- This topic has 8 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 11 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
While I agree with Jay that negativity has no place in an eBay business, I believe knowledge is power. There is definitely an increase in negative buyer activity with fraudulent buyers gaming the system. I got hit last week via PayPal, but fortunately I qualified for Seller Protection. This is an interesting article to read, and even more interesting is that it goes back a year. I’ve been putting additional steps in place to help me in the case of a problem, and knowledge of tactics such as those discussed in this article help me create more protective procedures.
Here is the article by The Guardian and, once you’re done reading, you can have a look at the related stories, if you have a mind.
Remember, this is not an eBay-bashing opportunity. It’s to help you create systems to follow in case it happens to you. For example, if I ever have a return on a high-priced option that requires my signature, I’m going to request the company of a sheriff or similar to view me opening the parcel, right there in the Post Office. If it’s fraud, I will immediately lodge a case of theft against the buyer. It may never happen, but I’m making plans to deal with it. That’s the basic premise behind insurance, right?
-
Good article. Nothing wrong about pointing out ways that eBay can improve:
I just get bored when sellers blame eBay for all their problems.I guess ‘d be more worried if we sold really valuable items. So far, we’ve never had any buyer try to do a bait-and-switch. I’m not really sure how to solve the problem.
What are some good ways for eBay to solve the issues that the article brings up?
What is a buyer mails the right item back for a refund, but the seller is dishonest and claims its a fake? If a seller or buyer wants to be dishonest, they can cause a lot of headaches for everyone.
-
Agreed, Jay, it is a headache. I was interested to note that eBay is now acknowledging it has a problem. I think that they could track fraudulent sellers a lot easier than fraudulent buyers. Buyers can and do leave negative feedback. A fraudulent seller would be tagged very quickly! As the article says, eBay protects its income by protecting its buyers, but this leaves sellers in the cold.
I think eBay needs to take seller history into account. The original seller in this article has thousands of positive feedback, a track record of successful purchases and shipping with eBay itself. Why would eBay not even review the seller’s photos and claims? That seems very odd to me!
To answer your question, I suggest eBay should institute a seller-report system where sellers can report a buyer for shady tactics. It doesn’t go on the buyer’s record up front, but remains in the Sellers Only arena. After a specified number of reports, eBay begins to investigate. If this existed, the seller that got hit in this article would have sent in his claim of fraudulent buyer, eBay could have looked up the Buyer report and seen this guy was shady. Case closed in seller’s favor, buyer’s account closed or suspended, everybody wins except the bad guy. I don’t believe this system would be difficult to implement (it’s just an extra report field, similar to feedback, but not public) and eBay could set the system to auto-flag the buyer after x number of negative reports. A representative would then read the reports and delete the “whining seller” issues. If the remaining reports are consistently negative, bang goes the buyer.
-
” I suggest eBay should institute a seller-report system where sellers can report a buyer for shady tactics. It doesn’t go on the buyer’s record up front, but remains in the Sellers Only arena….”
Sellers can already report buyers, and ebay does take action against buyers if and when they see a pattern.
-
If there is an uptick of scammers, I do hope eBay is addressing the issue. I agree that looking at a seller’s history and the buyer’s history can inform the customer rep of the truth of the situation. A scammer (buyer or seller) will have a history. They dont scam just once.
As MyCottage said, eBay is supposed to be keeping a file on buyers. That’s why they have the “report a buyer” link. They should make it more prominent and let buyers know that Sellers can help eBay keep a record of bad behavior. Scammers may not know anyone is keeping tabs.
-
MyCottage – I’ve just completed (I hope) a PayPal case where the buyer claimed no knowledge of the PayPal transaction to her bank. Considering eBay sends her a minimum of 2 emails (you won. it shipped) and I send all my buyers a ‘thank you for your order’ email, she had at least 3 emails notifying her of the transaction. Furthermore, when I buy something PayPal sends me an email to advise I paid for it. The item was tracked and delivered. So with three emails from eBay and one from PayPal, plus the arrival of a “mysterious” package on her doorstep, she didn’t recognize the transaction? I think we should have an option to report these folks to eBay. Not that we want any action, as such, but that there’s a central database record. If this woman is pulling that one on a regular basis, it will show a trend.
As PayPal felt that I covered all my bases, I’ve qualified for Seller Protection, but PayPal is apparently now in a dispute with the financial institution. If these buyer trends were identified, it may help everyone involved.
According to The Guardian article noted, eBay has NOT picked up patterns in a couple cases. It was only found when the newspaper got involved and wanted some information on a particular case. THIS is what concerns me.
I don’t just follow SL (although it’s my favorite) so I’ve seen shady tactics like this listed in a couple of the other groups. I don’t follow the eBay Community Boards, too negative for my broth, but it’s showing up on multiple seller platforms. I think eBay needs to sit up and take notice.
-
Amatino,
What you are suggesting is pretty much exactly what ebay already does: I think we should have an option to report these folks to eBay. Not that we want any action, as such, but that there’s a central database record. If this woman is pulling that one on a regular basis, it will show a trend.
Does ebay pick up on every case? No. Possibly, in part, because sellers don’t always report their suspicions. Posting a “false positive” for a buyer is a good way for a seller to get into trouble, not such a good way to bring a possibly abusive buyer to eBay’s attention. However, I agree with Jay, eBay could do a better job of letting sellers know the option exists.
eBay does throw buyers off the site. The problem with some articles like the one in the Guardian is that it suggests ebay does nothing until the press is contacted. That’s simply not true. But it is true that neither ebay nor Amazon (which also throws abusive buyers off the site) are going to make a lot of public statements about it—-that sort of thing doesn’t encourage people to shop on a site.
Yes, there are scammers….on any site, and in the brick and mortar world. Fortunately, they are a pretty small percentage…that’s true on ebay, it’s true elsewhere. Could ebay do better? No doubt. So I’m sure could WalMart, Amazon and etsy. There’s always room for improvement. But as a seller, I try to keep my perspective on the big picture. I know sellers who’ve been selling on ebay for more than a decade and have never been scammed, after thousands of transactions.
Recently, a seller on one of the ebay boards , I think she said she’s been selling for two years, offered a convoluted and frankly impractical solution to the problem of buyers returning empty boxes etc rather than the item. This was clearly a big concern for her. But when asked how many times this had happened to her, she admitted: never. But she “knows” it happens frequently because she reads about it happening to others. Of course she does, because no one goes to the Boards or Facebook groups to say repeatedly “Well, that was yet another smooth transaction”.
-
-
You can even block buyers who’ve had 4 or more policy violation reports in the past 6 months. I report all of my problem buyers to eBay.
If you go in to your feedback profile on the upper right side above “View your Seller Dashboard” it says Report a buyer. I’m sure eBay doesn’t look in to every report but if a buyer starts racking up reports I imagine eBay will take a peek at their account.
Thankfully I’ve never had any super crazy scam experiences.
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.