eBay censoring forums again
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:
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.
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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!
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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?
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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.
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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
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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).”
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pl**sedtameetcha (12 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:07 PDT 7 of 421
Scary.
LR
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I’m offically on Strike-No listing and no buying until the Feedback Policy is Null and Void.
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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”
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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!
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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.
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wi**ysgrandma (2341 ) View Listings | Report May-31-08 14:23 PDT 14 of 421
Check your e-mail
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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???