Biting into online fraud: Online Auctions Largest Source of Consumer Complaints

[mandy]

Online auctions, a market dominated by San Jose's eBay, continued to be the largest source of consumer fraud complaints reported to the Federal Trade Commission in 2005...

Internet auctions represented 12 percent of the total fraud complaints reported to the FTC in 2005, down from 15 percent in each of the two prior years. The 80,450 Internet auction-related complaints in 2005 were an improvement from past years.

Durzy declined to elaborate on specific eBay efforts to combat fraud.

Durzy said eBay can't be responsible for everything that happens on the site.

``The people who were defrauded maybe didn't take the proper steps to begin with when they were shopping,'' he said. ``Maybe they didn't take advantage of the fact that they could see the history of the seller.

``We can't stand over the shoulder of every user on eBay and say, no, you can't pay this way. Ultimately, it's the buyer who has to make the decision to do so.''

full article: http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercuryne...735132.htm

[mandy]

A related report by a consumers group says 42% of fraud complaints it received were related to online auctions.

Online auctions again were the most commonly reported source of Internet scams in annual statistics gathered by the watchdog group National Consumers League  but even so, the scope of the problem may be underrepresented in the complaints filed, the group estimates. Complaints over fraud involving the general online sale of merchandise ranked a close second for the year.

In figures released for 2005, goods sold at auction but never delivered or misrepresented accounted for 42% of all complaints about Internet scams reported to the Washington-based nonprofit organization. The average reported loss was $1,155...

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=18012

[xppman]

Wonder what online auction site was number one?

Remember this one?

In 2005, eBay had the highest charge-back ratio of any online ecommerce company on the Internet - world wide  - and compared to the prior year's figures, it had increased over 150 percent in 2005.

http://www.axcessnews.com/modules/wfsect...cleid=8350

I think one of you brought that to our attention.

[amy]

In 2005, eBay had the highest charge-back ratio of any online ecommerce company on the Internet - world wide  - and compared to the prior year's figures, it had increased over 150 percent in 2005.

Unconfirmed addresses on eBay Express should help eBay/PayPal retain its #1 position for chargebacks.  :

[xppman]

Yes.
Somehow I think that will be the case.

Or if may flip and ebay will become the #1 site were you can BUY products for FREE.

Now that's gonna help their numbers.