You might as well hang a sign on eBay thieves welcome

Hot Deals are a steal

2010-05-03T11:56:00.000-07:00

Watching a documentary on shoplifting on the Discovery channel was shocking. As a retailer I understood theft is an ongoing never ending issue. I did not understand how big of an issue shoplifting is. It really is killing business for some people. People struggle to make sales only to have the five finger discounts walk away with any profit.

The real problem is that most people are unaware that the great deal they are getting on eBay, some online stores, flea markets and even some discount stores started off on a store shelf. How can an honest person know what was stolen? A seller of stolen product is going to strive for a golden reputation, great feedback and a very professional image just like those who are not selling stolen product.

What can the average person do? Think before buying, if a deal seems to be too good to be true that is a good sign it is. However as long as we don’t know for sure an item is stolen most of us are going to take the deal. Sometimes it is the only way to afford the things we need or want. Do I want to be buying stolen product, no. Can I be 100% sure that I am not, no. Not even when I am buying in a store.

If Everyone on eBay Was Forced to be Honest

2008-07-18T11:26:00.001-07:00

Misleading pictures, tricky language and exorbitant shipping sums have screwed people out of money time and time again. What would it look like if everyone on the auction site had to tell the truth ... even eBay?

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Pastor lists himself, family on eBay (OneNewsNow.com)

2008-07-18T11:23:00.001-07:00

Earlier this year, Chad Smith, a pastor from Tuscaloosa, began looking for a non-denominational church to lead... "I was riding my motorcycle down the road, and came up with the idea of putting my wife, myself, and my kids for sale on eBay."

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Build A Niche Stores I Would Never Build Again

2008-07-18T11:21:00.001-07:00

Great advice for ebay affiliate marketers.

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eBay's Identity Crisis = Pissing off Power Sellers

2008-07-18T11:19:00.001-07:00

The company, which helped shape Web 1.0 ecommerce, now confronts a stark reality: Internet shopping no longer looks as it did a decade ago. Auction commerce—still the company's crown jewel—is losing much of its luster. In order to keep revenue and profit growing, eBay is being forced to reboot its brand. Will eBay 2.0 still be recognizable as eBay?

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Funniest ebay sale ever!!!!!

2008-07-18T11:17:00.001-07:00

I wish the seller all the best. Read the questions they are very funny.

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When will the phishing stop

2008-07-04T18:36:00.000-07:00

Today I had about 10 different banks or money transfer companies like Paypal contact me to let me know someone has been doing something with my account. All I have to do is click this link and confirm my information so that they can investigate the unusual transactions or dispute. Of all of them I knew one by name, most were not even in my country, let alone a place that I had an account with. You have got to love those mass email programs.

It seems people actually fall for this phishing and give their information out because someone emailed them asking for it. There must be a lot of money in it because these thieves do put a lot of work into making their fake websites look like the real thing. Also because most of the crimes take place outside of their country and over the Internet it is hard to find them and then prosecute them. So they are getting away with it and people like me are paying the price.

I stopped using eBay because someone used another person’s account fraudulently and I ended up being out almost $500.00 and a lot of time. It seems that the thief may have used phishing to get the person’s eBay and Paypal information. Then they used it to buy up about ½ a million dollars worth of high end jewelry on eBay, and had it all rush shipped before the fraud was caught by the person who’s account they were using. This one person burned many people within a few hours, most lost rings valued at $2000 to $10,000. Multiply that by the number of people who actually fall for the phishing emails they could be making millions in a very short time. All of which is in untraceable product that is easy to transform into money.

Rule of thumb, if you get an email questioning your account information on anything do not respond directly to the email or use any links on it. Go to the web site using a link you know is theirs and then check out your information. If someone is sending you an email about your account there should be a message on your account. Almost every company and bank out there now has contact information on where to send phishing emails to so they can investigate it. If you get one take the time to pass the information on to the company or bank. As an individual all we can do is add it to our Spam list and delete it. I am not sure what a company can do at this point but at least they are taking it seriously.

YouTube

2008-03-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

How to cancel an eBay listing

2008-01-25T09:25:00.000-08:00

Some times life happens and you have to cancel an eBay listing. Over the years I have been forced to cancel a couple. Once the item went missing, it was never found. I kept all my eBay items in one spot and I noticed that a necklace was not were I put it. I could not find it and did not have what I needed to remake it. So I had to cancel the listing. What made it hard on me was that I had some good bids on it already. I ended up loosing the sale and still had to pay the insertion fee.

I was very lucky that I noticed it before there was less the 12 hours remaining on the auction and was able to cancel the listing. Other wise I would have had to manually cancel every bid on the necklace right up until the auction was over. That would have been difficult because people bid right up to the last second.

I explained to everyone that had a bid that the necklace was missing so I was cancelling the auction. This way they knew before they received an email from eBay saying their bid was cancelled. Once they knew I would not sell anything unless I had it right there people were ok about it. Not happy, but understood that I did not want to take the chance of selling them some thing I did not have. Good thing I did that as I never did find the necklace.

There are some very strict rules for when you can cancel an eBay listing. EBay does not like it when you cancel a listing and keeps a close eye on why people cancel a listing. Some people have cancelled listings because the bids were not as high as they wanted. So they would cancel the listing, and re-list hopping to get higher bids. That is what a reserve price is for. When people do this eBay sees it as reserve fee circumvention and will investigate if they feel some one is abusing the system to save that fee.

So how do you cancel an eBay listing? First you find the item number, you can get it from your confirmation email, the My eBay page, or the listing View Item Page. Then type the item number into the End My Listing Early form. If there are bids you will have to choose between cancel bids and end listing early or sell the item to the current highest bidder and end listing early. Then you choose the reason for ending the listing early.

OK reasons for ending the listing:
The item is no longer available for sale; changed your mind.
There was an error on the starting price or reserve amount; typo and not checking before posting.
There was an error in the listing; usually you can make a change unless it is under 12 hrs before the auction ends.
The item was lost or broken; the most common reason to end an auction, it happens to everyone some time or another.
Once you have done that the listing will end and is not displayed on eBay and any bidders are emailed that their bid will be cancelled.

This is not some thing you want to ever have to do. You loose sales and sometimes customers. People are less likely to bid on your items if you have cancelled an auction on them before. If I had found the necklace I would have re-listed it and emailed the people who had bids on it to let them know it was available again. Because of the way I handled it they may have been willing to bid again, but maybe not. I could have damaged my customer relations and lost their trust. It shows poor business skills if you cannot keep track of your product, or did not proof read your ad before posting. On the other hand it did show my integrity that I would not take the chance of selling something I no longer had.

Source: eBay

How Go Up in The Food Chain

2008-01-10T17:19:00.001-08:00

This article takes about the way to by wholesale clothing in small quantities less and sell them on eBay.

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Ebay Complaints and Ebay Seller Feedback

2008-01-10T15:35:00.003-08:00

Ebay Censors Member with 100% Perfect Feedback record from posting any messages on Discussion Boards

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THIS is how eBay works. [PIC]

2008-01-10T15:35:00.001-08:00

Seriously eBay, you should of banned that username. Ownage, literally; considering the scammer now owns those things.

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Formula: Ebay + Smart purchases + Hard Work = Fast Cash

2008-01-10T15:29:00.001-08:00

I don’t know about you but I get sick and tired of all the dumb get rich schemes out there. If you want to make serious money with Ebay then the most important thing is getting a good product dirt cheap. This is why I go to local auctions especially

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1 Pair Diamond Earrings - Retail for $165.80

2008-01-10T15:28:00.001-08:00

eBay auction. Great deal on some diamond earrings

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14KT Yellow Gold Men's Signet Ring with Round Diamond

2008-01-10T15:25:00.001-08:00

eBay auction. Great deal on a yellow gold signet ring with diamond.

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Sterling Silver Pig Hog Ring Size 9 925 9.25 NEW

2008-01-10T15:23:00.003-08:00

eBay auction. This pig hog ring cracks me up.

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Sterling Silver Mother of Pearl Claddagh Size 8 925 NEW

2008-01-10T15:23:00.001-08:00

EBay auction. I think the Mother of pearl is nice.

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Sterling Silver Unicorn Ring Size 5 925 9.25 NEW

2008-01-10T15:21:00.003-08:00

EBay auction. I think this is a nice unicorn ring.

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Sterling Silver Dragon Celtic Knot Work Ring Size 8 1/2

2008-01-10T15:21:00.001-08:00

EBay auction. I love this Dragon ring with Celtic knot work. It is a good thing it is not my size lol.

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Sterling Silver Chain link Ring Size 8 925 9.25 NEW

2008-01-10T15:20:00.001-08:00

EBay auction. This one is kind of cool because the ring moves with you, the links are flexible.

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Sterling Silver Amethyst Celtic Knot work Ring Size 9 1/2

2008-01-10T15:19:00.001-08:00

EBay auction. Nice Amethyst ring with Celtic Knot work.

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Sterling Silver Celtic Knot Work Cross Ring Size 9 925

2008-01-10T15:18:00.001-08:00

EBay auction. Very nice cross ring with Celtic knot work.

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How to retract a bid on eBay

2008-01-06T06:52:00.000-08:00

Why would any one want to retract a bid on eBay? The idea is that you want to win the item right. Well I have retracted a couple of bids over the years. One of them was because I put the wrong amount in, $100.00 instead of $10.00. I use the bid retraction form and retracted my bid of $100 and then bid the $10. I did retract one bid because the seller would not respond to my emails once I put the bid on the item. I realised that the computer part may not work with what I already had and needed some information. I never got the information, even after I retracted my bid. I did not want to take the chance of buying some thing I could not use. The retractions showed up on my feedback for 6 months, but it did not cause sellers to reject my bids. It might have been different if I had retracted a lot of bids.

EBay will only let you retract a bid if it meets the requirements of their Bid Retraction policy. Fist you cannot retract a bid on a buy it now item or after an auction has ended. You can only retract your bid for three reasons.

If you made a typographical error, like I did, putting $100.00 instead of $10.00. You must enter the correct bid amount once you retract the first bid. Otherwise eBay will see your actions as a violation of eBay's policies and your account can be suspended.
The description of an item you have bid on changed significantly after you placed your bid. I have never seen this but I am sure it happens.
You cannot contact the seller. This means that you tried to call the seller, but his or her phone number doesn't work, or that you have tried emailing a message to the seller and it comes back undeliverable. I have had one seller not respond to emails and they did loose my bid when they don’t respond.

When you placed your bid and how long is left on the auction determines if you can retract your bid as well. You can retract a bid if there is more then 12 hrs left before the auction ends. You can retract the bid within one hour of placing it. If you had a bid placed before the last 12 hours of the auction remains valid and can only retract it if the seller agrees. You contact the seller to request that your bid be cancelled and it is up to the seller’s discretion to cancel the bid or not.

EBay investigates bid retractions. If they feel that you are abusing this option they can suspended your account. They also take a very close look at bids retracted within the last 24 hrs of a listing as it can be seen as bid shielding. So be careful when entering your bids and try not to retract bids very often.

Source: eBay

How to deal with buyer fraud on eBay

2007-12-30T15:30:00.000-08:00

We got burned big time selling on eBay. We learned a lot of what not to do from this and stories from other people. I have put our story in so you know that these things really happen and are not urban myths. I have also taken the information I received from 100’s of people burned on eBay, both sellers and buyers, and used it to give you an idea of what happens and how to keep it from happening to you. If you are going to sell on eBay you need to know how to deal with buyer fraud on eBay. The best thing to do is to prevent it because it is very difficult to fix once it happens.

We put my Grandmothers ring on just before Mothers day. We got an email asking if we would be willing to ship that day as the person wanted it for Mothers day. The person had been on eBay for years and had a 100% rating. They were using Paypal to pay so we felt it would be secure. We said yes. They paid the $1116.00 right away. Once the payment was processed we took the ring to Fedex. By by ring. The next day about 24 hrs after the transaction Paypal notifies us that the transaction was fraudulent. We were one of about 10 people hit all on the same day all for rings worth about $1000.00 to $2000.00, ours was apprised over $1800.00.

Some one had gotten into another persons eBay and Paypal account and then used them to buy items. So we contacted Fedex to put a return to sender on it. It had already made it to customs and we would not be able to get it back until it cleared customs at the other end. At this point in time we were out the $116.00 it cost us to ship it.

Then we get a call from Fedex. The stop shipment order never made it to the ring. The person it was delivered to refuse to pay the Indonesian custom charges. Indonesian customs would not release the ring unless some one paid the $381.00 custom charges. Fedex explained to them that there was a stop shipment on the item and it should never have made it to customs. Indonesian customs response, not their problem, the custom charges had to be paid or they confiscate the ring to pay the charges.

We spent a week talking with Fedex trying to sort this out. We were told to pay the custom fees or we would never see the ring again. We agreed to pay. To help us, Fedex agreed to pay for the custom fees and then bill us so we could make monthly payments. Ring was to show up on a Tuesday. That day, no ring. We decide to wait until Wednesday afternoon before calling Fedex. Wednesday morning we get a call from Fedex. The Indonesian customs now wants over $900 for us to get the ring back, they had added about $600.00 in storage and handling fees for the week we were talking to Fedex.

Fedex stepped in at this point and said “no way”. They started negotiations and after about a month they were able to get the Indonesian Government to step in. We still had to pay the initial custom charges of $381.00 though. So by selling my Grandmothers ring on eBay we were out $497.00. The other sellers lost the rings. The person who bought them asked that they put a low value on the ring so they would not be charged the custom fees, so the rings were delivered right to them. Others lost them to the Indonesian customs because the customs fee was so high. We were the only ones to get the ring back. This person did get away with it, and nothing will be done to them.

Did we contact eBay and Paypal over this? Yes! We had to use emails though as there seems to be no way to contact them any other way. The end result was they refunded us our insertion fee and final auction fee. That is all they do for sellers. There is no protection for sellers, just buyers. That was it. EBay did nothing for us, even though some one had used a legitimate eBay account. Paypal at lest looked into it. About a month after they had contacted us about the possible fraudulent transaction they let us know that it was a fraudulent transaction. That was it. No explanation for how this happened, and no help with the debt we now have because of the sale.

We learned from this experience. If some thing seems to good to be true, it is. Hold all Paypal transactions for at least 3 days to make sure it is a legitimate purchase, then ship item. Do not list large ticket items or items you are not willing to loose. We do not sell on eBay anymore.

We shared out story with quite a few people and were told quite a few other eBay horror stories. Most are from sellers. Why, because eBay does nothing to protect sellers, just buyers and then only for 30 days. Common buyer stories, items were purchased, product was never shipped, and not the item bid on, did not work or was damaged. As long as it was with in 30 days eBay would negotiate for a new product to be shipped or money refunded. Paypal is best to use when buying because if you don’t receive the product ordered you can cancel the transaction with in 30 days and get your money back.

None of this does the buyer any good it the seller was using some one else’s account, fraudulently posting items for sale and then never shipping. You never know who actually put the item out for sale. The person whose account was used usually has no idea who or even how some one posted listings on their account. Another one is to open an eBay account list lots of products, get the payments and shut down the account.
This has been happening a lot. They have you send the money through Western Union and you never see the product or your money back. As a buyer you need to make sure you read the whole ad. If it says “as is” then what you get is it, and chances are it does not work or is damaged. If there is no shipping and handling fee listed, do not bid until you know what the cost is. I had one person charge me $10.00 shipping and handling for a $1.00 item that only cost $2.00 to ship. Check every thing out, and if you have any questions get them answered using the eBay emails so there is a record of the emails right on eBay.

Sellers get hit harder and more often then buyers. People will send bad cheques, which is why you never ship until the cheque clears. The most common scam is people get the product and then say they never received it and expect you to send more products or refund the money. You pay extra to have items insured and signature required when product is delivered. It may cost you more but it stops people from being able to say they never received it. And if they actually did not well then the insurance you paid for should cover that, it was a delivery service problem.

People will claim the product was damaged when received. Always take a picture of product before you send it, and again insure it so that if the shipping company damages it it is their problem. You have to get a picture of the product showing the damage when the person receives item. The problem sellers have is that they damage the item on purpose, or have a similar item damaged and claim it is the same one. This was a problem an eBay seller selling laptops was having. He recorded and photographed all numbers on the laptop and was able to prove several times that the item people claimed to be the one he shipped to them was not the same one.

Another scam he came across was people would receive his product, scratch it up, take a picture of it and claim it was received “damaged” or not as advertised in the eBay ad. It was always cosmetic damage. They would then email him and say refund me half the money because the product was damaged or I will give you a bad review for sending damaged goods. This one there is no real way to protect yourself from. You don’t give them the money they try to trash your reputation. Your only recourse is to refute the damage claim through eBay feedback.

5 ways to make money on ebay

2007-12-23T12:56:00.001-08:00

This is for those who are still willing to try and make some money on eBay. This is some good advice on eBay selling. Make sure you still play is safe, don't get taken.

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Ebay sucks! Boycott ebay!

2007-12-23T12:21:00.001-08:00

This is a consumer report on people who have had problems on eBay. There are a lot of people being taken by thieves on eBay.

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66 year old man finds his baby book on eBay

2007-12-23T12:10:00.001-08:00

How would you like to be looking on eBay only to find something of yours beings sold. This is what happened to this guy. His baby book was being auctioned off. This is a strange story, but has a happy ending.

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Yet Another Reason Why eBay Is A Total Joke

2007-12-23T12:04:00.001-08:00

I can’t believe eBay is still in business considering the huge number of scams that seem to pervade the site like flies on you-know-what. Just this past week I attempted to use eBay to auction off two notebook computers and quickly discovered that this was an impossible task thanks to all the scammers who now appear to have almost complete control of the site. Yes, you heard that right. Complete control. The way these scammers work is they send you an email asking to purchase your item outside of eBay, then when you won’t bite they hose your auction using a hacked account effectively preventing you from making a legitimate sale and at the same time sticking you with huge sellers fees from eBay. Don’t believe me? Here is the proof.

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How to retract a bid on eBay

2007-12-21T03:25:00.000-08:00

Why would any one want to retract a bid on eBay? The idea is that you want to win the item right. Well I have retracted a couple of bids over the years. One of them was because I put the wrong amount in, $100.00 instead of $10.00. I use the bid retraction form and retracted my bid of $100 and then bid the $10. I did retract one bid because the seller would not respond to my emails once I put the bid on the item. I realised that the computer part may not work with what I already had and needed some more information. I never got the information, even after I retracted my bid. I did not want to take the chance of buying some thing I could not use. The retractions showed up on my feedback for 6 months, but it did not cause sellers to reject my bids. It might have been different if I had retracted a lot of bids.

EBay will only let you retract a bid if it meets the requirements of their Bid Retraction policy. Fist you cannot retract a bid on a buy it now item or after an auction has ended. You can only retract your bid for three reasons.

If you made a typographical error, like I did, putting $100.00 instead of $10.00. You must enter the correct bid amount once you retract the first bid. Otherwise eBay will see your actions as a violation of eBay's policies and your account can be suspended.
The description of an item you have bid on changed significantly after you placed your bid. I have never seen this but I am sure it happens.
You cannot contact the seller. This means that you tried to call the seller, but his or her phone number doesn't work, or that you have tried emailing a message to the seller and it comes back undeliverable. I have had one seller not respond to emails and they did loose my bid when they don’t respond.

When you placed your bid and how long is left on the auction determines if you can retract your bid as well. You can retract a bid if there is more then 12 hrs left before the auction ends. You can retract the bid within one hour of placing it. If you had a bid placed before the last 12 hours of the auction remains valid and can only retract it if the seller agrees. You contact the seller to request that your bid be cancelled and it is up to the seller’s discretion to cancel the bid or not.

EBay investigates bid retractions. If they feel that you are abusing this option they can suspended your account. They also take a very close look at bids retracted within the last 24 hrs of a listing as it can be seen as bid shielding. So be careful when entering your bids and try not to retract bids very often.

Source: eBay

Written by: Lori-Lee Craig
Medieval Magic
www.medievalmagic.ca

Clues for when not to bid on eBay

2007-12-19T12:00:00.000-08:00

There are a few reasons not to bid on an item on eBay, you do not want to bid to early and drive the price up, there are unanswered questions or the auction itself is questionable. There are a lot of clues for when not to bid on eBay, you just need to know where to find them or interpret them. If some thing about the listing or the eBay seller does not feel right, that is a big clue to not bid. Never bid on an item at the last second unless you have already done your homework. This is how most people get taken for, when they try to snag a great deal but are in such a hurry that they do not fully read the ad or contact the seller about information missing in the ad, like shipping and handling costs.

If you want a good deal then hold off bidding until near the end of the auction, but do your homework first. This way you know what you are bidding on and what all the costs are, and you can try and get it at the lowest price possible. If you bid early on you can find the price going up as you bid against other buyers. If you hold off on your bids you can also see if the price is going to be more then you want to pay. Sometimes once you put a bid on something you can get caught up in the bidding and end up paying way more then you wanted to. You can see this all the time, one items price is way up there and going up as two people get into a bidding war. Then there is the same item right under it with no bids or only one bid and it sells for way less.

Unanswered questions are a big clue not to bid. If all the information you need about a product is not on the ad you do not want to bid until you have the information. This is so obvious but we all miss it, we assume and don’t question. If a listing has Silver you may assume it is sterling silver, but it could be silver in color, alpaca silver witch has no silver in it, or it could be sterling silver. If the eBay listing does not state that an item works or all pieces are there then you need to ask. Most people will indicate that some thing is as is or is to be used for parts when some thing does not work or is not all there. Some people don’t, they just do not say it works or everything is there. By contacting the seller you can get the answers you need and will often be helping the seller. They may not be getting bids because they never thought to let people know an item works or is all there. This gives them the chance to make some changes on their listing. On the other hand if the seller does not respond to your question before the auction ends, don’t bid, there is probably a reason why they will not answer.

The big unanswered question most people get caught on is shipping and handling cost. People assume the seller is only going to charge what it actually costs to ship the item, with maybe a little extra to cover packaging. Most of us learn this one the hard way. For me an auction was ending with in a minute, no shipping cost was given and I did not have enough time to contact seller before the auction ended. I bid and won a little girls dress for $1.00 and then end up being charged $10.00 shipping and handling even though the cost to send the dress was $2.00. The person did not list a shipping and handling cost so that if the price of their items were not as high as they wanted they just charged more for the shipping and handling. I had to pay or end up with a black mark against me on eBay. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Contact the seller to find out the shipping and handling before you make a bid. If they do not get back to you in time don’t bid.

If there are no pictures of the item or you cannot clearly see the item in the picture you may not want to bid. Not everyone has a digital camera and are unable to put a picture on, that is understandable but still risky for the buyer. You have no idea what you are actually bidding on, even with the best-written description. If the seller does have a very high ratting then it is probably ok. The real problem is when the picture is not clear. If a seller cannot be bothered to take a good picture then they probably don’t care much about what they are selling, and it is not in that great of condition or they are hiding something. Most people will make sure their product pictures are clear and easy to see the condition of the items. If some one puts a bad picture out you have to question their integrity and if you want to take the chance of bidding.

All that said and done the biggest clues for when not to bid is provided by eBay in the sellers feedback score. This is a great way to see what the volume of sales are, good and bad transactions and how other buyers feel about them and their products. If there is a problem it will show up here. Take the time to find negative feedback and see if it was a problem with the seller, the buyer or a shipping issue. If the seller has a poor track record you are not going to want to bid on their auctions. If some one has no sales yet then go with your gut, and remember every one started with 0 feedback. It is still not a good idea to buy a big ticket item from some one who has no or low feedback.

If something seems to be to good to be true it probably is. However if you do your homework you may end up just getting a really good deal. That is why we are all shopping on eBay in the first place.

Written by: Lori-Lee Craig
Medieval Magic
www.medievalmagic.ca

Tips on dealing with deadbeat bidders on eBay

2007-12-17T15:04:00.000-08:00

Tips on dealing with deadbeat bidders on eBay2

I spent years selling on eBay and I have run into a few deadbeat bidders on eBay. If some one had not paid in 7 days I would usually email the person and try to find out what was going on. I don’t usually call because most people are in different countries and I don’t need the added expense of a long distance call. Most people would email back with an explanation for why they had not paid yet. Usually they just had not gotten around to it or were waiting for their money to get into Paypal. One was waiting for their Paypal account to be approved. I found that most of the people I contacted paid with in a few days.

Then there were the people who were not going to pay. I have had some interesting reasons. One man was quite upset because his 13 year old had used his account to put bids and several 100 items. He was not paying for any of them, and because there were so many he had not contacted everyone. One asked to cancel the order as she had an unexpected financial issue, and could not pay for it that month; she did ask that I repost it the next month if possible. Another just said he did not want the item, had never wanted it. Others never responded to my emails.

How I dealt with each deadbeat bidder depended on the individual bidder. The people, who had good reason not to pay, like the Dad or the person who ran into money problems I just did a mutual agree not to complete the transaction. As for the guy who never intended to buy the item and the people who never responded to my emails I reported them to eBay.

EBay sent each of them an unpaid item reminder to try and get them to pay. I had to wait to give the bidders a chance to pay. Some did once eBay became involved; all they needed was the official eBay contact. I have only had a few people not pay at this point. I filed for a final value fee credit. I do know that there are real consequences for not paying for items you bid on. The one guy who never had any attention of paying for the items he bid on lost his account very quickly. Others have been blocked from bidding on my auctions. The lady who ran into money problems did bid on other items of mine, but at first I was never very comfortable about it, but she did end up always paying for all other items of mine that she did win. She ended up being a loyal customer in the long run.

Rule number one when selling any place including eBay is to never ship or give the item to anyone until payment has processed. We made this mistake once, had a lot of items to ship and were waiting on the payment and item was shipped in error with a bunch of others. We were lucky as the person did pay for it in the next few days. Just keep in mind that as long as you don’t ship an item that some one has not paid for all you really loose is some time. More often then not I would offer the item to the next highest bidder and would still make the sale.

So what are the eBay consequences for the deadbeat bidder? According to eBay a buyer automatically enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller if they win the online auction or use the Buy It Now feature. Bay’s unpaid item policy requires buyers to pay the seller for the items that they commit to purchase. EBay will issue a strike on the account of the buyer who does not honour their obligation to pay, unless the buyer and seller mutually agree not to complete the transaction. If a buyer gets too many strikes in too short a time period, their account will be suspended indefinitely. In some cases, limits may be placed on the buyer’s account in advance of suspension.

Basically if some one will not pay for an item with in the stated time on the eBay ad then you must report that the item has not been paid for. If you do not agree with the person not paying for the item you should not mutually agree not to complete the transaction. Let eBay know that the person will just not fulfill their side of the contract and eBay will take action against there account. You get your fees back and re-list the item. End of story for you. You move on; life is to short to waste it on jerks that don’t follow through on their commitments.
Source - eBay

Written by: Lori-Lee Craig
Medieval Magic
http://www.medievalmagic.ca/

A seller's experience - eBay story

2007-11-26T18:32:00.000-08:00

Hi,

I used to be a prolific seller on Ebay. My specialty was kids' used clothing, but I also sold the occasional collectible or miscellaneous junk I picked up at yard sales. I still love to *buy* on Ebay, but I have given up selling. I was screwed more as a seller than I ever was or have been as a buyer. My horror story is below, after a few "bitching points."

First, I had problems with people who failed to read auctions. There is no fail-safe way to keep someone from leaving an unfair negative or neutral because they were stupid and didn't read the auction description or terms of the auction. There's nothing worse than explicitly listing something in an auction, only to see it as the main reason for a negative or neutral feedback. There's no way to reverse it, no way for you to be able to click the "bad feedback because this person didn't read the auction" button.

Second, there are shipping problems. There are people who will bitch and gripe if you did not charge them the precise dollar amount listed on the label when you ship something. You'll never hear anything if you *undercharge* them.

Third, shipper/carrier issues. I got to the point I flat refused to ship anything via UPS. Overall, they do a great job, but locally, every single item I either received or shipped with them was ruined. Slow transit times, increases in costs to ship, and problems with verification methods were a few issues I encountered.

Now, to my horror story. This is about eBay's VERO program that is supposed to prevent copyright infringement: I bought some purses wholesale (as a trial to see how they would do) and had them listed on eBay. I didn't have them listed as a brand, but instead as a generic title like "bathing beauties summer purse." I received an auction cancellation notice. Why? Because some purse manufacturer claimed that my purses violated their copyright and were infringing on their business. I protested and fought, but there wasn't much I could do. There was no protestation clause, no arbitration that I could go through, not even a dispute resolution process (like they have with Paypal). They just took down my auction, and that's that. I was warned to not put it up again... not even with a more generic title.

Did I violate the copyright? NO!! The purses I had featured tropical print with ladies wearing 1950's type bathing suits. The person who filed the VERO complaint also sold purses with women in bathing suits, superimposed on a tropical background. That's where the similarity stopped. My background print was a different color, different flowers, different design... different everything. Their item had a very specific background print, specific colors, and the bathing beauties were from a totally different era (1980s women in string bikinis with very modern hairstyles, etc.). The only resemblance was women in bathing suits with a tropical motif made into a purse.

There were literally THOUSANDS of other items on eBay that had very similar prints, and a few had the exact same print as *my* purses, but they were still up. as auctions. Why was mine chosen? Because the other items were shirts, totes, etc., but mine was a purse.

My feeling, at the time, was that the entity that filed the VERO complaint did it as a bullying tactic. They used it as a method to "knock out the competition." At the time my situation happened, there was no governing body to even check and make sure that the complaint was legitimate. All it took was for someone to file a complaint against you, and your auction was taken down, and you had a strike against you for "copyright infringement," even though the items being sold could have absolutely nothing in common.

Something similar happened to a cousin of mine who makes purses. She took a T-shirt that had our local college's team logo on it and turned it into a satchel purse.... a craft item. Her auction was ended on a VERO complaint. She, too, protested it (to the person who filed the complaint; eBay was unavailable for comment). After all, the shirt was for sale, she paid for it, and made it into a purse. What was the problem? The school claimed that was not the intended use for the shirt, and her auction was pulled. No place to argue. The school didn't make purses and didn't sell totes, so there was no competition. The local Wal-Mart had fabric featuring the school's logo, which could be turned into a tote with no problem, but no.... the item made with the T-shirt had to come down.

I believe eBay has since changed their method of determining a VERO violation and requires that a link be provided to the auction, along with a specific reason why the complaint is being filed. However, some of the complaints were so ludicrous that it actually took some people out of business. They were being constantly bombarded for VERO complaints that were untrue.
The VERO issue was just one of many selling experiences that caused me to have a bad taste in my mouth, and I finally gave it up. I will occasionally sell things I have around the house (and I need to do that soon); however, eBay's fee structure is such that the local resale shop is starting to sound like a better deal.

You have a nice blog, and have done a good job. Sorry if I was too wordy, but I have so much excess baggage I'm carrying around about my selling experience that I would love to tell eBay's powers that be what I think about their policies. Insurance is definitely needed for sellers, too!

A seller's experience

eBay has made some changes but is it enough?

2007-11-24T20:41:00.000-08:00

I have noticed that eBay has made some changes to try and keep people selling and buying. I find it interesting that they still do not have any type of insurance for the sellers though. I do know that fewer people are selling and from the amount of advertising going on there are probably fewer people buying. I still will not sell on eBay again but I am willing to look at buying again. The last person I bought from did not ship the item, kept saying they got it back in the mail. Then when it got past the 30 days they would not return our emails. So we figured we were out our $6.00 and gave them a negative rating. The person responded to that. Gave us our money back and a negative rating.

I used to love hunting for things on eBay. Now I check the rate every one has and what the shipping cost and handling cost is going to be before I am willing to bid. I like that they have more information in the rating system now. I think that this is all for the good. EBay was to easy a mark for thieves. Some thing had to be done. I find that if you give a criminal an opening they will take it.

The real problem is that eBay was one of the world’s biggest market place. You could actually get some great deals, or get ride of your junk. I love garage sales and eBay was just one big one. I do think that if you are careful it can still be a good place to buy. However I am not sure what changes eBay could possibly do to make it safer to sell. At this point you must have a large company and can afford the cost of not selling an item as well as absorbing the occasional theft. Or you must sell items that do not have a high theft rate. If you don’t fit in that category you probably are not going to try and sell on eBay.

The other problem is that you can no longer use eBay to do direct marketing. It was great when you could make reference to your website. That way people would look at your items, possibly buy or bid and check out your web site. It was a good way to get your retail web site known. It was cost effective for the most part. Both eBay and your business benefited. Then eBay changed the rules, no more referencing your retail web site. Now I can still send my business card or put my web site address on the invoice to try and capture a client from an eBay customer. It is not as affective as having my web site address in my eBay ads. I used to look at my ads on eBay as an advertising expense. Not any more. There are much more cost effective ways to advertise then selling on eBay.

There are a lot of other auction sites and free retail web sites out there now. EBay has some real competition now. The only way I can see eBay bringing back the volume of sellers is to put some type of insurance protection for the sellers. I don’t think people would have a problem paying a small percentage of the end price to have some type of insurance. EBay also needs to let people advertise their stores or retail web sites on their listings. More people would be willing to sell or at lest list on eBay again with those changes. EBay needs to remember that with out the sellers, they have no business. If no one is willing to sell, there is nothing for people to buy, no money for eBay.

Tried eBay again

2007-08-15T15:55:00.001-07:00

So I decided to try eBay again. Not to sell, never that again, but to buy. I have so far have been ok buying things. I think it has to do with the fact that there is more protection for the buyers then the sellers. So what happens, I buy from two people. I asked for a quote before bidding as they only gave shipping for in the US. Both gave me an ok shipping quote. So I bid and win. The first person, hawkl921 gave me the shipping quote based on the weight and the US postal web site. They told me they would take the item to the post office to make sure the quote was accurate before invoicing me. They came back and let me know that the US post office was going to charge $10.00 more then what the web site had said. They then let me decide if I wanted to pay the extra or not. If not then hawkl921 would not hold me to the bid. I was not able to pay for the extra shipping cost, as it would bring the shipping cost to 3 times more then the item. I found that hawkl921 dealt with the whole situation in a professional manner and I would do business with them again.

Now the second person was a completely different story. They had given me a shipping quote and their ad said that if you bought more then 1 item you only had to pay half the shipping cost for the second item. So that is what I did, I figured out what the shipping cost should be and paid for it. We got an email saying we had short paid, and had to pay another $10.00 (that $10.00 again lol). We looked at the payment and realized I had paid $14.00, not the $18.00 I should have so we owed them $4.00 not another $10.00. We let them know, so they emailed us telling us that we had lied to them about our address and had shown them a US address first when they made the quote. Um, no I showed my address in Canada. What would be to point to get a quote for a different address, one that was not even in my country? Nice try, I kept all the emails and was able to show them that. Then they said that their add only said ½ price shipping on the second item if in the US and they expected us to pay full shipping for both items. Um, no went back and looked, it did not say US only. So we said we would be happy to pay the $4.00 I had accidentally shorted them. Then they came back and said that the original quote was for a different item, that it did not have glass in it and that the ones with glass weigh more so it cost more to ship. Um, no I still had the email threw eBay with the link to the product I was getting the quote on. The difference was the colour of the insert, that was it. At this point we decided we did not wish to do business with these people. We had all the proof we needed to know that yes I had short paid by $4.00 but that was it, and if they would not honour their ad then and quote then they were not professional. I would never do business with them. They are a large seller of jewellery displays, but I cannot see how they expect to stay in business if treat their customers this way.

eBay used to steal again, $500 reward, lets help

2007-07-30T16:52:00.000-07:00

Some one used eBay to steal a rare 1949 Chevy truck. Lets help the owner get his story out. As we all know I don’t like the way people use eBay to steal. I am hoping that if we can get this story out to enough people we can help him the way I was helped. He is asking that people get the information out so that other people are not taken the same way he was and hopefully he might get his truck back or at least get the people responsible in jail. He has also offered a $500.00 reward to get the truck back or the people in jail.

Here is the link to his story http://benadams.blogspot.com/2007/07/ebay-car-thieves.html

How is this for an interesting twist

2007-06-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

Some thing very interesting happened today. Rose from FedEx called. The Indonesian Government has decided to wave the “storage” fees for my Grandmothers ring. Please note, that it was not the Indonesian Customs who decided to wave the fees. It turns out that some of the information Stormy on mySpace gave me helped us big time. Storm gave me a link, that took me to more links, and some how I ended up with the person in charge of Indonesian foreign trade’s email address. I am not sure how I got there, but I used it. Lets just say I used all the email address’s I found. On top of that there was a very nice newspaper story done about my Grandmothers ring, and that has been sent by email all over the place. That helped out a lot. It seems the more people heard our story, they passed it on and more people heard it and so on and so on. So we are not sure how but the story reached the right peoples ears, our blog was mentioned to FedEx as they informed FedEx they would wave the so called “storage” fees. Wow, the power of the Internet and people who will not shut up and just let people, business’s or Governments get away with things.
Now mind you, they did say they would be willing to let us fight over the $330.00 they still want for the original customs fees. However, if we chose to go that route it would take about two years before we would see the ring, and they would charge us storage fees. So we are paying the $330.00 to get the ring back. This time though they said it would take about two weeks before we saw the ring. I will believe it when I have it in my hand. Then I will be happy about it.

If you get ripped off don’t let them get away with it.

2007-06-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

If you get ripped off don’t let them get away with it. Now it is hard if a person burns you, but at least if it is a company you have options. I found a great website called Ropoff Report, http://www.ripoffreport.com that is worth looking at before you buy. If some one has had a problem this is a great site to tell every one. Some of the stories here are outrageous. The things some companies think that they can get away with. I am glad that we found this site. Being an e-store owner and a consumer it is important to me to get the bad business’s known and stop them from taking people and at the same time let people know about the good business’s.

Mark Cripps wrote the story, its in the news now

2007-06-05T11:38:00.000-07:00

Mark Cripps wrote the story about what happened with our ring and eBay and Indonesian customs. To see this story please go here http://www.stoneycreeknews.com/scn/viewpoint/viewpoint_802106.html.

I hope it helps some one else from getting burned.

Please pass this story on so others can hear about it.

I have copied the article here as well.

Please let Mark Cripps know what you think about his story.

Grandmother's ring held ransom
Mark Cripps, Stoney Creek

(Jun 1, 2007)
At least twice a week, I receive an email made to look as if it is coming from eBay suggesting my account is in jeopardy if I don't update my information and report back as soon as possible.
I continue to forward these to the RCMP email fraud centre (info@phonebusters.com), despite the fact it seems almost impossible to control the fraudulent use of eBay and PayPal and other companies involved in the sale and trade of goods over the internet.
Recently, I received an email from a reader scammed a few weeks back by an eBay fraud artist who bilked this woman of a treasured family heirloom.
Needing some extra cash for her family, Lori-Lee Craig decided to sell her grandmother's ring, valued at more than $1,200. On social assistance, Ms. Craig hoped to garner some extra cash to pay off some bills, buy her four-year-old son a nice birthday present and use some of the money for a move to a larger residence.
She received a bid from a buyer who has a 100 per cent rating on eBay (ratings are used on eBay so sellers and buyers can determine who they are dealing with) asking whether the ring can be shipped immediately. The buyer says he wants to give it to his mother for Mother's Day.
After payment from PayPal was confirmed, Ms. Craig shipped the item via FedEx. The buyer was in Indonesia. She borrowed the money for the shipment costs, as the purchaser said he needed the ring immediately.
The next day, she received an email from PayPal saying the funds were being held for investigation into a possible fraud.
Ms. Craig called FedEx and asked them to stop delivery. She was told her shipping fee was not refundable ($116 down the drain) but that a stop shipment order had been processed.
Unfortunately, the item had already cleared customs and was sealed in a container. There was no way to get the item back until it was actually shipped to Indonesia.
Ms. Craig said it was a heartbreaking decision to sell her grandmother's ring, but she was trying to do something for her family, who lives on Ontario Works.
PayPal determined the account of a legitimate individual had been fraudulently accessed. They refunded the money to the owner of the stolen credit card used by the thief in Indonesia.
Expecting the money, Ms. Craig had planned a birthday party for her son and promised him a toy he had his heart set on.
"He does not understand we are $116 short of our monthly budget and now it is just not possible. No party, no money."
They continue to check with FedEx, hoping at the very least they will get the ring back. They find out from FedEx an individual attempted to pick up the ring but did not have the $360 wanted by Indonesian customs officials. He walked away. Indonesian customs now wants Ms. Craig to pay $360 to release the ring. She agreed. As soon as FedEx responded Ms. Craig was willing to pay the $360 to have the ring returned, they decided they wanted $900.
"We were prepared to spend our month's budget for food just to get the ring back," said Ms. Craig.
Through this entire ordeal, neither eBay or PayPal offered any assistance for what was basically a fraud orchestrated through their online services. eBay said it would refund the $1 posting fee they charge to put an item up for auction. How sweet they are.
"eBay and PayPal might as well put up a sign - Thieves Welcome," said a frustrated Ms. Craig.
Knowing she will likely never see her grandmother's ring again, Ms. Craig said she just wants to let others know eBay is becoming a target for scam artists all over the world. She started a blog and has received numerous responses from others who have been scammed.
She said she's learned eBay is being abused by fraud artists in numerous ways:
1. people are cracking the system and eBay is not addressing security concerns.
2. fake eBay emails - don't ever respond!
3. scammers who phone people and say they are calling on behalf of eBay and ask for personal info. Once they get this info, they go into people's personal accounts and change passwords, post fake items and always use Western Union for purchases.
4. letters arriving via pre-paid envelope. Look like they are from eBay or PayPal, ask for updated info.
I contacted eBay's PR firm Environics based in Toronto and they did not provide any comment on this specific case, offering up only basic rules for keeping eBay accounts safe.
"PayPal and eBay have flaws in their security and nothing to protect sellers," said Ms. Craig.
Personally, incidents like this reinforce for me why I will never purchase anything on eBay.
It's swimming with scammers and as long as eBay and PayPal continue to ignore problems, it's only going to get worse.
For those who use eBay, review the following Web site - http://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/mrkt_safety.html.

Another eBayer taken by theif then Indonesian Customs

2007-06-05T10:04:00.000-07:00

Hi I have just red through your story and I am in the same predicament. My ring too is also been held by Indonesia customs. It does not have any sentimental value like yours but did have a value of $999.00. They too won't return it too me unless I pay release fees and also fees for them holding it. I too am in debt with paypal(first time ever) as I too was rely-ing on this money and I withdrew the money from paypal as soon as payment went through and before I got the message from paypal to say that this transaction was been investigted as a fraudulent paypment. I believed this to be a genuine transaction and like you wanted to do what I could for the buyer as he wanted it urgently as a "special gift". I had it posted and money withdrew from account before the warning signs came through. Paypal too were no help. basically I was told you will learn from your mistakes, are we now suppose to be wary of all buyers as I never had any trouble before...I am now in debt with paypal and don't have the money now to bring my account back in credit, so is this what happens to genuine sellers and buyers who have great feedback, they get treated like shit and the thieves just carry on doing what they do. I am really annoy with what has happened to me and have lost countless nights sleep over it cause I just didn't think I could be taking for a fool. There is nothing I can do to get my ring back as I can't afford to pay the fees that Indonesia customes are asking for so basically I will have to learn from one big mistake Belinda

Paypal is back, why did it go down?

2007-06-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

Paypal is back up. No explanations yet for what happened that had Paypal down for most of the day. I wonder how many sales were lost, how many websites are now looking for other payment gateways. It is not like there are not 100’s of them out there. What ever caused this has hit Paypal a large blow. People are not going to be so trusting with their money now. It only takes one time not being able to access my funds to make me to start looking around for another payment gateways. Even if it is just a back up so I can continue to do business if Paypal goes down again. At this point most sales at www.medievalmagic.ca are done threw Paypal but now we are going to spend the extra money to get the software so we can use other gateways. I am sure that there are a lot of other companies doing the same thing, not to mention the number of individuals who are going to start questioning using Paypal. I guess it all depends on what explanation they give every one. I doubt that they would tell us if some one hacked in and did this. It would destroy our perception of security. Not that people are not having their accounts broken in all the time, it is just usually because some one gave their information to the wrong people. Darn those scam emails. At this point in time most people feel secure using Paypal. However, I want to know why Paypal was down for so long.

Paypal is down, no one can access their accounts

2007-06-01T15:17:00.001-07:00

Does any one know what is going on with Paypal. It’s down. Go ahead; try getting into your account. You can try but you will not be able to access your account. We called customer service; they don’t know what is going on either. Here is their number 1-402-935-2050 (a U.S. telephone number), or their contact page https://www.paypal.com/row/contact-phone. Their techs are trying to fix it, but they don’t know what happened, so they don’t know if they can fix it, or when they can fix it. They keep telling every one it is safe to do transactions and that when some one gets into your account that you must have given the info to some one. There is no way some one can hack in, and now this happens. I don’t know. I hope they can fix this, but we will be looking for new payment options for www.medievalmagic.ca from now on. Keep trying your account; let us know if you can get in.

News reporter may be doing a story on our ring/eBay nightmare

2007-05-30T16:03:00.000-07:00

Good news. One news reporter, Mark Cripps, Managing Editor, HAMILTON COMMUNITY NEWS is looking into doing a story on what happened to us with my Grandmothers ring. This is great because it might help some one else from getting taken on eBay like we were. It will also tell people not to send things to Indonesia unless they know the person they are shipping to. I will let every one know when he has printed his story. If I can I will put a copy of the story on my blog. I must say that I am very great full that he was willing to hear our story, and even more willing to share it.

One thing that has come out of this is the number of people who have been burned on eBay, both as sellers and buys. If you have been burned on eBay and would like some one to hear your story, please email me your story. I am going to start adding them to my blog. We all know it is happening, but no one seems to be doing any thing about it. Maybe if we share our stories people will hear us. If we can save one person from being taken on eBay by these thieves it is worth the time to write out our stories. Please share my blog with others so we can tell people what is going on, and what our stories are, and how we can try to protect ourselves. My email is info@medievalmagic.ca

Indonesian Customs in now holding my Grandmothers ring hostage for $900.00+

2007-05-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

Indonesian customs wanted $330.00 as customs fees before they would return our stolen ring. We made arrangements with FedEx to pay the $330.00 they went. Ring was to arrive back here today instead FedEx gets an invoice for over $900.00 “custom fee’s” for the same ring, and it is still being held at Indonesian customs.

We made the mistake of putting my Grandmothers ring on eBay for $1000.00. Like so many 1000’s of others we were scammed. Some one used another person’s eBay account and Paypal account to buy the ring. Please note that there is no protection for sellers on eBay. At first we thought that we were going to be out just the $116.00 shipping cost as we had contacted FedEx and did a stop shipment. Well things did not work out, and the ring made it to Indonesian customs. The only reason the person did not have my Grandmothers ring is because they would not pay the customs of $330.00, oh and by the way the Indonesian customs will not release the ring until some one pays the $330.00. Indonesian customs does not care that it was not suppose to even make it to them, or that this is a case of theft. Not their problem.

FedEx tells us to pay the $330.00 as Indonesian customs is known to take up to 6 months to resolve a dispute, and they charge you a storage fee. The storage fee is usually more then the customs fee and the chance of them saying, “oh, so sorry to hear about this person stealing from you, we wont charge you the customs fee” is 0. So we would have ended up paying both storage fee and customs fee. So we make arrangements with FedEx to pay the $330.00 and have the ring shipped back. So it was to arrive here yesterday or today. Guess what? No ring! We call FedEx to find out that Indonesian customs has now issued an invoice to FedEx for over $900.00 “custom fee’s” and will not release the ring until we pay it. Indonesian customs has now decided that $330.00 is not enough; they want us to pay over $900.00. They are holding our ring hostage.

All I could think of was “This is not happening”, but it is. They want us to pay $900.00 to get my own ring back. So if I want my ring back I have to pay almost the value of the ring. What is going on here? FedEx has no idea what Indonesian customs is doing or why they are charging so much. They are going to try and fight it, but as I indicated earlier, they will take up to 6 months to resolve the issue and are going to charge a storage fee, and the chance of them letting us win is 0. Their country, they make the rules, why would they let us win?

Please share my story with as many people as you can. I know it is too late for me, or my Grandmothers ring but please let people know about this. Maybe we can stop it from happening to some one else. I did contact the news shows and reporters in my area, but it is happening so often too people that there just is no story in some one being robbed on eBay or by Indonesian customs. So what happens, every one knows its happening but know one reports on it, so it keeps happening. The only way people are going to know about this is if I stand up on a box and yell as lowed and as long as I can. I am doing that but I need your help to let others know. If no one else is willing to tell this story then it is up to me to try and let people know.

Thank You,
James Porth
Lori-Lee Craig
Medieval Magic
info@medievalmagic.ca
www.medievalmagic.ca

$456.00 lost but getting my Grandmothers ring back.

2007-05-30T15:52:00.001-07:00

Just an update, the ring is on its way back to us, should be here some time this week. FedEx told us to pay the customs because Indonesian customs is known to take 6 months with any disputes, and they charge you a very large storage fee, so even if you win, you end up paying as much if not more then the original fee. Also, they tend not to let any one win a customs fee dispute, so we would have ended up owing the customs for both the customs fee and storage fee. I am past the crying and anger stages and have reached the acceptance stage. The good thing is that FedEx is going to charge our account for the Indonesian customs fee and then bill us at the end of the month. This will let us budget and figure out a way to pay it off.

I just want others to hear my story so they are more careful then we were and don't ship any thing right away and get burned the same way we did. The sad part is I have been getting email after email from both sellers and buyers, who have been taken for on eBay. We are not going to be selling any thing on eBay again. I could write a “How to use eBay to steal 101” book with all the information I have found out. I may do a blog, not to help thieves but to help people from being taken in by the con-artists. What got me the most is not the number of people who have been taken, but by the fact that there is nothing we can do once it happens. The police cannot help, eBay and Paypal will not help because they can not afford to become responsible for this. There must be some way to protect people, but I don’t know what it is yet. If you have some idea of how to make it harder on thieves please let me know.

You might as well hang up a sign on eBay, thieves welcome

2007-05-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

First I had to go through the hard question, do I sell my Grandmothers ring. I don’t have a lot of hers and I miss her very much. We need the money though, so I think she would understand. It was a hard thing to do but on eBay it goes. Then comes the inquiry could we ship it out right away, rush shipment, some one wants to buy it as a gift. So we go out of our way to make sure we ship the ring as soon as the payment hits Paypal. How far out of our way, we barrow the $116.00 so we can ship it. That is just over ¼ of my budget for the month seeing as I am on Ontario works (welfare) right now.

I have a very hard time sleeping that night. I sold my Grandmothers ring so I am feeling sad, but at the same time I am happy that we will have some money to pay off a few bills. But I cannot sleep, there is just some thing eating away at me. The next day we get an email from Paypal, the transaction was fraudulent – some one just stole my Grandmothers ring. We were out $116.00 for food that month, but at least we were able to contact FedEx and get them to put a stop shipment. Things are going to be hard but at least we are getting the ring back.

Mothers Day, just don’t feel like doing any thing, to upset and I am worried about the ring and how we are going to pay back the $116.00. On top of that the 16th is my sons 4th birthday and I have to explain to him that we cannot get him the gift Mommy and Daddy said he would have for his birthday. He does not understand we are $116.00 short of our budget and now it just is not possible. No party – no money. It is a good thing we had picked up a few small things for him. But it was very hard to have to tell him that he was not bad and that was not why he was not getting his big gift, just some bad things happened. What price do you put on a parents tears when they have to tell this to a child.

We keep checking with FedEx, yes there is a stop shipment order. So why does it show that it is still going? Monday the 14th we find out that FedEx did not stop the shipment. The only reason the person did not have my Grandmothers ring is because they would not pay the customs of $360.00, oh and by the way the Indonesian customs will not release the ring until some one pays the $360.00. So we get robbed twice.

So now the ring is sitting at Indonesian customs and we have to spend our months budget for food just to get it back, or we can just let Indonesian customs confiscate it. So now what. What are we suppose to do, other then cry that is. At this point I start finding out what can be done. Nothing. FedEx does not care that we had a stop shipment on the ring, eBay said we can file a dispute on the dispute console but all that will do is get them to give us back the $1.00 listing fee. It does not matter that some one used some one else’s eBay account to buy the ring, not their problem. Seller protection – none. Every thing is for the buyer. Paypal, well they let us know that there was a problem, and they took all the money back and that way the person who’s account was broken into did not loose any thing, oh the seller, to bad, not our problem.

We thought we were dealing with some one we could trust. The eBay buyer had a good record and looked like they could be trusted. The fact that some one else was using the guy’s account does not matter to eBay. There was no way for us to know this was not a real sale. A week after the sale we got 6 emails from eBay to let us know that the email communications from the eBay buyer could be fraudulent. Thanks, a little to late though, um, we told you. Is eBay going to do any thing for us, no. Same with Paypal. Not their problem. So even though it was the security of eBay and Paypal that was breached we are paying the price. I am not very happy with eBay or Paypal right now. Then FedEx let us down as well. We put a stop shipment return to sender when the ring was in Alaska, why did it get all the way to Indonesia after we were repeatedly reassured over the phone there was a stop shipment and it would not get that far. What do you mean the only reason the thief does not have my ring is because they would not pay the customs, and now I have to pay for it. Oh, and its not your problem. Yah, I am never using FedEx again.

So this one person has devastated my family. First by stealing from us, and having us pay extra to ship it to them. Taking ¼ of my family’s money for the month. Then Paypal and eBay will take no responsibility for the unusual circumstances to help us. Now FedEx lets us down and we have pay another $360.00 or say good by to my Grandmothers ring. So I get to chouse between feeding my family and saving my grandmothers ring. It was hard enough to part with it knowing that the money from it was going to help my family, but to lose it this way is unbelievable. That does not even touch on the emotional hell I have gone threw this last two weeks. Or what it made me feel like to tell my son he could not have some thing I promised him. So much for us moving from a two bed room apartment to a three bed room town house. We were expecting to be able to move in a month or two, have to give that up to after working for a year to get there.

This was not some joke or harmless crime; this has hurt my family in ways this thief does not care about. The icing on the cake is that this thief will never pay any price or consequence for their actions. No one is going to even try to find them, let alone charge them. They just get away with it, and do it again. There is nothing to stop them. Any one can be next. As for eBay and Paypal, not their problem. So what if they lose me as a customer, what do they care? They have millions of people willing to use them. There is no incentive for them to stop this, or help the people this happens to. There is insurance for the buyer but nothing for the seller.

You might as well hang up a sign on eBay, thieves welcome. Come in, use some ones account, and steal from as many as you can, then move on to another account. Get caught, no, you may not get every thing you try to take, but you just move on to the next account. No one is going to try and find you, or make you pay for any thing. No consequences, steal until there is nothing left to take.

eBay & Paypal fraud Sellers beware!

2007-05-30T15:28:00.000-07:00

Think before selling on eBay. Take a look at eBay policies. There is a lot of protection for the buyers, what protection is there for the sellers, not much. If there is insurance for buyers, why not insurance for sellers?

As people may have noticed there has been quite a few problems for E-Bay sellers with fraud. Be it fake bids such as the Playstation 3 game system just before Christmas and the General Lee car in the last few weeks or just out and out theft. A person buys an item, then pays and gets you to ship the item, then cancels payment. Or you get what just happened to us.

I put my Grandmothers ring out eBay as an auction and a buy it now. We were contacted by a buyer who wanted the ring as a gift and wanted to know if we could ship it right away, they would pay extra for two or three day shipping. We said sure, we will ship as soon as the money went through Paypal. The person had been on eBay for years and had 100% rating, some one you can trust. It is Mothers day weekend, nothing odd about some one buying a last minute gift and asking for us to ship it directly to the person. Money shows up in Paypal, item is shipped that day.

We rush the Ring to FedEx and send it out right away. I just made it to the office for the last pick up of the day. Next morning we received an e-mail from PayPal saying the funds have been held and an investigation has been started as the funds may have been stolen. I called FedEx and had them stop the delivery and send it back to me after explaining what had happened. At this time I am told that the shipping is not refundable so I am out $116.51 now. I then receive another e-mail from another eBay seller, mrs2620, who was also taken by the same person. They too were scammed and are trying to get their item sent back before delivery.

So here we have two small business owners trying to make some extra money selling good quality items on eBay being taken for a ride by crooks. Some people say that is the cost of doing business. However, I would like to point out that the ring we were selling was not part of Medieval Magic stock, but was my Grandmothers ring valued at about $1,200.00 ten years ago, more now. So this is not a case of a business sale, covered under insurance, this is me loosing my Grandmothers ring. This is personal.

Even though we are getting our ring back, this is not a harmless victimless crime or a joke, we are out $116.00, some thing we cannot afford. We are selling the ring because we need the money, we have some bills coming up and with two little kids things are a little tight. I was not expecting to sell the ring, but it would have been nice. Now things are even harder on us, we are out $116.00 about ¼ of our budget for food and diapers for the month. On top of that we used part of the money in Paypal to buy some thing. So now we are about $130.00 in debt to Paypal. We have to come up with the money to pay for the item that has already been shipped. So that is about ¼ of our food and diaper budget that means 50% of our budget is now gone. Thank you very much.

It is my sons fourth birthday this month, so if you think this crime has no effect on any one, just a business, you are wrong. So now I have a budget of about $200.00, about $100.00 of that has to go to diapers, wipes, and $100.00 for food for two weeks for a family of four. So much for my sons birthday, some one want to come and explain to my four year old why he is not having a birthday party, and why he is not getting that gift Mommy told him he was getting.

So this crime or joke has a very strong impact on my family. I am not telling people this so they feel sorry for me, but because I want people to understand what this person has done to my family. What the impact of this one act has had on us. Crime costs people like us every day. We are not some big corporation that can absorb a loss like this, we are hard working people trying to do our best and one person just kicked us in the teeth, took food out of my kids’ mouths. You don’t want to know what I want to do to this person if I could find them. Making them pay the $116.00 is not enough for the worry and anger I have right now.

It is time that we the consumers and sellers start to put our foot down and stop this. New rules and procedures must be put into place on all the auction sites and payment sites to protect us all. We have to ask for them. People have to look at what the effect will be on eBay and other auction sites if thing like this continue. Who wants to sell items on eBay if there is no protection for them? Look at John Schneider, he has decided to go with a bricks-and-mortar auction firm that strictly screens buyers to sell the General Lee. This would have been a great achievement for eBay. If this keeps up there will be no place for every day people to sell and buy as it will destroy peoples trust in being able to sell on eBay. At this point in time we have changed our shipping policies to protect ourselves from this happening again. But I have to admit I am rethinking about selling on eBay as I have an online store Medieval Magic I am already selling on.