using an escrow account. I've only wasted $50 in all the years I've been there on a longshot that didn't pay off. The stuff was as described and the one thing that the seller was not too sure about didn't work. It was my own fault. I've had to deal with ****heads that decided that they didn't want the stuff they bought and I've accepted their returns happily.

One line that I always think about when it comes to folks getting 'ripped off' or cheated is this: "If a man bets you $5 that he can take a sealed deck of ordinary playing cards, unwarp it and have the Jack of hearts spit cider in your ear and you TAKE that bet, you'll end up $5 poorer with cider in your ear." Sky Masterton, "Guys N Dolls"

 

If a guy truly has it listed locally, that does not bother me (like a car). most guys to not have the parts listed (especially low dollar stuff), they are not going to spend the money to put it in the cl***ifieds.

Start the auction at the price you want (if you want no reserve). Dont play games. Its a waste of everyones time.

 

Shill bidding happens at regular auctions too, not just Ebay. I see relatives of the people selling stuff bidding against me. The dang auctioneers will bump your bids when people aren't even bidding against you. You hafta pay attention.

 

I have only had one bad experience on ebay. once I bought something and never received it, I paid like $90 for it and I was only able to get about $70 back from paypal. I have like over 400 feedbacks and I think its pretty awesome sometimes, but there is a lot of scams going on nowadays. Just use your best judgement, thats what I have always done and it seems to have worked for me.

1. Only pay what you are willing to pay. If you suspect shill bidding then dont bid anymore. One thing you can be sure of is that the same item will come up again if you are patient.

2. Never answer any second chance offers, emails, or anything that comes to your inbox claiming to be from ebay. Just log in to your account on ebay.com and if there are any problems or messages, they will show up there.

3. Yes some things can go for really high prices, but you have to also realize that you can find good deals on things that are listed wrong or end at ungodly hours of the night so there will be less bids. I took an economics cl*** and the teacher was talking about ebay. Its about as close as you can get to direct unrestricted compe***ion. If you buy a part, there might be 20 guys that have the same thing, so they will be forced to compete against eachother. At a swapmeet there might be 2?

 

This turned into way more than I thought it would when I posted it, I was just seeing if anybody else noticed the trend of how corrupt ebay had gotten. All the post so far were on the the mark ,except for Squirrel, whose only post seems to be *****ing about what you posted about (which he seems to do alot, especially on my posts, why is that?), which if anyone noticed I wasn't "*****ing" to start with, I simply ask a question about the way ebay has gotten out of control as far as "fair play" goes. I've been on there for 3+ years now with very few "bad" deals overall, but I've got a couple deals with newbies right now (Won't pay) that looks like its gonna get ugly, and all that'll do is drag you down to there level, cause they can still leave negative feedback ever thought they didn't pay or recieve the parts!!! The only 2 neg's I got happened that way, and neither were registered users a few days after screwing me on my feedback , not only didn't they pay, I never shipped the parts, but still got a neg outa the deal. And ebay won't do **** about it, thats the kicker. Hopefully this will once again make all of us think before placing a bid (or accepting one) on a part from someone of questionable background.

 

Turlock rules!!!!!!!!!

 

is it possible that the term "shill bid" is being used incorrectly here... I thought a shill bid was a "partner" of a sort who's purpose is to drive up a price. The idiots who just bid on stuff for fun to drive up the price.. these are the s*** I have a problem with. This is where I agree that better screening AND some kind of monitoring could really be improved.

 

"Shill bidding" can be done by a partner, or by yourself (on another account). It's disgusting however it is done. I recall that several years ago there was a thread on the HAMB about how to buy and sell on ebay, and one of the then prominent HAMBERS gave a tutorial on how to shill bid --- and even bragged as to how effective it was for him in maximizing his profits on all the car parts he was scrounging for next to nothing. That really toasted my buns.

 

And more on phishing,,,,,,,,,,, PayPal is also a target, you may receive an e mail stating that your "account has been frozen due to un-authorized attempts to withdraw", Then a very convincing sign in screen appears, you sign in they got you / your funds. I know a couple of people that got taken on that one.



As stated earlier, go to the site to sign in only.

Dave