eBay Fraud Scams exposed

32 % of eBay users report being scammed according to the latest survey commissioned by Consumer Reports WebWatch as part of its “Look Before You Click” campaign, supported by a CyberAwareness Grant from the New York State Office of Attorney General and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The survey represents one of the most comprehensive studies of New York state Internet users, their behavior and their problems with online fraud in a variety of environments: Online auctions, shopping, e-mail and spam, privacy and others. The whole survey is available today for the first time at :
http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/dynamic/fraud-reports-internetfraud.cfm

Online Auctions - Great Bargains, Possible Problems

For more than two years, online auction fraud has been the number one complaint of New York state residents to government organizations that keep track. The WebWatch survey shows that 27 percent of state residents who have ever used an online auction Web site, such as eBay or Amazon, have experienced a scam or deceptive practice - 32 percent of eBay users were scammed.

Eleven percent of online auction site users reported they never received the goods they bid on, the most common complaint. In addition, seven percent of survey respondents who received their goods said they were not in the condition they expected. Other common complaints included not being told a key detail about the item before it arrived (7 percent) and being sent an item of lesser value than the one they actually bid on and won (7 percent). Read details of our in-depth investigation of auction sites, including lessons learned by New York State residents:

http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/pdfs/casestudies.pdf

Beware : eBay PR wants you to belive you are safe shopping on eBay but independent research proves otherwise. You are better off shopping at other venues. eBay derives too much profit from scams and eBay management is notorious for closing both eyes over the customers being scammed if curbing scams cuts into eBay’s bottom line.

Browsing the news this morning, I noticed that an article of interest on PayPal was deleted from the original source at SeekingAlpha. Before it dissappears from CACHEd pages, I thought it was worth preserving. Although this is a free country, where freedom of speach is paramount pillar, some speech has more freedom than other, especially if you speak against a corporation with billions of dollars worth of influence over something as fragile as freedom of speech.

Here is an belated Christmas present for those who value this freedom.

Paypal Ruins Christmas for eBay Customers
by: Dinah Balk December 25, 2008 | about stocks: EBAY
Dinah Balk

This could happen to you. I recently read a very sad story posted on eBay’s (EBAY) Paypal discussion board. It’s about a fantastic mom (eBay id: seasonalstuff) who sold holiday decorations to earn Xmas money for her family. Unfortunately all her hard work was for nothing because the Paypal Grinch froze her account two weeks before Santa’s arrival.

What did this seller do wrong? She sold too many Xmas decorations. Then she was selected for an “account review” by the Paypal Grinch because her sales triggered Paypal’s built in false positives. She also refused to give Paypal her SSN and driver’s license number out of fear of identify theft on the advice of her attorney. I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t give Paypal my SSN or license number either because all members’ personal information is shared with eBay’s entire corporate structure, subcontractors, and God knows who else, which is really scary when you think about it .

Now multiply this situation by thousands of sellers whose funds have been held or charged back for ridiculous reasons such as: 1) false positives; 2) less than 100 feedback; 3) sold too many items; 4) etc. etc. etc. and a pattern begins to emerge.

I doubt if Donahoe ever asked himself the following questions before he added the mandatory use of Paypal to eBay’s user agreement.

What buyer will tolerate shipping delays due to a seller’s funds being held?
What seller wants their funds to be held for up to 180 days for no good reason?
What seller wants charge backs if they have a no refund policy or when a buyer experiences remorse or neglects to read an item description?
John’s mandatory Paypal policy is why Xmas Mom’s children may not have Xmas this year. Other sellers are reporting the same thing. I’m sure family members are helping out but it’s sad to think eBay’s new CEO could not have foreseen this occurring. Perhaps he didn’t care.

Here’s Xmas Mom’s story, in her own words:

Due to circumstances beyond my control I am going to have to cancel some orders and give full refunds and end all listings tonight. Paypal has decided that after over 300 completed transactions and NO problems, they need to freeze my account for a minimum of 21 days. Over the last few months I’ve sold here on eBay to save money for Christmas, times are tough as many of you know and this is a great way to earn some extra money.

The problem is they have frozen my shipping funds and all of my Christmas money. I don’t have much cash. I can’t pay for the remaining shipping out of pocket without completely ruining Christmas for my kids. I hope you can find it in your hearts to understand. I will be leaving eBay. After I get through this mess I’m moving my inventory over to Amazon (AMZN). Those of you who are sellers too…you may want to consider it too some day. I pray that it doesn’t take something like this. I wish everyone the best and I hope your Holidays are wonderful. My apologies again.

This article has 26 comments:

» eBay +++ 31 Comments Dec 25 04:56 AM This is a real beauty — “I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t give Paypal my SSN or license number either because all members’ personal information is shared with eBay’s entire corporate structure, subcontractors, and God knows who else, which is really scary when you think about it .”

Dinah Balk you have got to be kidding? To say something like this without knowing a anything about how eBay handles it’s information is deformation of character with no basis. Watch out you Donahoe may freeze everything you have. LOL

There is no better way to pay on the internet than Paypal. I had an Account since they were bought by eBay use it frequently and have never once had an issue. I use it off eBay whenever it’s offered. Can’t how many times I’ve found something that I wanted to purchase and saw that they didn’t offer Paypal and didn’t feel like getting up to search for my Credit Card and just thought I’d come back to it latter and never purchased it. With Paypal I just log in and I’m done, no long CC # to punch in, just too easy. If I were a Seller that conversion acceleration alone is worth the fee.

That 21 days is nothing, it’s keeping everybody safe including her. If her business can’t weather that than it’s time to find a new business…

Watching the Wheels 65 Comments Dec 25 05:45 AM Ebay+++, Don’t you think that it might be a bit wiser to withhold commentary UNTIL You sell on Ebay ?

You stated that you have a Paypal account, so it would be a fairly easy thing to click a few buttons and list an item or 2 on Ebay. It would be interesting to study how willing you would really be to ship an item to an unknown person without having the money in your hand.

You might want to read through the actual Paypal contractual segments before you attempt this so you can fully appreciate these wondrous protections.

I had planned to sell on Ebay because venues offer an incredibly low cost opportunity to start a business.After watching the sweeping policy shifts that began in January of 2008, I decided that there were NO PROTECTIONS in place for the seller.

I sell on a different venue and I do utilize Paypal because of the brand recognition and increase in sales that I will receive due to their service. Fortunately I have only encountered one minor problem. I did not appreciate attempting to resolve this problem via an outsourced call center because the phone rep didn’t understand a single thing that I was attempting to convey. I did not appreciate the amoount of time it took to track down the TOLL NUMBER to be able ot speak with a rep whose primary language was the same as mine. I don’t appreciate the cost of this phone call, but on the plus side, by being willing to incur said cost, I have also provide myself with better documentation.

During the time frame that I was dealing with a glitch I attempting all the online possible solutions and got nowhere. The supposed online help’s transcripts are comical.If you repost and leave your address, I’ll send you copies.

Have you reached your spending limit yet? Are you really comfortable giving Paypal access to a bank account?

I fail to see the sence of the 21 day hold. In order to sell, there has to be some sort of bank account attached to the Paypal in order to actually get your money. If there is the necessity of refunding money, Paypal can freeze said account making the 21 day hold completely unnecessary. I f Paypal or Ebay choose to extend credit to an individual, that’s fine. I choose not to.

Hirorir 1 Comment Dec 25 06:20 AM Sorry to hear about this, Paypal can be a real annoyance sometimes; it’s also real cruddy that you had to be hit down on Christmas season too.
I’d advise you to go hardcore on this and file complaints on them for holding your funds for these 21 days (with intention to use on Holiday Season) with improper reasoning (if possible lead to sue). Your SSN should NOT be asked by Paypal, regardless of the reviewer. I believe Paypal should have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy? After all, they have all the information they’ll ever need right in their storage.

lucky lenny 33 Comments Dec 25 06:29 AM To combat fraud, to hold funds for a a month or so to make sure the seller isn’t a fraud, makes sense to me. I’m in agreement with Paypal on this one.

fairytrixy 5 Comments Dec 25 06:43 AM HoHoHo ebay+++

Next time you post it might be wise to do so prior to having a cocktail:)

Cheers!

eBuyer Feedback 3 Comments Dec 25 06:48 AM I had basically the same thing happen to me last year. I had a lot of listings going on (featured plus) with immediate PayPal payment required. eBay wouldn’t close the listings and refund my fees even though it was their fault my listings couldn’t sell. They told me it was my problem and I needed to contact PayPal. They even had the nerve to hang up on me in the middle of the conversation.

I had a customer from Russia that had paid the day before. I normally use Stamps.com and Endicia to do my postage but those wouldn’t work for their address. USPS Click-n-ship wouldn’t work either. That only left PayPal shipping. But since my account was limited I was expressly forbidden from printing postage through them.

PayPal took several days to clear up the block but by then my listings were all ruined and I lost several customers. I guess I trusted them with my personal information (that’s the only thing I trust eBay/PayPal with) and that is what led to the different outcome for me.

I was very lucky that I avoided a wave of negative feedback and chargebacks in the middle of that ordeal. I know how eBay users are and if they strongly suspect a scam they’ll rush their trading partner right out of business and then eBay uses those negs and chargebacks to justify kicking you off and holding your money indefinitely (which also leads to even more chargebacks).

Funny thing is one week they were congratulating me on becoming a gold powerseller. The next week they told me I was selling too much and almost trashed my 5 year old business.

Paul Price 176 Comments Dec 25 06:52 AM The vendor states she “had to give refunds” as her payments were being held up.

Why her account had been credited when the buyers paid. She could ship normally and her funds (if they were actually held up by PayPal) would have been released after 21 days.

We have no evidence that her story is even accurate. Anybody can say anything. Perhaps this whole episode was planted by someone short EBAY stock?

Regardless of that, I don’t see how cancelling transactions was necessary or what it accomplished. The buyers get the merchandise- the seller got paid.

If she didn’t like PayPal she could arrange for other forms of payment that she thinks are more acceptable to her.

Paul Price 176 Comments Dec 25 06:58 AM Every single article from this author’s name is a critical piece on EBAY.

She does not appear to have any intent here on Seeking Alpha other than to create ill-will towards EBAY and/or to hurt the stock.

Dinah Balk is not a stock analyst- she is working for the shorts on EBAY.

redbaron 169 Comments Dec 25 07:20 AM Paul, you need to try to sell on eBay first, before commenting on this situation. If you really have an interest here, why not go ahead and give it a try? You likely have some merchandise laying around, and the software is easy to use. Selling would for sure give you a different perspective on the situation, and would certainly add some credibility to your comments.

Without some personal experience, your thoughts have no substance or credibility. Ebay and PayPal are changing the rules to their advantage, during the holiday seasonal selling climax, and putting their customers (sellers are the only ones paying fees here) at risk of financial ruin. You are making assumptions here on a situation about which you know nothing.

You are correct about one thing, however, Dinah Balk is not a stock analyst, and that to me makes her very much more credible.

Dinah Balk 157 Comments Dec 25 08:37 AM Good morning everyone -

Got lots of Xmas stuff to do. Will be stopping by later when I have more time.

Merry Xmas!

arlin 18 Comments Dec 25 09:42 AM Dear Dinah
Manty thanks for your informative reports throughout the year.
Merry Christmas.

Paul Price 176 Comments Dec 25 11:03 AM redbaron,

I do sell through Ebay and use PayPal regularly with zero problems.

fatseal 5 Comments Dec 25 11:33 AM Do you not know that there is no other form of payment on ebay? It’s paypal or a merchant account.

Dinah Balk 157 Comments Dec 25 11:34 AM Here is Paypal’s Privacy Policy just in case anyone is interested.

You must log into your Paypal account. Go to the bottom of the home page and click on Legal Agreements. On the next page, underneath Agreements For All Users, click on Privacy Policy.

Please note that eBay’s corporate family is substantially larger than what was stated. My website has a complete listing of the entire corporate family.

How we share personal information with other parties

We may share your personal information with:

Members of the eBay Inc. corporate family — like eBay, Shopping.com or Skype — to provide joint content and services (like registration, transactions and customer support), to help detect and prevent potentially illegal acts and violations of our policies, and to guide decisions about their products, services and communications. Members of our corporate family will use this information to send you marketing communications only if you have requested their services.

Service providers under contract who help with parts of our business operations; (fraud prevention, bill collection, marketing, technology services). Our contracts dictate that these service providers only use your information in connection with the services they perform for us and not for their own benefit.

Financial institutions that we partner with to jointly create and offer a product such as the PayPal Plus credit card where we share information with GE Money Bank to determine whether you should receive pre-approved offers for the PayPal Plus credit card. These financial institutions may only use this information to market PayPal-related products, unless you have given consent for other uses.

Credit bureaus to report outstanding negative balance accounts, as allowed by law.
Companies that we plan to merge with or be acquired by. (Should such a combination occur, we will require that the new combined entity follow this privacy policy with respect to your personal information. If your personal information could be used contrary to this policy, you will receive prior notice.)

Law enforcement, government officials, or other third parties when
we are compelled to do so by a subpoena, court order or similar legal procedure
we need to do so to comply with law
we believe in good faith that the disclosure of personal information is necessary to prevent physical harm or financial loss, to report suspected illegal activity, or to investigate violations of our User Agreement.
Other third parties with your consent or direction to do so.

fatseal 5 Comments Dec 25 11:36 AM The seller got paid, but she left all her money in paypal( there is a very long thread on the boards about it) and all her paypal money ($1600) was frozen. She has no money to even pay for shipping. Glad you can take having $1600.00 frozen in your account. Most people can’t.

ezduzit 30 Comments Dec 25 12:05 PM any person who comments about a “short” attacking e-bay, on this site, is off the deep end in his (her) thinking. the stock price has its own mind.
as far as the other posted comments, when you can’t get in touch with customer service, without jumping through hoops, that’s a serious problem. it shows a lack of respect and consideration towards people who work for a living.

bigger companies than e-bay have bitten the bullet because of flawed company management and poor customer relations. Reply | Link to Comment +10 RicRoe 4 Comments Dec 25 12:22 PM eBay’s problems are self inflicted. The more eBay has done in the name of bringing business back to their site, the more they have alienated current users that were once infatuated with the market place as both buyers and sellers.

eBay started to seriously slide when John Donahoe as CEO came out in front of changes which gutted the core of the marketplace and referred to any member that spoke out against the changes as ‘noise’. His arrogant ‘noise’ label insulted the very customers he was trying to keep.

Led by an executive team that has barely used the marketplace, eBay is now headed for obscurity because they do not ‘get’ it anymore.

eBay, unlike Amazon, does not own inventory, and relies on sellers to provide merchandise to the site. This said, it is hard to understand why eBay executives have instituted so many anti seller policies over the past year.

Further proof of how out of sync eBay leadership is, they fail to understand that sellers are buyers as well. Alienating sellers diminishes their interest in purchasing from the site or doing business in any way with a company that is viewed as seller unfriendly.

eBay’s increased fees across the board and forcing sellers to accept PayPal to entitle them to an even larger slice of sellers profits, has not improved the company’s fortunes, but has motivated sellers to take their business elsewhere.

eBay has become a ship without a rudder, adrift in a marketplace they have lost control of.

eBay execs fail to understand that word of mouth is essential to the success of their marketplace. With sellers having nothing positive to say, buyers are going elsewhere.

Until eBay is led by a team of executives with vision and experience in what makes eBay tick, eBay is destined to become the next Internet bubble to burst.

Buyers and sellers alike have lost trust and confidence in current leadership over the series of poorly implemented policies, feedback changes, imposition of the failed DSR system, constant technical glitches, search that is horrible, forced PayPal etc…

eBay is now beyond reversing failed policy and system changes. eBay now has to replace the entire core of enthusiastic members which they have managed to chase in addition to changing the failed policies and defective systems.

The simplest solution would be for eBay to simply get out of being in the marketplace business since it is obvious they have no clue as to what it takes to make and keep a marketplace relevant and successful.

John Donahoe, Lorrie Norrington and company will go down in history as the executives that managed to screw up a free lunch.

They are not the team that will lead eBay out of the disaster they created, they are the team that turned a marketplace with millions of happy members into a poor imitation of its competition with customers who have nothing good to say about the new experience.

This is unlikely to change until the book smart MBA’s are removed, and replaced by a team of executives that know and understand what the eBay marketplace is.

The fix would be for Mr Omidyer to get back to work, and restore the core principles upon which eBay was founded. He had the right ideas and the company became a worldwide multi billion dollar success under those principles.

eBay’s only chance to restore itself to that level of success will be when the existing leadership is tossed and replaced with a team that ‘gets’ eBay.

steve577 9 Comments Dec 25 12:51 PM This article is SO typical of sellers with bad attitudes that enjoy criticizing
ebay for the wonderful changes that made it a better, safer place for
buyers. As to the specifics of this article, anybody that doesn’t trust
paypal doesn’t deserve PayPal’s trust.

o.c.d.collectibles 34 Comments Dec 25 01:12 PM I was banned from posting on the discussion boards after 10 years here, never has this EVER happened to me. I have the best documentation, because legally, I understand (from being a Nurse!!), which policies and procedures are, that place me at risk. To have me suppressed when I state my opinion in non-confrontative ways, is a form of suppressing freedom of speech on a public forum. I’ve been given a “7 day sanction” so that I can “spend more time” reading and digesting ebay’s board posting policies.

After 10 good 100% 4.9 rated years, I just disconnected my reports subscription and deactivated the credit card associated with my account.

Not only will I not allow ebay to treat me this way as a customer, but I will make it my business to let every stock and financial site that I can register on, know what is going on amongst ebay’s most loyal and longest law abiding citizens and their unscrupulous tactics in censorship.

Censoring the ability to mention the names of other sites to sell on is not advertising. If it WAS advertising, I would be making an income doing that. At this point in time, I have NOTHING posted to sell on any site AT ALL. I sell “live” in antique booths. I do not need online sales to make my life complete. I used to enjoy them, and the socialzation I had from ebay selling. Now that THAT is gone, I have nothing to lose letting the world know of ebay’s censorship rules amongst their discussion boards.

I will not let up until I see the desired effect, you guys can all count on it!
So far, I have already described the ridiculous changes and the re-design of the site, with all of it’s glitches, malfunctions, and breakages. Now I will be focusing on something else….abuse of it’s oldest and most loyal, “high grade” sellers, who simply voice their opinions.

riversniper 2 Comments Dec 25 01:23 PM Never get verified, If you do then open a separate bank account that is not connected to your personal banking or checking account. Trust me on this riversniper

o.c.d.collectibles 34 Comments Dec 25 01:43 PM I have no need to sell on a site that treats me with so much indignity. After all the income provided for them,over the many years I was there, and so many happy customers, they will not get another dime from me now.
My rating is excellent. I left the site SIMPLY because of the WAY they treat their honest sellers.

They are selectively “deaf, dumb and blind” to their registered racketeers who really ARE swindling the new buyers on their site with poor service. They manipulate the bad ratings of these large retailers who get a free ride, listing on their site, just to make the seller still look good. There have been detections of this practice going on, and it is highly fraught with favoritism not based on ebay’s own policies. Ebay is scamming every OTHER fee paying member/seller due to this issue, and it won’t be long before someone exposes this publicly.
Paypal only practices the exploitive practices on ebay. They would not be doing that on anyone else’s site

There is something really wrong on this site, they deserve a SEC investigation.

Dinah, thank you for posting invaluable information to the public. They deserve to read the truth about this company before they decide to invest.
I wouldn’t invest unless I knew the CEO team was being fired.

eBay +++ 31 Comments Dec 25 02:06 PM I have sold on eBay whenever it’s time to clean out the garage and I have only offered Paypal. They are linked to my Acccount, no problems, not once. Would not think of Selling any other way.

o.c.d.collectibles 34 Comments Dec 25 02:20 PM The cheerleaders are no more than investors in ebay stock who have lost their shirts after investing when the stock was in the 20’s and 30’s. Sorry guys, you made a big mistake buying stock in this company so late in the game, OR maybe too early! If the imbeciles who run this company, finally leave, THEN you should buy some more stock! Wait till it hits $5 a share. It will. Maybe by then, the Board of Directors will wake up and hire some qualified leaders.

Patricia013 62 Comments Dec 25 02:21 PM How very strange…..I’ve had a Paypal shopping cart on my own website for years now. Never had a chargeback, never had funds held and don’t forget there is no feedback or DSR’s to consider. I would like to know why Paypal turns into a different animal when an Ebay transaction is concerned? Then they hold funds and act like thiefs in plain english. I think we all know Ebay is making money off the float of all those held funds. They have found yet one more way to skin a seller! Ebay, you go far beyong “its only business” and into a realm of sleaziness the depths of which I have never seen before!!! If, as a seller, they held my funds then they would have one angry buyer on their hands. Nothing ever leaves here that isn’t paid for with the funds in my account where they belong! If that means gathering a neg…so be it. If that means having my account closed…so be it! That would be the final straw for me.

Philip Cohen 11 Comments Dec 25 02:45 PM eBay is knowingly facilitating fraud on buyers

Can anyone explain to me why users in Australia, the UK, Ireland and the Philippines, have the absolutely anonymous alias (”Bidder N”) while New Zealand (and the rest of the world) has the effectively bidder-specific alias (”a***b (N)”)?

The material difference between these two forms of anonymous alias is, in the case of the “a***b (N)” alias, at a given point in time when viewed in conjunction with the accompanying feedback count, it is effectively bidder-specific: experienced buyers can still check a seller’s other auctions to watch out for at least any instances of blatant shill bidding; and with the absolutely anonymous alias (”Bidder N”), buyers have got absolutely no chance of detecting even the most blatant of shill bidding by an unscrupulous seller.

And, please, don’t try to tell me that the new “Bidder History” page enables buyers to spot a shill bidder: that is simply one more blatantly nonsensical and disingenuous eBay claim. Nor does eBay have any “sophisticated software” for the detection of shill bidding: they still rely primarily on user reports: trouble is, users can no longer report, because users can no longer detect! And, eBay’s excuse for introducing such anonymous aliases, to stop fraudulent second chance offers, is pathetic and undoubtedly disingenuous.

Further, in the US, eBay initially introduced the absolutely anonymous alias (”Bidder N”) and then retreated therefrom to the effectively bidder-specific alias (”a***b (N)”). Strangely, the opposite has been the case in the UK where eBay went from “a***b (N)” to “Bidder N”! (Does anyone in this organisation actually know what is going on?)

The application of the absolutely anonymous alias, “Bidder N”, would appear to serve only one purpose and that is to obscure any blatant shill bidding, that would otherwise be obvious, so that buyers can’t detect it, can’t then report it, and eBay does not have to waste any of their valuable resources pretending to do anything about it.

Whether intentional or not, eBay’s application of the absolutely anonymous alias (”Bidder N”) is effectively an “aiding and abetting” of fraud on buyers. What is our governmental consumer affairs regulators doing about this reprehensible behaviour by eBay?

Lengthy, detailed comments on this matter commence at
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6499794#6499794

User 325862 1 Comment Dec 25 03:09 PM I have been using eBay and PayPal. Once someone tried to cheat me on ebay and paypal helped me their buyer protection. this is true and it happened earlier this year. i am an occassional seller on eBay too.

there is so much anti-ebay and paypal being posted. maybe your stories are true, only god knows. I dont want to just antogonize someone, atleast on christmas day (for god’s sake). I see the same set of people posting junk about companies time and again in various forums.

I dont have any issues on ebay or paypal. if someone’s account is locked, either they have been alerted on fraud for anti-money laundering or some other genuine reason.

why would anyone just freeze anyone’s account, especially your customers? use commonsense.

There is a brand new site online that lets current and past employees rate their employers. It appears that eBay sellers and buyers are not the only ones disenchanted with eBay CEO and the company management. Take a look how eBay employees rate eBay.

Here is a summary of 10 ratings out of 100 today as of writing of this post:

Aug 22, 2008
3 found helpful
“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.…”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 5, 2008
“Great company! Wouldn’t work anywhere else…”
Anonymous
…
Sep 5, 2008
“Exciting things are happening at eBay!…”
Visual Designer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“If you’re considering a job at eBay, look elsewhere.…”
Interaction Designer in San Jose, CA (United States.)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“Don’t treat us like th paper you you wipe with.…”
Customer Sercvice in Vancouver (Canada)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“Used to be a great place to work, now it’s just a job…”
Senior Director in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 3, 2008
“If you’re bright, passionate, and energetic, you’ll eventually become drained and resent everything you ever worked for.…”
Marketing Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Sep 2, 2008
“Ebay can be better with changes.…”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
Aug 22, 2008
“Too many MBA’s - not enough people who love the web…”
Senior Content Manager
…
Aug 20, 2008
1 found helpful
“ebay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round and never goes up…”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…

I first found a mention of this on Yahoo Finance Forum for eBay stock on 9/3/2008 and it looked like this:

Overall Company Rating 3.2
CEO Approval Rating 32%

1 - 10 of 91 Reviews by eBay Employees

Aug 22, 2008
“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.…”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 22, 2008
“Too many MBA’s - not enough people who love the web…”
Senior Content Manager

Aug 20, 2008
“ebay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round and never goes up…”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 26, 2008
“tremendous opportunities, if only we would get our heads on straight and choose a visionary plan and leadership…”
Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 24, 2008
“Wounded company that needs to find its way again…”
Senior Marketing Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 22, 2008
“Corporate politics is rewarded over hard work and dedication.…”
Account Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 20, 2008
“eBay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round but never goes up :(…”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 19, 2008
“Great place to work with opportunities to grow…”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 19, 2008
“stuck in “turnaround” hell — we’ll see how it all shakes out. a lot (too much) change going on right now…”
Senior Category Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

Aug 21, 2008
“Decent place to work…”
Product Manager in Campbell, CA (United States)

Next I found a similar post on eBay Seller Central forum, that one was dated September 2nd

So apparently this website must have come to attention of eBay corporate PR people as they have promptly sent two faithfull employees to give it such a nice rating that glaringly contradicts those 90 plus other rating: see the two latest ratings from Sept 5th.:

Sep 5, 2008
“Great company! Wouldn’t work anywhere else…”
Anonymous
…
Sep 5, 2008
“Exciting things are happening at eBay!…”
Visual Designer in San Jose, CA (United States)
…
It’s a shame that eBay feels they have to censor and decieve on all fronts. Those two consecutive emplyee praises from yesterday are just way too obvious when compared with the rest of the reviews. But again, eBay top management is not very bright so you cannot expect them to be very sophisticated in their efforts to censor out the truth.

The eBay Message Forum at Seller Central posts a full version of those 10 reviews and those are quite enlightening in case a shareholder wants to know what’s really going on in the company and what eBay will not tell you in their quarterly report. Here are full versions of the 10 employee reviews of eBay as posted on eBay Seller Central forum.

Aug 22, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 1.5
Recognition & Feedback 3.0
Senior Leadership 1.0
Work/Life Balance 3.5
Fairness & Respect 1.5
Disapproves of CEO

“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Past Employee (2007)
Pros
It’s a good name to have on your resume, and you will be working for a company that provides a living to millions of people. Bonus structure is good for a tech company.
Cons
Upper management is inept and tends to “swoop” in and make arbitrary changes to projects without supporting data. Politics is nasty, especially on the business side of things. There is significant favoritism given towards skinny blonde chicks by some senior managers. It takes a lot of work to get products out. John Donahoe is, I expect, going to run the company into the ground; he doesn’t understand the eBay ecosystem, and driving Rajiv Dutta out of the company was a truly crazy thing for him to do.
Advice to Senior Management
Ditch your CEO and start LISTENING to your wailing employees.

Aug 22, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 1.0
Compensation & Benefits 2.5
Employee Morale 1.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.0
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 3.0
Fairness & Respect 1.5
Disapproves of CEO

“Too many MBA’s - not enough people who love the web”
Senior Content Manager Current Employee
Pros
Good intentions of management on work life balance. Free soda. Staff cafeteria. Bus with wifi between San Francisco and campus. Most people are great to work with. Good christmas parties.
Cons
Good intentions on work life balance worthless when unable to hire even replacement staff while increasing the workload. Decisions made by MBAs who don’t know anything about the web or web design, so user experience is awful. San Jose is a hole. Stock options worthless. Too much consensus decision making which means decisions are too slow to make and end up sub-optimal just to compromise. No one single visionary you can believe in.
Advice to Senior Management
Stop taking your staff for granted. You are breaking them.

Aug 20, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 1.5
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.5
Senior Leadership 1.5
Work/Life Balance 3.0
Fairness & Respect 1.0
Disapproves of CEO
“ebay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round and never goes up”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
Culture, history, nothing, else, tocomment
Cons
politics, bickering, weak management, unfairness, low morale
Advice to Senior Management
hopefully solve problems of employees and give them a passion and reason to contribute.

Aug 26, 2008
4.0
Details
Career Opportunities 4.0
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 3.0
Recognition & Feedback 3.0
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 4.5
Fairness & Respect 3.0
Disapproves of CEO

“tremendous opportunities, if only we would get our heads on straight and choose a visionary plan and leadership”
Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
For better or worse, eBay is a large company. Even if you start at eBay doing one job, there’s tremendous opportunity to more around the company if you are apt and willing. eBay also attacks problems of tremendous scale, unmatched anywhere on the web. How we handle them is sometimes questionable, but there’s no doubt that we are the biggest game in town.
Cons
Management is schizophrenic and quarter-driven. Even when we were promised that we were NOT going to be quarter driven, we still see a highly detrimental focus on making the projection for Wall St.
Internally, everything not aligned with the current soup du ‘jour is likely to be canceled, paused, downsized or outright ignored. Also there are far too many doers and not enough thinkers hired here. This company is run by people who “have ideas”, whether they are well-planned or not.
Advice to Senior Management
Settle down. STOP focusing on the near term. Chill out, plan ahead and start treating this company like it’s going to be around for 100 years. If you don’t treat it that way, then it won’t be. If you keep treating it like it will only be around another 3 to 5 years, then Wall St. will assume that too.

Aug 24, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 2.5
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 3.0
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 4.0
Fairness & Respect 3.5
Disapproves of CEO

“Wounded company that needs to find its way again”
Senior Marketing Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
Used to be the quality of the team - smart, vibrant people and a clear, defined mission for the business. Those things are changing, so now I’d say it’s still a company with potential, as soon as the “turnaround” is over.
Cons
Unclear decision-making, lack of accountability and disregard for critical functions that aren’t directly driving the business, but are still indispensible.
Advice to Senior Management
Articulate a vision and get people invested in it. Right now, people are operating in crisis mode, but there isn’t a lot of compelling reasons to stay. As the good folks hit the road with more and more frequency, “put your head down and get your work done” is less a rallying cry and more a threat. And even if the job market is so-so right now, attrition isn’t going to get any better without inspiration from the leaders of the company.

Aug 22, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 2.5
Communication 2.0
Compensation & Benefits 2.5
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 1.0
Senior Leadership 1.0
Work/Life Balance 2.5
Fairness & Respect 1.0
Disapproves of CEO

“Corporate politics is rewarded over hard work and dedication.”
Account Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
Good benefits package. Great coworkers.
Cons
Incompetant supervisors who micro-manage rather than encourage and support.
Advice to Senior Management
Trust and respect of employees could result in a more loyal and dedicated workforce.

Aug 20, 2008
2.0
Details
Career Opportunities 2.5
Communication 1.5
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 2.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.5
Senior Leadership 2.0
Work/Life Balance 3.5
Fairness & Respect 1.0
Disapproves of CEO
1 of 2 people found this helpful
“eBay stuck in a wheel which goes round and round but never goes up ”
Senior Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
The brand is well recognized. The company is full of intelligent people to learn from. A good place to learn about how internet business works.
Cons
The middle management is very incompetent and totally screwed up. They are busy in too many useless meetings and keep dishing out BS to employees.Too much politics.
Compensation here is lower than average. Promotions are given based more on politics than actual job performance.
Bloated infrastructure and organization. Change is slow and by the time it happens is often outdated. Very few opportunities for career advancement.
Advice to Senior Management
Clean up the fat layer from the middle. Get rid of middle layer instead of getting rid of engineers. There are way too many directors and VPs for a company this size

Aug 19, 2008
4.0
Details
Career Opportunities 4.0
Communication 4.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 4.0
Recognition & Feedback 5.0
Senior Leadership 3.0
Work/Life Balance 4.0
Fairness & Respect 4.0
No Opinion of CEO
“Great place to work with opportunities to grow”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
With a great work atmosphere, there are various opportunities provided for individuals to shine and grow within their teams. Employee training is encouraged, and management makes every attempt to provide projects based on the type of work employees want to do. With the number of changes happening this year, senior management has been very communicative and responsive, which is great to see.
Cons
A better work-life balance atmosphere would be beneficial. Due to the large nature of the organization, decision making takes a long time as you have to go through a lot of red tape. Company seems to be more reactive than proactive, always trying to catch up with competition as opposed to setting trends.
Advice to Senior Management
Biggest question most employees ask is - Are we a Business company or a Technology company? To me, it seems we are a business company that tries to behave as a technology company. It should in fact be vice versa. Senior management needs to cleary define who we are, and work towards implementing the same. They should take calculated risks, become more proactive, and need to make decisions quicker.

Aug 19, 2008
4.0
Details
Career Opportunities 4.0
Communication 2.5
Compensation & Benefits 4.0
Employee Morale 4.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.5
Senior Leadership 3.0
Work/Life Balance 4.0
Fairness & Respect 3.0
Disapproves of CEO
“stuck in “turnaround” hell — we’ll see how it all shakes out. a lot (too much) change going on right now”
Senior Category Manager in San Jose, CA (United States) Current Employee
Pros
great brand name, real impact on people’s lives, removing inefficiencies from marketplaces - its nice to work for a company that is universally known (but sometimes passionately hated as well)
Cons
way too much bureaucracy - too much “its not on my list”, and this year, a lot of fear around layoffs and constrained resources. product changes are slow. existing processes are inflexible. the company has carved work into so many little pieces that its hard to find any ownership. too many ex-consultants and ex-bankers in leadership - we need more operating expertise to run a company. much too focused on powerpoint decks instead of real bold action and experience.
Advice to Senior Management
stop changing things - its makes everyone dizzy! buyers, sellers, employees, etc, are just trying to earn a living and do good work. you make it really hard when policies, resources, fees, headcount keep changing.

Aug 21, 2008
3.0
Details
Career Opportunities 3.0
Communication 3.0
Compensation & Benefits 3.0
Employee Morale 3.0
Recognition & Feedback 2.0
Senior Leadership 2.5
Work/Life Balance 2.5
Fairness & Respect 3.0
No Opinion of CEO
“Decent place to work”
Product Manager in Campbell, CA (United States) Past Employee (2006)
Pros
Great projects to work on, with tons of users and lots of strategy behind what is built. ROI drives everything. You also get to work with great people who really know what they’re doing. Usually, people are nice and helpful. As with most places, there is the occasional jerk or sycophant but overall, the people are great. Benefits are also on par with most large companies in teh bay area. maybe a little low, but not much. I’d prefer working at eBay over Google for sure.
Cons
Too much work, too much expected of employees, not enough recognition given for the right things - probably the same at most large companies
Advice to Senior Management
Improve work/life balance

================================

Did you notice those CEO Approval ratings?

John J. Donahoe
President and CEO
31% “Approve”

Yahoo
Jerry Yang
40% “Approve”

Amazon
Jeff Bezos
68% “Approve”

Google
Eric E. Schmidt
87% “Approve”

I guess Donahoe is as popular with his employees as he is with his customers.

Since eBay shares hit another 52 week low yesterday
Day’s Range: 23.24 - 24.45
52wk Range: 23.24 - 40.73
Volume: 22,776,993
Avg Vol (3m): 15,025,90
Last Trade: 23.77
Trade Time: Sep 5, 2008

So it appears eBay shareholders are not thrilled with Donahoe and his management team either. Just take a look at Yahoo Finance Forum for eBay - it if full of unhappy shareholders, eBay sellers and scammed buyers complaining about eBay’s mediocre management.

============
Update 9/24/2008
Now that the eBay PR plants washed away under real posts, just a quick pulse check to see how eBay employees continue to feel about their employer. I see the CEO’s rating went down from 30 plus % down to 28% since we found the site where employees get to rate their employer and CEO less than a month ago.

1 - 10 of 129 Reviews for eBay

*

Sep 9, 2008

7 found helpful
“Why is management trying to kill the golden goose?…”
Software QA Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 8, 2008

7 found helpful
“One eBay insider’s point of view…”
Program Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 12, 2008

6 found helpful | 1 comment
“Nearly 5 years there - what was I thinking…”
Senior Staff Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 11, 2008

5 found helpful
“Horrible for engineers.…”
Senior Software Engineer in Campbell, CA (United States)
*

Aug 22, 2008

7 found helpful
“eBay attracts a lot of great people, then the company culture beats them down and they leave within a couple of years.…”
Senior Product Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 19, 2008

4 found helpful
“Great company, great purpose, no leadership, no willingness to admit mistakes…”
Senior Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 21, 2008

3 found helpful
“Ebay needs to get back to what made it great, being a unique force in the online marketplace.…”
Independent in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 8, 2008

4 found helpful
“John J. Donahoe does NOT know how to run a company!…”
Software Engineer in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 16, 2008

3 found helpful
“ebay - not what it used to be!…”
Senior Director in San Jose, CA (United States)
*

Sep 10, 2008

4 found helpful
“Used to be a good place to work….…”
Program Manager in San Jose, CA (United States)

This YouTube video illustrates how recent eBay changes “protecting bidder’s privacy” affect you as a buyer when you decide to participate in bidding on eBay items. eBay touted that they are removing transparency from bidding process to protect you. I have a different opinion. eBay prefers to let shill bidding rampant on their site and now you cannot detect it because you have no way of knowing whom you bid against. When sellers shill their items, you as a buyer pay more and eBay makes more money. Simple.

Watch this YouTube eye opener!

And check out other awesome videos by the eBayPirate.
Remember: S.A.F.E. = Stay Away From Ebay

For those who don’t know, Leo Leporte has over 2 million listeners on his podcast TWiT, and his weekend radio show (KFI-AM) in Los Angeles which is also podcasted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Laporte

You can listen to this MP3 broadcast snipped from Leo’s show (4.6 Megs)
where Leo Raporte and Dick DeBartolo account how they were scammed on eBay. They both used PayPal to pay for transaction and lost their money because in reality, PayPal protection was non existent. Listen to the podcast, it’s about 10 minutes long and will open your eyes and hopefully raise your caution when considering buying on eBay :

Click here to listen to the PodCast by Leo Raporte and Dick DeBartolo

After getting burned twice, this time for $2,200:

“eBay doesn’t seem to do very much to prevent [scammers] or discourage [scammers].”

“We’re not protected…[regarding Paypal]“.

“I will never buy anything on eBay ever again….and I going to go on my radio show on a regular basis and tell everybody that.”

Source: See show 588, about 1/2 way down the podcast.
http://twit.tv/dgw588 (Our recording starts at 7th minute of the original PodCast)

I had to bring that lipstick on a pig picture in again. eBay has just been exposed trying to hide / delete / censor the ugly fallout from it’s new feeback policy.

eBay is full of scammers. eBay has been full of scammers. eBay is a scammer paradise. eBay tries their damnest to deny this and hide the truth about scams on it’s own site, instead of working to eliminate those scams.

In the traditional spirit of trying to hide the scams and scam artists on eBay site, misleading unsuspecting users to that false feeling of eBay being safe, once again, eBay deleted evidence of the new eBay feedback policy changes being immediately adopted by eBay scammers to abuse eBay members.

While eBay focuses it’s efforts on covering up scams on eBay and PayPal sites EBAY shares dropped 2.33% in a single day down to $29.31 by close of market June 2, 2008.

If eBay censors YOU on eBay message Boards, I recommend you take a look at the Yahoo Message FORUM for eBAY stock, perhaps eBay censors can silence you on eBay forums, but you can still present your story to eBAY shareholders, so they are not kept in dark.
visit eBay FINANCE FORUM ON YAHOO We know eBay does not listen to it’s customers, BUT eBay does listen to it’s shareholders.

So what is this all about? Stay with me for a minute.

eBay feedback changes: eBay no longer allows eBay sellers to leave negative or neutral feedback for buyers. eBay sellers are screaming bloody murder because they know eBay is full of con artists or nutso buyers who will abuse this and try to extort financial gain from the sellers threatening unjustified negative feedback, leaving just plain crazy malicious eBay feedback, destroying business reputations on a whim.

Yesterday AuctionBytes brought published article on eBay’s new feedback policy being abused by scam artist to extort money from eBay sellers. A link to the eBay seller discussion forum is provided from the AuctionBytes article.

Sure enough, eBay deleted the whole discussion. If you try to reach the link pointed to by AuctionBytes Article Sopranos Meets eBay in Feedback Extortion Scheme
The other case involves a feedback extortion ring that looks like an eBay version of the Sopranos. An eBay seller posting on the eBay discussion boards published correspondence he said he received from the winner of one of his auctions. The buyer reportedly said he and four other eBay users “are in the business of selling Positive Feedbacks to eBay Sellers for $20 each, totaling $100 for 5 Positive Feedbacks. If you purchase the 5 Positive Feedbacks for $100, you not only get to sell your items, you also receive 5 Positive Feedbacks. As you well know, Feedback is EVERYTHING to an eBay seller on whether they are successful or not. I’m sure that you want to remain successful in your eBay business. Plus, along with the 5 Positive Feedbacks, we will also Guarantee Never to contact you again and we take you off of our list.”

This article links to:
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000711130&tstart=0&mod=1212267983950 and if you click on that link…. YOU GUESSED IT! IT WAS DELETED BY EBAY
Instead of that eBay discussion, you will see a message:
This discussion thread has been removed for one of the following reasons:
-the initial post in the thread was in violation of our Board Usage Policy.
-the member that started the thread has requested that it be removed.
-the thread expired due to inactivity

eBay routinely censors “uncomfortable” truths from it’s forums. Thus we even have a specific section here, ebay censorship, dedicated to what never existed on eBay… or at least what eBay claims never existed or was removed by a glitch, mistake or an oooopsie!

Now let’s see, we know the member did not ask for their message board thread to be removed. So that’s out. Next: we could not find anything in the initial post to be against eBay Board Usage Policy - and the thread certainly did not expire due to inactivity… the comments kept pouring in, there were over 400 when eBay censor decided to pull the plug. So what was it?

Again, it must be accidental, as the current eBay spokesperson put it describing previous eBay Discussion Board deletions:

…suggested that forum posts critical of eBay’s policies had been deleted. EBay denied that any forum deletions were intentional. If any posts were taken down “it was accidental,” the spokesman said. “We’re not afraid of hearing from our community and allowing them to post and discuss things and be angry on our boards”

Here is a page one of the DELETED EBAY DISCUSSION, certainly no rule breaking there, IT’S JUST YOUR USUAL COVER UP BY EBAY, TRYING TO HIDE SCAMS AND PROTECT SCAM ARTISTS ON IT’S SITE:

Discussion Post a reply | Print
Sellers, I just got the following email:
in**anaftw (9 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:01 PDT
Listen very carefully. I am the winner of this item. I have 4 other eBay Users in place either bidding on or have won items from you plus myself totaling 5. We are prepared to leave you 5 Positive Feedbacks or 5 Negative Feedbacks depending on your actions. In a nutshell, we are in the business of selling Positive Feedbacks to eBay Sellers for $20 each, totaling $100 for 5 Positive Feedbacks. If you purchase the 5 Positive Feedbacks for $100, you not only get to sell your items, you also receive 5 Positive Feedbacks. As you well know, Feedback is EVERYTHING to an eBay seller on whether they are successful or not. I’m sure that you want to remain successful in your eBay business. Plus, along with the 5 Positive Feedbacks, we will also Guarantee Never to contact you again and we take you off of our list. You’ll even get a receipt for your purchase. Now, here’s the important part. If you refuse to purchase the 5 Positive Feedbacks, we will leave you 5 Negative Feedbacks for starters. We have 100’s & 100’s of eBay Users in place that we can use to leave feedbacks. In fact, we have enough to consistently leave you Negative Feedbacks for months resulting in you having to shut down your business. The absolute worst thing that you can do at this point is to try and contact eBay at any time about this or refuse to cooperate; we Will start leaving you Negative Feedbacks and shut your business down. Make no mistake, we’ve been doing this for years and have the power & resources to continually leave you Negative Feedbacks resulting in the closing of your business. Think about this, if you try to report us to eBay and they try and suspend our account or something like that, it will not stop us whatsoever. Remember, I said we have 100’s if not 1,000’s of eBay Users in place that we can use to leave you Negative Feedbacks over & over again until you are forced to shut your business down that you worked so hard to build up. Even if eBay were to keep suspending our user accounts, we have plenty more that we can use to keep leaving you Negative Feedbacks and there’s No way that eBay can keep up and stop us. They have tried & failed miserably. They also know about what we do. So the best and smartest thing that you can do is protect your business and just purchase the 5 Positive Feedbacks from us. That way, it’s done and over with and you can successfully continue to run your business without ever hearing from us again. We will give you up to 72 hours from now, to reply. The sooner, the better of course. Just send us an email stating that you want to purchase the 5 Positive Feedbacks from us and let us know your main email that you use so we can contact you. If we don’t hear from you by the end of the 72 hours, we will assume that you are refusing to cooperate and we will start leaving you Negative Feedbacks. So don’t do anything stupid. The smartest thing that you can do is take this seriously, we know what we’re doing. After we hear your reply to this email, we will contact you with further instructions.

The buyer is in fact the person who won my auction.

So… what would you do?
Previous 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 … 11 Next See last post
421 replies Date posted Reply #

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tr**arn (44 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:03 PDT 1 of 421
Report the email and send it to Ebay for FB extortion.
—

19**jenn (15 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:03 PDT 2 of 421
Did this come through “my messages?” Yikes! I’d forward it to ebay.
Folks, hang onto your dashboards.
Here comes another speedbump!
—

tr**arn (44 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:03 PDT 3 of 421
What is the buyer’s ID so we can block them?
—
in**anaftw (9 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:04 PDT 4 of 421
A little more about me and the auction:
Sold for just over $100
I used featured plus (will I get that $9.95 back?)
I am a lowly bronze power seller with sales just under $2,000/month, so nothing that outstanding, but it’s a good chunk of my income.

The buyer has 3 feedback, all over 1 year old and from NARUs.
The name and email address that it came from match the name and email on the account that won the auction, so this doesn’t seem to be a hidden scam from someone who isn’t an ebay user.
I currently have 100% positive and a little over 500 total feedback in the past year.
I’ve been told to call PS support on Monday about this and have forwarded the email to ebay.
—
ch**t49 (91 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:06 PDT 5 of 421
so you have thier address? drive to thier house and burn it to the ground
—
ci**girlhardware (378 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:06 PDT 6 of 421
This sounds like it might be criminal.
http://www.ic3.gov/
from the site:
“The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA).”
—
pl**sedtameetcha (12 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:07 PDT 7 of 421
Scary.
LR
—
lo**postid (0 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:14 PDT 8 of 421
sounds like a “business protection” fee to me LOL.

I would love to get this email!
Have it tracked to the hometown, and have them arested for extortion.
Sure, the cops don’t care about feedback, but:
The absolute worst thing that you can do at this point is to try and contact eBay at any time about this or refuse to cooperate; we Will start leaving you Negative Feedbacks and shut your business down. Make no mistake, we’ve been doing this for years and have the power & resources to continually leave you Negative Feedbacks resulting in the closing of your business.
That is a personal threat! Notice they don’t specify what “business”, it could be an in home business or in town. This is a personal threat, and should be treated as such.
—
na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:19 PDT 9 of 421
I would go to the media immediately, forget ebay, they’re slower than molasses in January in Alaska.
Print it out with full headers, a copy of the auction, a copy of the bidding history of that auction and all other pertinent paper trail and go to your local tv and newspapers with it.
I would also send it to the State AG’s office in the buyer’s state with a cover letter explaining factually (no emotion) how this came about.
Don’t let ebay bury this one.
—
mo**erof3wonderfulkids (0 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:19 PDT 10 of 421
Wow
He won your auction and instead of paying you for the widget he bought he wants YOU to pay him $100 to get 5 Positives? That means he is ready to bid on 4 more of your auctions?
BLOCK HIM.
Then report him to Ebay…and pull contact information. It’s probably not valid and that is one of the reasons you can get negs removed.
————————-
I’m offically on Strike-No listing and no buying until the Feedback Policy is Null and Void.
—
pu**e*couture (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:20 PDT 11 of 421
It was only a matter of time………..
And eBay claims it was “worried about SECOND CHANCE OFFERS”
—
na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:21 PDT 12 of 421
purse, don’t raise my blood pressure SCO scams my behind!
—
tu**eyjackson (324 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:23 PDT 13 of 421
We’ll see if the system works. If eBay does what they say they’ll do, this nut is out of luck.
As to the fee credit for featured plus, yes, as long as this was not a multiple item listing and you successfully file the UID.
I wouldn’t mind turning into a vermilion goldfish.
—
wi**ysgrandma (2341 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:23 PDT 14 of 421
Check your e-mail
—
pu**e*couture (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:24 PDT 15 of 421
Seriously, I get chills……………..thinking about SCO “fraud” claims by eBay
I swear, I have bought AT LEAST 900-1,000 widgets *PER YEAR* on eBay, and have NEVER received a fraudulent SCO.
Can you say fraudulent FRAUD?
—
na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:24 PDT 16 of 421
who are the other 4 referred to?
Come on, this is the system ebay created, let ebay handle this publicly and address how they will stop this nonsense now. Not one seller at a time.
It is extortion and it’s a chargeable offense.
—
co**ie10 (11166 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:25 PDT 17 of 421
I would go to the media immediately, forget ebay, they’re slower than molasses in January in Alaska.
That’s probably the dumbest thing you’ve said on this board.
OP - you HAVE to report it to Ebay. They are the only people who can shut down this looney.
By all means, send it to the media as well, but Ebay must be your first port of call.
—
ww**88 (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:25 PDT 18 of 421
You need to report this to eBay as extortion. Pull the buyer’s contact info (email and phone) and call him and email him. If the phone and/or email is bogus, report to eBay (if bogus any feedback he gives will be deleted). His contact info will have his address. Call the police department in his city and file a report.
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ai**rushayatollah (198 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:26 PDT 19 of 421
They will block the one ID, then the seller will get negs and NPB’s out the wazoo.
I actually wouldn’t go through FeeBay because if they take any kind of action at all the police may not have to get involved.
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ho**luludance (32 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:26 PDT 20 of 421
Post this on Trust and Safety.
Does Powerseller support function over the weekend?
I’d call Live Help.
File the extortion report.
I wouldn’t answer them at all.
—
ai**rushayatollah (198 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:26 PDT 21 of 421
Contact ISP though.
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na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:28 PDT 22 of 421
IF ebay had a track record of doing the right thing in a timely manner, I would use ebay.
Can anyone say they’ve got a good track record?
Go to the media, let the media know that the system ebay has set up is failing miserably.
Not only will this fool leave negative feedback, the seller will then have to go through all of ebay’s hoops to get it removed.
Who are the other 4? Are there 4 others? Talk about the perfect threat.
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co**ie10 (11166 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:28 PDT 23 of 421
Shame you didn’t post with your real ID so that we could all see who this person is that won the auction.
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na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:29 PDT 24 of 421
cobbie, posting with a selling ID is a good way for people to mess with your auctions, don’t you think the OP has had enough of that already?
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pl**t1here2 (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:29 PDT 25 of 421
Send me their address.
If they’re close enough, I’d like to have face to face, um, chat with them,
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ai**rushayatollah (198 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:29 PDT 26 of 421
A cheerleader.
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ho**luludance (32 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:30 PDT 27 of 421
Shame you didn’t post with your real ID so that we could all see who this person is that won the auction.
Oh, yes, and then some numnut here will bring the buyer to this thread and all hell breaks loose.
Nancy, I appreciate your sentiment about eBay, but eBay DOES shut down people like this. The advice given here has to be what’s best for the OP, not what will embarrass eBay the most.
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tr**arn (44 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:31 PDT 28 of 421
This is one example of when a seller should post with their selling ID. Without it we can’t block or help report this scary buyer. What if this buyer is trying this scam on multiple sellers. The OP should warn them.
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lo**postid (0 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:31 PDT 29 of 421
After we hear your reply to this email, we will contact you with further instructions.
That was a mistake on their part. Respond to it and see what the ‘further instructions’ are! Maybe it’ll be a better way to get info on this guy.
Try telling him you need his account info so you can transfer the $100 to him directly. And you don’t trust paypal for this transaction.
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lo**postid (0 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:32 PDT 30 of 421
Join him in his game, but make sure he never actually gets any money from you
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pl**t1here2 (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:33 PDT 31 of 421
Not sure if it was mentioned, but don’t worry about possible negs, Ebay most likely will do away with any you get from this.
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ca**mom3boys (924 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:34 PDT 32 of 421
Please post the auction number.
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na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:34 PDT 33 of 421
Honolulu, if you think hiding this ‘in house’ with ebay is the solution, fine.
I don’t. This is out of control garbage and those who want to stay and sell are getting all kinds of ridiculous feedback (because a buyer can with impunity ) and then this kind of cr@p?
And since the policies have changed, get an eyefull and see what people are teaching others to do to sellers on ebay, just google it and you’ll be shocked.
The plans are being formulated and some will take it to the extreme we see here.
Unless someone is prosecuted or publicly shamed, it will not stop.
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tr**arn (44 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:34 PDT 34 of 421
Lulu, I didn’t think about someone tattling to the buyer. There are some that would do just that.
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pl**t1here2 (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:35 PDT 35 of 421
These people need to be jailed.
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na**ybusinraleigh (2967 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:35 PDT 36 of 421
Furthermore, will ebay block this buyer from registering again? How?
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ai**rushayatollah (198 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:35 PDT 37 of 421
Wall Street Journal.
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my**gbokali (256 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:36 PDT 38 of 421
This is BS OP….report to ebay, call the police, scream it on the hilltops…I wouild tell everyone you can. YOU CANNOT LET THEM DO THIS TO YOU…..no matter what they say.
DO NOT GIVE IN….please. I wish I could help you personaly cause this is just down right wrong not to mention has to be against the law.
and its EBays fault. Sorry, just my opinion.
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mi**yteoil (Private ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:37 PDT 39 of 421
You really need to report this guy under multiple reporting functions through ebay. Maybe forward it to the higher ups at eBay also. They really should see what has been created with their new fb policy.
I also agree that it is a shame that we don’t know the id of this person.
Does he have a lot of fb?
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Page 1 of 11 Go to page
Previous 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 … 11

and a screenshot of page 1 of 11 of the Censored / Deleted eBay forum from the Google Cache

How much do you wanna bet eBay will request Google to delete the cache???

About a month ago media news reported arrest of Romanian coder, eBay hacker Vladuz, whose real name is Vlad Constantin Duiculescu, a young ( 20 year old ) high school graduate from Bucharest, who illegally accessed the e-Bay database from 2005 to 2007 and caused $2m in damage to the online sales site.

Just last month, Vladuz was arrested in a joint operation by the Romanian anti-organised crime unit and the Home Intelligence Service.

He told the judge that he hacked the e-Bay servers because he wanted to be famous and had abandoned school because he had nothing to learn there. It would be nice to get the transcript of what else Vladuz he told the judge since eBay denies any hacking to eBay servers ever occured. Remember, eBay labeled this incident as “- Some messages were published on a community board on the eBay.de (Germany) web site by a person who gained access to a small number of employee email accounts.” and here eBay spokespersong proclaiming “He did find access to a small amount of customer service rep e-mail accounts. He used those to go on discussion forums, as a pink — when an employee posts, it’s highlighted in pink. He did that in an attempt basically to say, ‘Ha ha, look what I did.”

It’s fantastic to hear this hacker kid was arrested, hopefully they will lock him up for a while. It would be interesting to see how eBay claims their security was not breached at all while the hacker braggs about accessing eBay system and servers. It’s the cover up odor that bothers me on this. eBay misleads it’s customers into a false sense of safety and security.

Some Follow up Vladuz : eBay Hackers from Romania bits:

• Here is a link to the article from Southeast European Times from 5/22/2008 giving some additional information on Romanian hackers posing increasing international threat

• Here is a Google Translateed article about partnership between Romanian Authorities and Ebay which stemmed from the investigation of the Vladuz case

So when shopping on eBay, be extra vigilant! As of today the same scammer, phisher and hacker we’ve been tracking for YEARS is still alive and well, hijacking eBay sellers, uploading fake scam eBay auctions and scamming HUNDREDS of unsuspecting eBay buyers into thinking eBay is safe place to shop. Seller feedback does not mean anything when seller has been hijacked!

OK, enough with words, let’s lay down some proof. Here are auctions this scammer is running on MANY HIJACKED SELLER ACCOUNTS ON EBAY. These are just auctions he is running this minute. He is not a very smart hacker, if we can find him for years without any special tools. Obviously, he is smart enough to be evading eBay security army that consists of 2,000 security professionals backed by 5 Billion dollars in cash.

The phisher is currently using this line:
NOTICE: Please do not bid if you don’t have the money. I will cancel all bids if you do not contact me first. I have had bad experience with non-paying bidders and I do not want that to repeat. If you are interested and want to know more about this auction then please email me at:
Mitica233@aol.com

• eBay seller Seller: jsti**on54 Feedback:100 % Positive Member: since Aug-20-03 in United States hijacked, with fake auction on DW Drum Collector Series Drums drum set This Fake eBay auction has 14 Bidders, [[ read as 14 victims of this scammer, who believe they are safe on eBay dealing with 100% feedback seller, those eBay victim buyers are being mislead by eBay inti thinking they are safe on eBay]]
• The same scammer hijacked another 100% Feedback eBay seller Seller: fool4**nkin Feedback: 100 % Positive Member: since May-21-04 in United States and is currently running scam fake eBay auction or Roland Electronic Drum Sets -TD20S-BK - V-Pro TD20 Kit which has 19 Bids now - Read 19 VICTIMS and on the same hijacked eBay seller account, he is also running Fake Scam eBay auction for Sean Ryon 16 Ranch Cutting Saddle with additional 11 BIDS / Victims. The strategy is simple, hacker collects bids from unsuspecting sellers and as soon as the scam auction price reaches higher value (here is a screenshot of that same auction few minutes later), he cancels all the bids- screenshot here so he can attract more victims to this super bargain listing.
• And that’s not all, there are many more hijacked by him, like this 100% Feedback eBay seller karenzita1 Feedback: 100 % Positive Member: since Oct-05-05 in United States where the eBay scammer uploaded Fake auction on eBay for Roland Fantom X8 with Case and this auction has 15 BIDS ..ehm.. read Victims who think eBay is safe place to shop.
• Yep, there is more, this scammer has also hijacked Seller: kigh**oy
  Feedback: 100 % Positive Member: since Apr-23-99 in United States and uploaded Scam Auction for Canon XL2 BRAND NEW and currently has only 1 Bidder Victim.

• Another Hijacked eBay Seller: angi**61 Feedback: 100 % Positive
  Member: since Nov-17-02 in United States where this scammer uploaded Fake eBay auction for John Deere 425 Lawn & Garden Tractor

• Another 100% eBay Seller: ferns**ction Feedback: 100 % Positive
  Member: since May-02-00 in United States hijacked with a SCAM Fake auction on eBay for Precor EFX576i Elliptical Crosstrainer

• Another 100% Feedback eBat Seller Hijacked dymun**l2k5 Feedback: 100 % Positive
  Member: since Apr-03-05 in United States with a Scam eBay Auction for Bose Lifestyle series 4 Surround System :: Note in that Screenshot: PAYPAL ACCOUNT REQUIRED TO BID! The scammer will try to hijack bidder paypal accounts and most likely is able to Accept PayPal payments. PayPal is becoming a favorite payment method of those scammers

At the moment there are other hackers we could find quickly, using disposable email addresses luring unsuspecting buyers. Some of the hackers have Hijacked PayPal accounts so the Western Union eBay payment is no longer a sole payment way you can get scammed with. Hijacked PayPal accounts have become an important tool for eBay phishers / scammers.

This scammer is currently using disposable email address rb.biz99@gmail.com

and hijacked eBay Seller: da**ta$2 ( 433) Changed User ID (less than 30 days) Feedback: 100 % Positive Member: since Jun-13-01 in United States and uploaded Fake Scam eBay auction for PRECOR 576i ELLIPTICAL CROSSTRAINER (EXPERIENCE SERIES) : note this auction ends in 8 Minutes! so much for eBay Trust and Safety Team of 2000 security professionals removing FAKE auctions quickly.

Yet another Scam Disposable email address proclaiming this on another hijacked eBay Seller Account:

BEFORE YOU BID,CONTACT ME FOR THE BUY NOW PRICE,BECAUSE IT IS VERY LOW!!!
Please email me ONLY at: davidbarr011@gmail.com ! If you really want it !

Here he has hijacked eBay Seller: neurosoc**lite Feedback: 100 % Positive
Member: since Sep-10-03 in United States and is successfully running a fake eBay Scam auction for **NEW** 17′ APPLE MACBOOK PRO 2.4 GHZ 4GB RAM 160 GB HD with 22 bids [[ victims to false security feeling on eBay ]] This auction has been running since yesterday and certainly collected plenty victims who will get burned on eBay again.

And last but not least, you can take a look at this 100 % feedback seller marked by a hijacker whose current tag line is :
My Request is to CONTACT me directly to my email address
My personal EMAIL adres is : deangalbin@gmail.com

The poor Hijacked ebay Seller Seller: ri**3 Feedback: 100 % Positive
Member: since Jan-03-00 in United States even noticed his account is hijacked on on this fake auction for BRAND NEW XBOX 360 Elite Console+2 Controllers & Game the hijacked seller posted 3 days ago! :
On May-21-08 at 06:17:35 PDT, seller added the following information:
THIS IS NOT MY ITEM!! Please do not bid!!

Although eBay would like you to believe it is safe to shop there, the evidence suggests otherwise.

It was speculated when eBay purchased over 25% share in Craigslist that eBay is on a fishing (not phishing) expedition to observe craigslist’s success and then copy it. It is a known fact that beyond it’s founder’s innovative idea to create an online auction, eBay’s executive team has not invented anything since. eBay’s management is great at spending it’s cash on mostly miss (Skype) sometimes hit (PayPal) acquisitions. Less then a month ago we have commented on a eBay vs. Craigslist lawsuit which set the stage for Craigslist initiating their own proceedings against eBay. The full document is available here and it provides some interesting insights into what allegedly goes on behind the scenes. Read the document, it provides a peak into the world of corporate espionage, false advertising, deception and other corporate shinnanagans you won’t find in official company press releases.

eBay is certainly not a stranger to being accused of unfair play and facing substantial fines and penalties for it’s mistakes. Here is a abbreviated history of some legal processes she has faced or is currently litigating:

August 11, 2003 SHARE PRICE 25.46
eBay Accounts for Lawsuit Loss: The auction giant shaves $30M from Q2 results after a patent verdict against it was upheld last week but says it will appeal. February 28, 2008 Case MercExhange vs. eBay settled, As a part of the settlement, eBay purchased all three patents from MercExhange involved in the lawsuit, and related technology and inventions, as well as a license to another search-related patent portfolio that was not asserted in the lawsuit

July 30, 2004 SHARE PRICE 39.16
PayPal Sends Users Notice of Class-Action Lawsuit Settlement: PayPal and plaintiffs reached a settlement in the class-action lawsuit stemming from 2002, when two PayPal users filed class action lawsuits against the online payment service owned by eBay. Some of the accusations by the plantiffs were that, as of early 2002, PayPal was understaffed, hid its customer service phone numbers to save money, had rude and unhelpful phone staff, did not answer customer service email, and “without notice or warning, erroneously and unnecessarily” limited or closed accounts and then made it difficult to restore the accounts.

June 22, 2004 SHARE PRICE 43.60
Tiffany Sues eBay over Fakes : Tiffany said 73% of items purchased on eBay in a study it conducted were counterfeit

April 29, 2005 SHARE PRICE 31.71
Tentative Settlement Reached in eBay Stock ‘Spinning’ Lawsuit : the settlement calls for the payment to eBay of $3 million by Meg Whitman, Pierre Omidyar, Jeffrey Skoll and Robert Kagle, who are officers/directors/controlling stockholders of eBay, and a payment to eBay of $395,000 by Goldman Sachs Group, eBay’s investment banking firm.

In June 6 2006 SHARE PRICE 31.59
Net2Phone, Inc. filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey (No. 06-2469) alleging that eBay Inc., Skype Technologies S.A., and Skype Inc. infringed five patents owned by Net2Phone relating to point-to-point Internet protocol. The suit seeks an injunction against continuing infringement, unspecified damages, including treble damages for willful infringement, and interest, costs, and fees

August 7 2006 SHARE PRICE 24.12
Louis Vuitton Malletier and Christian Dior Couture filed two lawsuits in the Paris Court of Commerce against eBay Inc. and eBay International AG. Among other things, the complaint alleges that we violated French tort law by negligently broadcasting listings posted by third parties offering counterfeit items bearing plaintiffs’ trademarks, and by purchasing certain advertising keywords. The plaintiffs seek approximately EUR 37 million in damages.

September 6 2006, SHARE PRICE 27.53
Parfums Christian Dior, Kenzo Parfums, Parfums Givenchy, and Guerlain Société also filed a lawsuit in the Paris Court of Commerce against eBay Inc. and eBay International AG. The complaint alleges that we have interfered with the selective distribution network the plaintiffs established in France and the European Union by allowing third parties to post listings offering genuine perfumes and cosmetics for sale on our websites. The plaintiffs in this suit seek approximately EUR 9 million in damages and injunctive relief

April 26th, 2007 SHARE PRICE 34.22
eBay, PayPal face court action Class action alleges unfair monopoly: eBay warned shareholders yesterday that it is facing a possible class action suit in the state of California and is likely to be hit by more patent cases. The suit alleges that eBay and PayPal acted “to improperly ‘monopolise’ the forms of payment that sellers can use on eBay”.

August 2007 SHARE PRICE 33.54
class-action lawsuit in which attorney John Fabry stated, “eBay has been deceiving millions of consumers over the years by claiming their auctions start when submitted, when in reality they do not begin for at least several hours, and up to 24 hours. However, the clock starts running on your selected auction time even though eBay hasn’t posted it yet

Jan. 10, 2008 SHARE PRICE 30.36
Lawsuit Filed against eBay Over Coin Listing Policy: The American Numismatic Association (ANA) and the Professional Numismatists Guild (PNG) are suing eBay for defamation and unfair and deceptive trade practices

May 13, 2008 SHARE PRICE 31.41
Craigslist has filed a countersuit against eBay, alleging that the auction site used its minority stake in Craigslist to engage in unfair and unlawful anticompetitive behavior, false advertising, trademark infringement, and other misdeeds.

Update: 5-15-2008 Craigslist illustrates on their blog how eBay uses deceptive advertising on Yahoo providing a screenshot of advertisements eBay ran up even on the morning of 5-14-2008. Interestingly enough, if you try to search on Yahoo for www.craigslist.org or craigslist.org those deceptive ads no longer appear.

A new video how to scam eBay pulse was just recently published on gurucreation.com. It shows blow by blow action how some eBay members gamed the eBay pulse by using a bot software to create thousands of fake eBay user ID’s and placing watches on their items ( they all sell those get-rich-quick on eBay ebooks )

This blogger watcheditem.com shows step by step how the pulse scam works.

One interesting thing: Kekoa64 - one of the eBay sellers being credited by using this fraudulent sofware, claims in his Press Release, that eBay has purchased his blog, website etc… for an undisclosed amount so it can teach other eBay sellers how to be successfull on eBay. Here is a quote from that press release:

Friday, April 4, 2008
Kekoa64.com bought out by eBay Inc.
HONOLULU, HI (PR Newswire) - EBAY INC. based in San Jose, Calif., has acquired Kekoa64.com and eBay user id Kekoa64. “Kekoa64 - Internet Entrepreneur, eBay PowerSeller” (http://www.kekoa64.com).

Starting May 1st, eBay, and its affiliates, will use the site as a promotional tool. “We are excited at the amazing opportunity to work with Kekoa” says Dennis Breckford, Senior VP of Marketing at eBay, “we look forward to seeing how his ideas can take us to the next level”.

The company plans on a complete redesign of the site and blog. eBay also plans to keep his existing product line, as well as develop new products with him. Kekoa will remain the creative force behind the products and promotions, however, eBay will incorporate their own products in to the marketing mix.

“When eBay first contacted me about the opportunity, I thought it was a hoax, one of those phishing emails” says Kekoa Chung, 24, Kailua, HI. “The funny thing is, I was actually suspended (from eBay) at the time, and I thought it was a bit ironic that they wanted to buy me out. When I learned that it was infact true, I called Dennis and jumped on the idea.”

eBay Inc. plans on acquiring more PowerSellers like Kekoa to promote it’s website to more targeted niches. “This is the first of many more acquisitions to come” says Breckford.

Breckford will not discuss the amount Kekoa64.com was purchased for, but says that he will “not have to work another day in his life”.

—————————————————————

Update 4-27-2008
Hey, I just read the rest of the page and see the kekoa64.com blog press release is fake: there is a P.S.
under the picture
“Stay tuned to see what will happens next….
P.S. I didn’t have the time to get you guys on the first, so Aperow Fulls! :)”

Update 5-20-2008
It appears that all three eBay pulse scammers have been NARU’d by eBay:

• kekoa64
• mysterygiant
• jjfjq

AuctionBytes reported this new incentive eBay is giving to unhappy Buyers. eBay made another brilliant decision: if a buyer complains or gives low ratings to a seller, give ‘em a discount coupon. While the intentions of eBay management may be good, the fallout danger of abuse by dishonest buyers is worth considering. If an unscrupulous buyer knows that eBay will send them a coupon worth of $100 or $200 or more just because they gave a seller negative rating or low DSR ratings, some buyers may abuse this and give undeserved ratings to sellers in hopes of obtaining such coupon.

Check out the original article on AuctionBytes eBay Gives Buyers an Incentive to Complain

And, oh, btw.. did you notice that the first link in the AuctionBytes article linking the original post on eBay forums was already deleted by eBay censors? We get the famous The specified topic [2000539507] was not found. Perhaps another ACCIDENT BY EBAY CENSORS.

eBay censorship reminds me of China Censoring Tibet News

feel free to download and use this image just right click on it and save to your computer

As highlighted in the past post here, eBay spokesman said regarding censored eBay forum posts on the subject eBay padding their listings: A comment on a Tuesday Appscout post suggested that forum posts critical of eBay’s policies had been deleted.EBay denied that any forum deletions were intentional. If any posts were taken down “it was accidental,” the spokesman said. “We’re not afraid of hearing from our community and allowing them to post and discuss things and be angry on our boards” Ebay must be having another case of accidentitis on their forums as more and more critical posts are dissappearing.

This post from one of eBays largest powersellers titled

I have sold 300,000 eBay items but am quitting completely!

is now deleted by eBay censors: here is a link to the original post:

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000529608&tstart=0&mod=1204856790666

if you click on it, you will get : The specified topic [2000529608] was not found.

My guess would be eBay is totally paranoid about seller exodus and when one of the largest power sellers calls it quits and announces it on eBay’s own Seller Discussion Forum, someone is shaking in their booties, thinking this might encourage other sellers to move away. So deleting the post and pretending it never happened is the eBay way! I am sure this incident will never make it to the mainstream media and if it does, it will be declared another accident/test/glitch.

Again, Google is our friend and we have screenshots of the censored out post that eBay deleted by accident, check out what eBay did not want you to see.

screenshot of I have sold 300,000 eBay items but am quitting completely! deleted thread by eBay censors

PC Magazine published their article on the eBay inflating listings on their site: eBay padding listings on their site

It’s a good summary of what was happening over the past weekend. The most interesting part of that article however is they way eBay spokespersons explained this test/bug/glitch/accident/incompetence. Here is a short digest of that:

EBay on Tuesday admitted that a “bug” in its system had accidentally placed listings from eBay-owned shopping.com onto eBay.com late Friday night.

The bug was related to the gallery feature that allows users to place a small photo of their item on the initial search returns page, a spokesman said. EBay traditionally charged 35 cents to include a gallery photo, but as part of the policy changes that went into effect February 20, they are now free of charge.

However, “the code actually rolled out three hours late, so there were a certain number of listings … that didn’t get gallery free, so we were going back and fixing that” on Friday, the spokesman said. “What happened was, when we wrote the code to implement that fix in the database table, there was a string that was left on there that populated and sent shopping.com listings onto ebay.com that it shouldn’t have.”

Approximately 5,000 listings were pulled from shopping.com, but they have since been removed, according to eBay.

Sellers pointed to the listings snafu as evidence that eBay was inflating its numbers to make up for losses sustained during the boycott. When the bug first emerged on Friday, the spokesman told a reporter that it was actually a planned test.

“But it wasn’t a test. It ended up being a bug,” he said. “So I ate a little bit of crow on that.”

….

A comment on a Tuesday Appscout post suggested that forum posts critical of eBay’s policies had been deleted.

EBay denied that any forum deletions were intentional. If any posts were taken down “it was accidental,” the spokesman said. “We’re not afraid of hearing from our community and allowing them to post and discuss things and be angry on our boards”

AuctionBytes further reported Lieberman said fewer than 35,000 listings were affected by the glitch.

However, he had no explanation for the fact that when AuctionBytes looked at one Shopping.com selling account on Saturday morning, it indicated the seller had over 80,000 listings on eBay.com. One seller claimed on Saturday that he had captured screenshots that showed there were many more Shopping.com listings on eBay.

Lieberman said eBay has always been conservative without a hint of financial scandal in its life. eBay reports the number of registered users and number of listings to the SEC on a quarterly basis. Of the accusations of listing count manipulation, Lieberman said, “To think that we’d do that now is outrageous.”

It appears that

eBay lied about the cause of the mystery listings, first t was a test, then it was a bug….

eBay lied about how many listings were affected in this incident: first if was 5,000 now it is 35,000 while there are screenshots showing hundreds of thousands of listings.

eBay lied about censoring MANY forum posts calling this an accident…. how do you delete multiple threads on this subject by accident? As this eBay user indicated here: Boy ebay sure has a lot of “glitches” and “If any posts were taken down “it was accidental,”. Rbay sure has a lot of “accidents” lately. “We’re not afraid of hearing from our community and allowing them to post and discuss things and be angry on our boards.” Another lie from ebay, the comment below was posted my me on there forum it was pulled, so I re-posed it, Censored out idiot, and John Donhole, I more then made sure it did not violate any of ebay’s “polices” and they still pulled it a second time. Screw you ebay, I started taking my business to Amazon back in July of 2006 when you pulled your stunt with the ebay stores, you did not learn then and I know you will not learn not, put all the spins on things you want, lets see you fix the “bad Press” that you have gotten, let’s see how soon you get my $88.00 plus per month business back, stock holders are you reading this.

“Somewhere in this world a village is missing it’s idiot, if they look for him they can find him on ebay, he’s the guy running the company John Donhole”

eBay lied about when the listing glitch happened. According to eBay this was a glitch/test/bug that surfaced on the weekend of March 1st and 2nd: so why are listings on this screenshot dated 2/22/2008 ?

It appears that there are plenty of Videos documenting the usual eBay PR lies.

 Update 3/17/2008 This Event Horizon Blog Has an eccellent compilation of  The eBay SDC_PROD Affair

Source: Gmarket: The Better eBay 2/28/2008
At least one company means what it says in South Korea. I mention that only because I called out Gmarket rival eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) last month for claiming that it’s gaining ground on Gmarket.

“We’re pleased about our performance in Korea, where we believe we’ve significantly narrowed the gap with our main competitor over the last three or four quarters,” eBay CFO Bob Swan noted during January’s conference call.

He pointed to the company’s 33% improvement in gross merchandise value (GMV) in South Korea during the quarter. However, Gmarket’s GMV climbed by 42% during the period. Even a mathematically mediocre kindergartner can tell you that the numbers imply a widening — not narrowing — gap

In this article, the author refers to his article from two weeks earlier ( Can We Take eBay Seriously ) :

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2008/01/28/can-ebay-be-taken-seriously.aspx

From eBay’s company history:
“eBay was conceived initially as a result of a conversation between Pierre Omidyar and his wife, an avid PEZ collector (she currently covets a collection of more than 400 dispensers). She commented to Pierre how great it would be if she were able to collect PEZ dispensers and interact with other collectors over the Internet.”

and here is from CNN:

Speaking of eBay, its founder, Pierre Omidyar, dated a PEZ collector who used the site in its earliest incarnation to buy and sell rare dispensers.

“Pam Omidyar, the fiancée and now wife of the gentleman who started eBay, was a PEZ collector, and she still is,” said Kevin Pursglove, a spokesperson for eBay.

But then again, you can see articles like this:
Friday, July 19, 2002
The Times: eBay’s creation myth exposed

How did eBay make a boring tech firm look sexy? By inventing its own ‘creation myth’. David Rowan reports

It was the warm, smalltown story of a corporate giant’s humble beginnings that enticed Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, even the fact-obsessed New Yorker. When Pam Wesley wanted to boost her collection of Pez sweet dispensers, her fiance, Pierre Omidyar, built a website for her to trade them. That website grew to be the huge online auction house eBay, one of the internet gold rush’s few success stories - even though, in the words of the company’s PR chief, Mary Lou Song, it began simply “as kind of a love token”.

It was a touching tale, recounted in endless profiles on both sides of the Atlantic, with only one flaw: it was a lie. As Song admits in a new book by Adam Cohen, The Perfect Store: Inside eBay, she invented the story five years ago to generate publicity for an otherwise dull tech company. “No one wants to hear about a 30-year-old genius who wanted to create a perfect market,” Song confesses. So she constructed what corporate PRs call a “creation myth”, and hoodwinked some of the world’s most respected reporters. Some of her victims are furious.

“If they lied to me, and then to the New Yorker’s diligent fact-checkers, then I’m angry,” fumes James Gleick, who profiled eBay in the magazine three years ago and then in his book What Just Happened. “I am embarrassed. My readers are meant to be able to rely on me.”

Equally indignant is Susan Moran, who covered the company for the online magazine Salon. “I feel misled, duped, embarrassed, stupid and angry,” she says. “As a journalist I’m usually on guard against lies or smoother mistruths. But somehow I felt differently about Pierre. Now he’s just another US CEO to doubt.”

The issue raises questions about how far corporate publicists mislead journalists to generate favourable press. There is nothing new in a company’s PRs exaggerating its humble origins, according to David Brain, the joint CEO of the communications agency Weber Shandwick, but an outright lie carries huge risks. “These myths of inception are a powerful way of communicating some truth about a company’s DNA, and are usually told once the company has grown big,” he explains. “You’ll hear that Richard Branson started the Virgin record empire from a phone box at university, or Hewlett-Packard began in a garage. There’s probably an element of truth there, but we’d never advise a client to fib. Once you know you’ve been lied to, the whole reason for trusting that brand has been negated.”

Jon Aarons, the president of the Institute of Public Relations, insists that for this reason, such lies are rare. But he believes that journalists often conspire with PRs in “an unholy alliance” to enliven their stories: “The media are just as guilty for not checking out these myths.”

That is certainly eBay’s defence this week. “I honestly believe we did not intend to mislead anyone,” claims an eBay spokesman, Kevin Pursglove, rather unconvincingly. He admits that “Pez’s role in eBay’s creation may have taken on a life of its own”, but blames journalists for ignoring more mundane angles.

“Reporters didn’t show much interest in marketplaces, or battered keyboards or Star Wars artefacts for sale,” he says - until they heard the Pez story. “Inevitably, the finished story would mention the Pez angle but leave out virtually all the other factors.”

Tech companies, often those hardest to sell to journalists as “sexy”, are those most commonly linked with creation myths. Apple Computers and Hewlett-Packard even ran commercials celebrating their garage origins. When three management consultants launched an online betting site, Flutter.com, three years ago, it was widely reported that it stemmed from their own betting competitions during a Super Bowl party. “That wasn’t the case,” says a source close to the team, “but it didn’t stop them winning the column inches.”