eBay accused of facilitating deceptive, fraudulent real estate sales

[mandy]

Once again eBay is being accused of facilitating deceptive, fraudulent sales on its site, and once again eBay is blaming the victims. The average crack dealer shows more compassion for their "community" than what is exhibited by eBay's morally bankrupt management. 

For the last few years, real estate transactions over the Internet--where buyers need never set eyes on the property they purchase--have become increasingly common.

On eBay, the biggest online marketplace, and dozens of other Web sites with names like Bid4Assets.com and Realestatesupermarket.com, sales involving tens of thousands of dollars can occur entirely online...

But now, with plenty of buyers eager to get in on the real estate boom, such online sites have become perfect places for unscrupulous sellers who have bought dilapidated houses at, say, foreclosure auctions, to resell, or flip, them quickly for inflated prices. Many of the deals sound too good to be true. But the gullible are lured by nice photos and a belief that online transactions on big Web sites are generally safe...

Sam Hoyt, a Democratic state assemblyman and co-chairman of the Buffalo mayor's task force on real estate flipping, whose aim is to educate consumers on the destructive effects of the practice, blames eBay, saying it enables dishonest flippers to lure buyers...

"What eBay is doing, in my opinion, is immoral," he said. "They have a responsibility to not facilitate activity like this."

Representatives of eBay say the company has few legal obligations to buyers of real estate on the site...

full article: http://news.com.com/Some+finding+perils+...tag=st.num

[jezebel]

But the gullible are lured by nice photos

I'd never buy property based on a photo unless I was specifically looking for swampland