Should I scam the scammers?

[Black]

Hardly Worthit wrote:
Why not ship as a First Class package with tracking and charge that fee for shipping?

https://www.usps.com/ship/first-class.htm

I don't think he can retroactively change the shipping fee?

And going forward, that would probably preclude the scammers but seriously hurt his sales.

[Dennis S]

A banker once told me, "You gotta think about the upside and the downside."

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Black wrote:
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=hal]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
This has been one of my biggest complaints about ebay since I first started buying (around 1998?). They only care about getting their fees, and they eliminated only way to cut them off from income when they bought PayPal. They don't care about individual buyers/sellers. They will only pay attention to a call/email from a large business or an important law enforcement officer with the direct phone number to ebay corporate security office.

Edit: is there a way to get a UPS account so you can generate a tracking number but not have them charge you until it has been picked up?

This is not true at all. When I first spotted this scam, the buyer account had something like 300 + feedback in just a couple of weeks. Now ebay is managing to stop them before they reach 100. Perhaps you forgot about the old days when 100s of scammy apple sales would launch at a time and stayed listed for several hours. You seem to think that it is easy to stop this activity - it is not. Not without a magic wand.
If they really cared, there would be a link to report auctions. Some AI would look at whose account was reporting it, which account was being reported, age of both accounts, and the accuracy rating of the person reporting it. They could ban an auction/account in milliseconds.

They do actually work to try to keep ebay safe - if EVERYONE thought as you do, they would have no biz at all. Every item that catch these guys and cut off the account, ebay losses money.

I don't really believe there is a significant portion of their income is being lost that they can't write off.

And I have a UPS account, but the minimum cost is at least $6 - first class is under $2. UPS never charges until it's delivered - not sure how this might be effective.

Generate a tracking number as soon as the auction ends. Send them the tracking number. Never ship the item until you have payment in an account that you can cut off from ebay access so they can't reverse the charges.
Filiam, you're usually pretty solid on info... but I'm wondering here if you have enough recent experience with eBay to understand how it currently works.
I have not listed anything for sale for over 10 years and I have not logged in to bid on an item in over 18 months. Does it look much different now if you log in? I only see the Report item link that takes me to the log in page. Will an auction be removed immediately, or a bidders account be deactivated, any time a "power user" reports something?

[hal]

I have no idea what happens when you just log in - I just go to one on my bookmarks. When I go to ebay.com and log in on a browser that doesn't have my cookies, I'm completely lost. I have to get to 'my ebay' to feel grounded.

Overall, ebay is completely different than it was 10 years ago. Back then, a scammer would get on and post 1000 bogus MBP listings and buyers would have to wade through them to find the real stuff. Security is miles better than ever before. I've done 1000s of transaction, been involved with nearly 100 disputes and no one has ever reached into my bank account to grab money that I did not authorize.

In a few of these disputes, I logged into paypal to find that I had a 'negative balance' and they'd tell me to clear it up before they'd process any more transactions.

Many times I went after items that I was 95% sure was a scam... and about 5% of the time, I made out like a bandit. The other 95% were scams and I got ALL of my money back after 7-20 days.

Overall, I'd say it's still not as safe as a flea market, but it's very close now. But when you took that newly purchased computer home for the flea market to find that it was liquid damaged, the market NEVER refunds your money if the guy is never to be seen again - ebay does.

It's FAR from perfect, but I still consider it one of the best things on all of the internet. WAY better than newspaper classifieds that cost around $10 for 3 lines for 5 days.

[Hardly Worthit]

Black wrote:
. . .
And going forward, that would probably preclude the scammers but seriously hurt his sales.

A three ounce First Class package with Tracking is under $3.

That may be the price to thwart scammers.

[hal]

Hardly Worthit wrote:
Why not ship as a First Class package with tracking and charge that fee for shipping?

https://www.usps.com/ship/first-class.htm

I don't understand what you are asking... this is exactly what I do. I'm not a victim of this operation, but lots of others are.

I might be able to just simply not ship it and wait for the account to get shut down...

[Black]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
[quote=Black]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=hal]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
This has been one of my biggest complaints about ebay since I first started buying (around 1998?). They only care about getting their fees, and they eliminated only way to cut them off from income when they bought PayPal. They don't care about individual buyers/sellers. They will only pay attention to a call/email from a large business or an important law enforcement officer with the direct phone number to ebay corporate security office.

Edit: is there a way to get a UPS account so you can generate a tracking number but not have them charge you until it has been picked up?

This is not true at all. When I first spotted this scam, the buyer account had something like 300 + feedback in just a couple of weeks. Now ebay is managing to stop them before they reach 100. Perhaps you forgot about the old days when 100s of scammy apple sales would launch at a time and stayed listed for several hours. You seem to think that it is easy to stop this activity - it is not. Not without a magic wand.
If they really cared, there would be a link to report auctions. Some AI would look at whose account was reporting it, which account was being reported, age of both accounts, and the accuracy rating of the person reporting it. They could ban an auction/account in milliseconds.

They do actually work to try to keep ebay safe - if EVERYONE thought as you do, they would have no biz at all. Every item that catch these guys and cut off the account, ebay losses money.

I don't really believe there is a significant portion of their income is being lost that they can't write off.

And I have a UPS account, but the minimum cost is at least $6 - first class is under $2. UPS never charges until it's delivered - not sure how this might be effective.

Generate a tracking number as soon as the auction ends. Send them the tracking number. Never ship the item until you have payment in an account that you can cut off from ebay access so they can't reverse the charges.
Filiam, you're usually pretty solid on info... but I'm wondering here if you have enough recent experience with eBay to understand how it currently works.
I have not listed anything for sale for over 10 years and I have not logged in to bid on an item in over 18 months. Does it look much different now if you log in? I only see the Report item link that takes me to the log in page. Will an auction be removed immediately, or a bidders account be deactivated, any time a "power user" reports something?
hal's response covers it, for the most part.
Your complaint is that they don't allow unlogged users to hammer the "report" links, and thus they don't care about stopping fraud?

[Filliam H. Muffman]

Black wrote:
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=Black]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=hal]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
This has been one of my biggest complaints about ebay since I first started buying (around 1998?). They only care about getting their fees, and they eliminated only way to cut them off from income when they bought PayPal. They don't care about individual buyers/sellers. They will only pay attention to a call/email from a large business or an important law enforcement officer with the direct phone number to ebay corporate security office.

Edit: is there a way to get a UPS account so you can generate a tracking number but not have them charge you until it has been picked up?

This is not true at all. When I first spotted this scam, the buyer account had something like 300 + feedback in just a couple of weeks. Now ebay is managing to stop them before they reach 100. Perhaps you forgot about the old days when 100s of scammy apple sales would launch at a time and stayed listed for several hours. You seem to think that it is easy to stop this activity - it is not. Not without a magic wand.
If they really cared, there would be a link to report auctions. Some AI would look at whose account was reporting it, which account was being reported, age of both accounts, and the accuracy rating of the person reporting it. They could ban an auction/account in milliseconds.

They do actually work to try to keep ebay safe - if EVERYONE thought as you do, they would have no biz at all. Every item that catch these guys and cut off the account, ebay losses money.

I don't really believe there is a significant portion of their income is being lost that they can't write off.

And I have a UPS account, but the minimum cost is at least $6 - first class is under $2. UPS never charges until it's delivered - not sure how this might be effective.

Generate a tracking number as soon as the auction ends. Send them the tracking number. Never ship the item until you have payment in an account that you can cut off from ebay access so they can't reverse the charges.
Filiam, you're usually pretty solid on info... but I'm wondering here if you have enough recent experience with eBay to understand how it currently works.
I have not listed anything for sale for over 10 years and I have not logged in to bid on an item in over 18 months. Does it look much different now if you log in? I only see the Report item link that takes me to the log in page. Will an auction be removed immediately, or a bidders account be deactivated, any time a "power user" reports something?
hal's response covers it, for the most part.
Your complaint is that they don't allow unlogged users to hammer the "report" links, and thus they don't care about stopping fraud?
Can you quote where I said that?

[Black]

Filliam H. Muffman wrote:
[quote=Black]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=Black]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=hal]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
This has been one of my biggest complaints about ebay since I first started buying (around 1998?). They only care about getting their fees, and they eliminated only way to cut them off from income when they bought PayPal. They don't care about individual buyers/sellers. They will only pay attention to a call/email from a large business or an important law enforcement officer with the direct phone number to ebay corporate security office.

Edit: is there a way to get a UPS account so you can generate a tracking number but not have them charge you until it has been picked up?

This is not true at all. When I first spotted this scam, the buyer account had something like 300 + feedback in just a couple of weeks. Now ebay is managing to stop them before they reach 100. Perhaps you forgot about the old days when 100s of scammy apple sales would launch at a time and stayed listed for several hours. You seem to think that it is easy to stop this activity - it is not. Not without a magic wand.
If they really cared, there would be a link to report auctions. Some AI would look at whose account was reporting it, which account was being reported, age of both accounts, and the accuracy rating of the person reporting it. They could ban an auction/account in milliseconds.

They do actually work to try to keep ebay safe - if EVERYONE thought as you do, they would have no biz at all. Every item that catch these guys and cut off the account, ebay losses money.

I don't really believe there is a significant portion of their income is being lost that they can't write off.

And I have a UPS account, but the minimum cost is at least $6 - first class is under $2. UPS never charges until it's delivered - not sure how this might be effective.

Generate a tracking number as soon as the auction ends. Send them the tracking number. Never ship the item until you have payment in an account that you can cut off from ebay access so they can't reverse the charges.
Filiam, you're usually pretty solid on info... but I'm wondering here if you have enough recent experience with eBay to understand how it currently works.
I have not listed anything for sale for over 10 years and I have not logged in to bid on an item in over 18 months. Does it look much different now if you log in? I only see the Report item link that takes me to the log in page. Will an auction be removed immediately, or a bidders account be deactivated, any time a "power user" reports something?
hal's response covers it, for the most part.
Your complaint is that they don't allow unlogged users to hammer the "report" links, and thus they don't care about stopping fraud?
Can you quote where I said that?
Just trying to figure out what your beef is- help me out.
hal and I think eBay's efforts to protect the buyer are pretty good and that there has been increasingly more attention to it over the years.
You seem to think otherwise...?

[freeradical]

Black wrote:
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=Black]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=Black]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
[quote=hal]
[quote=Filliam H. Muffman]
This has been one of my biggest complaints about ebay since I first started buying (around 1998?). They only care about getting their fees, and they eliminated only way to cut them off from income when they bought PayPal. They don't care about individual buyers/sellers. They will only pay attention to a call/email from a large business or an important law enforcement officer with the direct phone number to ebay corporate security office.

Edit: is there a way to get a UPS account so you can generate a tracking number but not have them charge you until it has been picked up?

This is not true at all. When I first spotted this scam, the buyer account had something like 300 + feedback in just a couple of weeks. Now ebay is managing to stop them before they reach 100. Perhaps you forgot about the old days when 100s of scammy apple sales would launch at a time and stayed listed for several hours. You seem to think that it is easy to stop this activity - it is not. Not without a magic wand.
If they really cared, there would be a link to report auctions. Some AI would look at whose account was reporting it, which account was being reported, age of both accounts, and the accuracy rating of the person reporting it. They could ban an auction/account in milliseconds.

They do actually work to try to keep ebay safe - if EVERYONE thought as you do, they would have no biz at all. Every item that catch these guys and cut off the account, ebay losses money.

I don't really believe there is a significant portion of their income is being lost that they can't write off.

And I have a UPS account, but the minimum cost is at least $6 - first class is under $2. UPS never charges until it's delivered - not sure how this might be effective.

Generate a tracking number as soon as the auction ends. Send them the tracking number. Never ship the item until you have payment in an account that you can cut off from ebay access so they can't reverse the charges.
Filiam, you're usually pretty solid on info... but I'm wondering here if you have enough recent experience with eBay to understand how it currently works.
I have not listed anything for sale for over 10 years and I have not logged in to bid on an item in over 18 months. Does it look much different now if you log in? I only see the Report item link that takes me to the log in page. Will an auction be removed immediately, or a bidders account be deactivated, any time a "power user" reports something?
hal's response covers it, for the most part.
Your complaint is that they don't allow unlogged users to hammer the "report" links, and thus they don't care about stopping fraud?
Can you quote where I said that?
Just trying to figure out what your beef is- help me out.
hal and I think eBay's efforts to protect the buyer are pretty good and that there has been increasingly more attention to it over the years.
You seem to think otherwise...?
Just a test of the quoting system here...;-)