Fraud on eBay / eBay's failure to respond appropriately / Effect on stock price?
I've recently established a short position in EBAY. I stumbled across a fraud there wherein a listed "eBay motors" item's 'seller', when contacted by email thru eBay, wanted to strike a deal by email & use a particular escrow service. When investigated, this escrow service turned out to be a scam. Money sent to them, supposedly to be held until the vehicle was received & OKed by the buyer, would be immediately sent offshore. There would be no vehicle shipped, of course. Lured by the eBay listing, dozens of bids & email questions to the 'seller' provide potential victims. The scam escrow site looks good, & could fool many. I thought it was real until I googled the company name & got Zero links. Then a deeper search for escrow info discovered that this sort of scam escrow site has become more & more a tool of crooks in recent months. When the scam escrow site gets 'hot', the crooks simply open up a new one.
---- EBay's response to being informed of this fraud surprised me. I notified eBay by email, & suggested to them that they should contact the other people who had emailed questions to this 'seller' or bid on the vehicle since the 'seller' doubtless would make the same attempt to lure them into sending money to the fraudulent escrow company. EBay chose to not do this, & instead let the listing stand & run its course. After seeing this, I looked into the subject of frauds on eBay. I find that eBay's response to fraud operations of various sorts is inadequate, to put it mildly, according to many who have discovered & reported frauds. I believe that fraud on eBay is increasing & is not being addressed properly. I believe that eBay is Not protecting users as it should. I believe that this failure to warn & protect users will eventually cause a scandal that could cost eBay its good name & have a profoundly negative impact on their business.
--- With the stock price of EBAY so inflated; With expected growth questionable; With the chart looking possibly toppy to me, & this looming scandal, I decided that a short position here is appropriate.
--- Disagreement & other opinions invited.
regards,
diana |
