Hi,
Ill-cast as I am in the role of eBay Defender, here goes...
Charly, you're in the security business; eBay isn't. Neither
is their business law enforcement, Mark. Was that case a
civil case or a criminal one and was that detective a private
detective or a police detective? Wasting time on a private
grievance is one thing and cooperating with law enforcement
is another. Can we can say "subpoena," boys and girls?
Buying on the internet is a gamble.
All buying is a gamble. So is all selling. There has never
been any protection for you except you yourself. Ever.
Many people compare eBay to an auction house.
They're not even that (not that auction houses are a "safe"
way to buy anything).
One of the oldest of human institutions is The
Marketplace, going back perhaps 30+ thousand years.
A place where humans trade goods. As soon as there
were towns, they became the marketplaces, but they
existed long before that.
If you think eBay is full of cheap shoddy overhyped
merchandise of little real value, try walking through
your own town's discount stores.
eBay is a virtual market town, they open the gates
and let the sellers in (for a fee) and then the buyers
gather. They haggle (or bid) among themselves. But
the sale is between seller and buyer, not the buyer
and the marketplace.
Oh, the officials of the market town see to it there's
no rough stuff, no gross misconduct, but they only
police the marketplace, not the individual transactions.
They protect the buyers from Pure Thievery, Highway
Robbery, Barratry, Fraud, and Mopery, but only if it
happens under their noses. But protection is not their
business. Their business is to provide the marketplace
for you, buyer, and you, seller, to conduct your own
business in. Once the two of you are in contact, their
business is over (except for those pesky fees).
If you, buyer, are foolish enough to tender over to the
pilgrim merchant your two worn gold pieces and a bent
silver coin of dubious origin to acquire what he swears
is the knucklebone of Saint James The Lesser brought
by him many thousands of miles from a pillaged monastery
in Antioch, well, that's your business... And if your country
cousin identifies the sacred relic as a relatively fresh but
oddly stained portion of a pig's foot, and you hurry back
to confront the pilgrim merchant only to find that he has
unexpectedly departed the marketplace early, well, what
do you expect the town to do about it?
They may, I repeat, may tell the pilgrim merchant he's
not welcome the next time he shows up on market day,
but that's about all. They may have repeatedly advised you
not to give up your gold to a mysterious pilgrim merchant
from faraway who will be far gone very soon (or to send
him money via Western Union), but what you do is
up to you.
Think of eBay that way. They're the townsfolk of
a market town that make a space for sellers to spread
their horse blankets on the dirt to display their wares
thereon, and a space for the buyers to walk among them
and harken to their appeals for sales and their claims of
excellence and the superiority of their goods over those
of that obvious bandit and notorious cheat that hawks
his worthless trash two blankets down the row from
them.
Charly, you criticize eBay for telling the folks that
walk into the marketplace what "they should do," then
you turn around and tell us what "we should do." How
is that different? eBay is like dodgeball in a VERY
crowded gym; what should they do? They are in the
position of the downtown parking lot owner who rents
out his lot on Sunday for a flea market, to make a
modern analogy.
eBay is very clear in presenting what they do to
the public. If the public ignores that and persists in
regarding them as a "store," like they were shopping
in Macy's or Gimbels, the more fool the public. If
you want that kind of customer satisfaction, protection,
and prices, shop at a major merchandiser or a hometown
business whose owner lives down the street, not eBay.
But the truth is that that is not at all what buyers want.
They want a bargain, a deal, a value, even a "steal." They
brag that the seller "didn't know what it was really worth."
That is the reality of the way the marketplace works; there
are no protections in either direction. In the marketplace,
we're each on our own.
It seems that we don't disagree on what eBay does do,
but some think they should do much more and some are
surprised they do so much. Like me.
Sterling K. Webb
---------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Viau" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Mark'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "'Sterling K. Webb'"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "'meteoritelist'" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 10:30 PM
Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] Paypal Hackers WARNING!!!
Hi List,
Strongly agree with Mark. The "Services" (Ebay, Paypal, etc..) have a
strict
hands off approach to this kind of fraud. They are protecting their
interests and provide nothing but a bunch of lip service against these
scams, with emphasis as to what "You should do" to protect yourself
against
being ripped off. I run a systems security business in MA., and I can
tell
you first hand that you will never get any satisfaction from pursuing the
service providers when you get scammed. The best protection is education
and
attention to the age old advise that starts with: "If it appears to good
to
be true....".
This kind of stuff has been going on ever since print could be published.
Now, with identity protected sourcing in a ubiquitous electronic sales
media, there is no one to protect you except yourself.
Buying on the internet is a gamble. A calculated risk assessment should be
done any time you want to deal there.
There is one good piece of buying advice, if you have the option.
If your seller accepts an American Express card, then by all means use
that
over anything else. They protect you, the buyer, more than any other
financial organization out there, even if your card gets compromized. (In
fact, if you use AMEX on PAYPAL and have an issue, go directly to AMEX and
forget the Paypal runaround.)
CharlyV
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 5:54 PM
To: Sterling K. Webb
Cc: meteoritelist
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Paypal Hackers WARNING!!!
Hi Sterling
The fact that they stop auctions and warn off sellers and can maneuver
(freeze) paypal accounts doesn't mean they go after the frauds. They are
just controlling what they can cheaply do with a phone call or email.
I'm sorry to inform you I was called by a detective who got scant little
help from ebay on building a case against a formerly good and then went
bad
seller. The case was opened by a ripped off buyer, not ebay, and was
started
in Montana and not So Cal where the seller had been.
The fact is they don't hurt themselves and the bottom line in criminal
activities is the bottom line. They try to help you before it becomes a
problem, then they fall back on all the policies they have to stop
spending
any money themselves.
Mark Ferguson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sterling K. Webb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Meteorite List" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Darren Garrison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Mark"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Paypal Hackers WARNING!!!
Hi,
As much as it pains me to defend the eBay eMpire,
they do DO something about crooks who think eBay is
deaf, dumb, and blind.
Some months ago, I bought a used DVD from an
eBay seller with thousands of feedbacks, 99+% positive,
paid with PayPal. Got the usual post-sale messages,
including a note from the seller that he would ship
within two days. About three days later, I got an
unsolicited email from PayPal telling me I should
immediately go to their site and make a claim against
the seller for the return of my money. No reason
given. A check of eBay showed that seller had utterly
vanished; no record of them. I filed the claim, and
in two weeks, the money was back in my PayPal
account.
I have no idea what happened or why. I just know
that eBay/PayPal came out of the blue and remedied
a problem I didn't even know existed. I hadn't even
expected the DVD to arrive yet. My guess is that he
was selling stolen merchandise.
Second example:
One evening, very late at night, I was sifting
through eBay Search and came across an expensive
electronic item at a very, very low price that intrigued
me enough to click on it. It was a just-started (15
minutes previously) one-day auction. Since the obvious
sales strategy for such an item would be a longer
auction, I clicked on View Seller's Other Items and
found 110 one-day auctions for items with retail costs
from $4000 and up, all to be shipped by Free FedEx
2-Day Air from a named East Coast US city and
all starting at $79. Most of them would have cost
more than that to ship.
I looked at the seller's feedback history. Years
long, 100% positive. The problem was that all he'd
ever sold was used children's clothing and he was
located in the Isle of Lewis, in the Hebrides, off the
west coast of Scotland. There was, to put it mildly,
a mis-match there.
I deduced a hijacked identity by somebody who
was fencing a truckload of high-end electronics, possibly
also hijacked. Several items were photographed sitting
on the tailgate of a big truck. I emailed the seller (to the
off-eBay email address he gave in the auctions) with
a naive querry about one of the auctions: is this item
new? used? refurbished? In five minutes, I got a reply
from the seller offering a Buy It Now price of $1000,
to be paid as soon as possible by Western Union
money order.
I was already typing up all these findings as I
made them, as a text file, so I immediately sent it
to whatever generic address on eBay that says to
report possible fraud. I doubted that they'd get to it
that night; maybe in the morning...
About 10 minutes later I went back to look at that
auction again. It was closed. All those auctions were
closed, and the rest of the page was filled with various
warnings saying NOT to communicate with a seller
outside of the eBay system, NOT to use Western
Union or other instant pay systems to pay for items,
especially when solicited to do so by the seller.
In all, these 110 auctions lasted for less than
an hour on eBay. Was I the first to notice them?
Or the 100th? Had eBay already found them? For
whatever reason, eBay's performance was excellent.
Their response time was measured in minutes, not
hours, not days.
HOWEVER, they do not talk about what they
do! Or how they do it, or even admit that they do
anything beyond a bland statement that they make
all possible effort. The often-expressed sentiment
that they don't care and don't do anything is just
not correct. They just don't brag about it.
Sorry for the long stories, but it doesn't mean
much without all those details!
Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "meteoritelist" <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 2:14 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Paypal Hackers WARNING!!!
Hi Darren and List
If you'll read ebay's page on spoof mail you'll note that ebay and
paypal
will never put a link for you to use within the msg where you have to
log
in.
They will tell you to go to the site and sign in instead. This is what
makes it different and easy to spot.
Delete or report, either way, you don't fall for them.
I do agree that ebay isn't doing anything that will cost them money or
lawyer time. Best you can hope for is that they turn over the links to
an
agency which is already paid to chase criminals, which I doubt they do
either.
Mark Ferguson
----- Original Message -----
From: "Darren Garrison" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Dave Freeman mjwy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 2:52 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Paypal Hackers WARNING!!!
On Sun, 08 Oct 2006 11:41:57 -0600, you wrote:
Dear List;
I have been studying issues first hand on hacking via the Internet
Explorer versus other browsers...Firefox is much more secure and less
hackable. Every common crook has figured out how to hack into IE thus
making it much easier for them to open the door to your accounts. I
rarely use IE, use Navigator for my emails and weather/news, and use
Firefox for my eBay and paypal accounts.
No web browser is safe from scams that rely on user error. These type
e-mails
give you a link to a look-alike site and get you to enter your username
and
password yourself. The solution to this problem (which all e-mail
safety
tips
have been screaming at everyone for years) is NEVER click on a link sent
to you
from anyone claiming to be an on-line service. NEVER. If you have a
legitimate
issue from whatever the service is, you will be able to resolve it by
going to
the home page of the web site and then logging on to your account from
there.
Again, NEVER follow links sent in unexpected e-mails no matter how good
it
looks.
Also, another good idea is to not have any type of HTML or any other
type
of
executible elements active in your e-mail client. I use plain text
e-mail and
refuse to switch to anything else. Which means that I am at exactly
zero
risk
from any type of virus, worm, HTML trick, Active-X doohickey, or
anything
else
sent by e-mail that is the source of most virus problems (I say "most"
without
checking the actual statistics on this, so "most" may mean "not most").
When I
get an e-mail (from a company or an individual) that is encoded in HTML
I
delete
it unread.
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