Let's talk about Ebay fraud.
There are occasionally stories like this: June 12 - Police in South Salt Lake, Utah, are working with eBay to determine just how many people were victimized by what authorities say was one of the biggest frauds in the auction site’s history. Police arrested 31-year-old Russell Dana Smith last weekend after hundreds of auction winners complained that they sent $1,000 or more to a company named Liquidation Universe for laptop computers they never received. Police say the firm appears to have raked in $1 million from about 1,000 victims in just a few weeks.
I was looking to buy an ancient coin just for fun, and got alerted by one seller that a lot of fraud was going on there. There is a Yahoo discussion group that discusses the frequent frauds in that category. It seems to be the opinion that Ebay would be just as happy if no one bothered to ferret out fraud on their sales. At any rate, I am not going to be buying any ancient coin now, or at least not without a whole lot of care. groups.yahoo.com
It makes me wonder if a lot of items that are posted as "I got it for my birthday and only used it once," could not be garage sale purchases.
I have had decent luck on Ebay. 15 purchases, or which 2 were DOA electronics, which the seller made good on. Still, it is highly recommended to only purchase new-new in box, unused electronics.
I think if Ebay took really strong steps to hold back fraud, it would hurt in the short term, but help in the long term. Whether the problem will grow or not is hard to say.
Ebay is in interesting company. |
