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hacker · 06-27-2005, 11:30 PM

Your story is a good one... and exemplifies how well eBay sellers can be sometimes.

Unfortunately, this is a minority, and in your case, an exceptional one. Most eBay sellers that I've dealt with and read about, would just have taken your keyboard and resold it on eBay, ignoring all of your emails about it.

I had a very ugly experience with eBay, which ended up getting much uglier for many other people.

In short, I bought a laptop from a seller on eBay, new, and it took several months to receive it, and only after I tracked down the home address of the seller in New York and called him at his house, interrupting his dinner. I mentioned that I had to cancel two speaking gigs I had because I didn't have a presentation laptop to use. I told him to ship it the NEXT DAY, or I would stop by the day after that and pick it up myself. Since I clearly had his home address and phone number, he really had no choice.

I was the last person out of over 300 others that saw a laptop from this person.

The scam was so broad, that my Advogato entry was the only one that would come up in a Google search for the seller's name, and buyers who were being burned would email me and ask for help, contact info, details, etc. It even made the news in quite a few places. He was eventually nailed by the FTC for his scam, with many of my emails and other research as evidence against him (I even received a personal Thank You letter from the FTC for my detailed "evidence" collected that helped them track him down and prosecute).

I got a call from an officer in NY asking for some details, and I said I had "a few" emails from people who were also being scammed. He asked me to send them along... I sent over 100 separate emails to him. The officer was blown away with the number of people being scammed. He only thought it was a few here and there.. We talked for quite awhile about what his scam really was, and here was my take (which I later verified in action after I received my laptop; a laptop that has been back to IBM for repair 7 times in 2 years, a total lemon):

Offer for sale, a handful of laptops which at sale time, are "bleeding edge" models, brand new on the showroom floor.
Let multiple people bid on them, bringing the price near retail, but not quite over retail price.
Winners are required to send in payment within 5 business days, or forfeit the auction.

And here's part of the scam:

At no point does the seller actually purchase ANY laptops. He simply makes up a bunch of auctions and lets lots of different "winners" send him some money for their "winning auction".
When multiple people send you money for the same physical laptop (which he doesn't actually own or posess), delay as long as you can, weeks and months, until people complain. For those that complain, delay with some excuses about shipments being delayed, warehouses being relocated, parts on backorder, ANYTHING you can think of to delay people more and more.
When "winners" complain and threaten to bring in legal action, offer to boost their RAM or hard drive capacity for free.
If they refuse, refund their money (note, this is 3-4 months after the auction closes)
Everyone once in awhile, take the money you're bankrolling, and buy a laptop to send to a "winner". 3-4 months later, you can buy the "bleeding edge" laptop at almost 40% off of the price, since it is no longer "new". It's almost 1/2 year old by now. Pocket the difference.

Basically he was taking money from winners, keeping it in the bank as long as he could, gaining interest on it, and every once in awhile, would send someone their laptop, less than 5% of the winners got their laptops.

Eventually, he figured out that the whole "send the winner what they paid for" was too much work, and he stopped sending laptops to anyone. He just let them send him their money, and he kept it. He was doing this with dozens of laptops per-week. Figure $1,500 to $2,000 per-laptop, per-week. That's close to $20k he was collecting and banking.

In any case, he was nailed, thanks entirely to my painstaking details about his operations and collecting the emails of others who had been scammed and contacted me. Several of those who were scammed tried to take the limelight by creating websites to collect names, document losses, etc, but I was the original and I had the most-detailed data on the seller.

But at least I got my laptop.. and tattered as it is now, several years later, it still chugs along in my office as a spare machine and test machine for various OS builds.

My own experience with eBay has been very VERY bad, so I hesitate to use it now. There's just too much "rating" fraud going on and you can't trust anything anymore, since nobody from end to end is held accountable for their actions using the system. Its a shame too, eBay could really have been something wonderful.. but like everything else lately (legal ebooks, royalty free music, clean and fast email), its ruined by assholes trying to make a quick buck.

06-27-2005, 11:30 PM	#2
hacker Technology Mercenary Posts: 617 Karma: 2561 Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: East Lyme, CT Device: Direct Neural Implant	Your story is a good one... and exemplifies how well eBay sellers can be sometimes. Unfortunately, this is a minority, and in your case, an exceptional one. Most eBay sellers that I've dealt with and read about, would just have taken your keyboard and resold it on eBay, ignoring all of your emails about it. I had a very ugly experience with eBay, which ended up getting much uglier for many other people. In short, I bought a laptop from a seller on eBay, new, and it took several months to receive it, and only after I tracked down the home address of the seller in New York and called him at his house, interrupting his dinner. I mentioned that I had to cancel two speaking gigs I had because I didn't have a presentation laptop to use. I told him to ship it the NEXT DAY, or I would stop by the day after that and pick it up myself. Since I clearly had his home address and phone number, he really had no choice. I was the last person out of over 300 others that saw a laptop from this person. The scam was so broad, that my Advogato entry was the only one that would come up in a Google search for the seller's name, and buyers who were being burned would email me and ask for help, contact info, details, etc. It even made the news in quite a few places. He was eventually nailed by the FTC for his scam, with many of my emails and other research as evidence against him (I even received a personal Thank You letter from the FTC for my detailed "evidence" collected that helped them track him down and prosecute). I got a call from an officer in NY asking for some details, and I said I had "a few" emails from people who were also being scammed. He asked me to send them along... I sent over 100 separate emails to him. The officer was blown away with the number of people being scammed. He only thought it was a few here and there.. We talked for quite awhile about what his scam really was, and here was my take (which I later verified in action after I received my laptop; a laptop that has been back to IBM for repair 7 times in 2 years, a total lemon): Offer for sale, a handful of laptops which at sale time, are "bleeding edge" models, brand new on the showroom floor. Let multiple people bid on them, bringing the price near retail, but not quite over retail price. Winners are required to send in payment within 5 business days, or forfeit the auction. And here's part of the scam: At no point does the seller actually purchase ANY laptops. He simply makes up a bunch of auctions and lets lots of different "winners" send him some money for their "winning auction". When multiple people send you money for the same physical laptop (which he doesn't actually own or posess), delay as long as you can, weeks and months, until people complain. For those that complain, delay with some excuses about shipments being delayed, warehouses being relocated, parts on backorder, ANYTHING you can think of to delay people more and more. When "winners" complain and threaten to bring in legal action, offer to boost their RAM or hard drive capacity for free. If they refuse, refund their money (note, this is 3-4 months after the auction closes) Everyone once in awhile, take the money you're bankrolling, and buy a laptop to send to a "winner". 3-4 months later, you can buy the "bleeding edge" laptop at almost 40% off of the price, since it is no longer "new". It's almost 1/2 year old by now. Pocket the difference. Basically he was taking money from winners, keeping it in the bank as long as he could, gaining interest on it, and every once in awhile, would send someone their laptop, less than 5% of the winners got their laptops. Eventually, he figured out that the whole "send the winner what they paid for" was too much work, and he stopped sending laptops to anyone. He just let them send him their money, and he kept it. He was doing this with dozens of laptops per-week. Figure $1,500 to $2,000 per-laptop, per-week. That's close to $20k he was collecting and banking. In any case, he was nailed, thanks entirely to my painstaking details about his operations and collecting the emails of others who had been scammed and contacted me. Several of those who were scammed tried to take the limelight by creating websites to collect names, document losses, etc, but I was the original and I had the most-detailed data on the seller. But at least I got my laptop.. and tattered as it is now, several years later, it still chugs along in my office as a spare machine and test machine for various OS builds. My own experience with eBay has been very VERY bad, so I hesitate to use it now. There's just too much "rating" fraud going on and you can't trust anything anymore, since nobody from end to end is held accountable for their actions using the system. Its a shame too, eBay could really have been something wonderful.. but like everything else lately (legal ebooks, royalty free music, clean and fast email), its ruined by assholes trying to make a quick buck. Last edited by hacker; 06-27-2005 at 11:34 PM.