eBay Profits from Mass Fraud by Unverified Chinese BIN Bandit Bidders

[xppman]

Check this one out before it goes poof:

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000259859&tstart=0&mod=1144796995722

[amy]

Mass fraud by unverified chinese bidders - what has ebay profited?

Dear PowerSellers:

Use your advanced search function to search by bidder. Enter the bidder 'dressshirta', then dressshirtb, then c etcetera.

All of these bidders are unverified bidders from China who use buy it now to buy dress shirts from ebay sellers, mostly powersellers.

Tonight, I have had my 5th encounter with this bidder or group of bidders. Thus far I have discovered the following:

1. A 1:1 relationship between the ebay ID and the hotmail address
2. All are unverified from China.
3. As best I can tell, all have been banned.
4. On average, this user does 5-6? buy it nows before being banned on listings costing around $2 each.
5. Just checked, dressshirtaek is the latest. 26x26x11 is closing in on 7500 usernames that are systematically generated following a pattern my senile old uncle Slappy could follow. Assume 7500X$2x5 transactions and that is around $75K in relist fees for Ebay. What percentage of sellers don't notice and collect thier FV fees?
6. Let's be generous and assume that I have only noticed the higher bidding ones. ...assume only $30,000 in ebay fees that sellers have been screwed out of, perhaps I am getting lucky and finding the worst offenders only.

OK, here is my challenge to ebay:

I know that ebay was alerted to this pattern at least a week ago when dressshirtc and dressshirtl came on because I smelled a rat and reported this.

Assuming every seller claims the FV fee and relists but does not claim the relist fee then Ebay has profited hugely from this. I would like ebay to calculate that number, report it back here on this thread and acknowledge that they have refunded every seller who has been a victim of this attack, whether or not they discovered it and asked for reimbursement. It has been reported on this forum, it has been reported by phone to trust and safety and it has been reported by the email feature.

Ebay - Please let your pillars of your community know what you do when you uncover a massive, coordinated defrauding of sellers such as the one herein described.
A. When uncovered, do you credit every affected seller or those who spot it and complain? Do you even credit those who do complain.
B. Will you or will you not address the problem of unverified buyers? We can block negative FB bidders, why not unverified bidders?

I know that ebay refuses to remove patently ridiculous and demonstrably false feedback comments given to the sellers who make your business run. While I disagree with your policy in that area I now ask you to eat your own cooking and respond intelligently to this feedback.

I am tired. I work hard. We pay $2000 or more to you every month. I have uncovered a very large fraud that is harming your sellers. Thus far you have not addressed this fraud. I have demonstrated that ebay stands to gain from ignoring this and allowing us to be financially harmed.

For the record, I do not think or allege greed or malice but indifference on ebay's part. It is not hurting ebay, ebay is profiting from this if I am correctly interpreting the results. I may not be, and in that case I invite you to correct me. It is not my intent to slam you but to reach out to you.

I hope I am incorrect. I hope that ebay will respond to this post and announce that every affected seller has been reimbursed every last cent from this malicious attack. I also hope that ebay will announce a policy that will allow us to block such bidders.

Ebay - you often tell us that you want us to trust you. This forum and my conversations with numerous sellers would indicate a severe trust gap. I am handing you a golden opportunity to either prove your good will or to demonstrate that you do not care as long as ebay is profiting from the abuse of your top sellers. It is my OPINION that to do anything less than reimbursing every seller would constitute theft. You are now aware of a scam that profits you and hurts us. If you leave this post up others will become aware. If you take it down it will be posted elsewhere.

I look forward to a trust restoring response from ebay. We are your partners, we are your past, present and future. We ask little - just honest and fair treatment.

Tag, you're it. I await your response with great hope of restored faith and little hope of a substantive and meaningful response.

You care or you do not - you alone can demonstrate which.

[amy]

Did I mention I have a problem with the 'Unverified User' crap?

[amy]

Another user on that thread answers

I am seeing a lot of posts like yours.
I'm wondering if this new gang is just harvesting email addresses and if they are......what is the purpose?
For sending spoof/phishing emails perhaps?
Or maybe they are trying to get into the less secure webmail based ones? Yahoo, Hotmail and a few others are easy to get into.

and the word from Trust & Safety:

Just talked to T&S. They are aware of this and say that "IF" it is deemed malicious they will refund the fees but ONLY IF each affected seller reports it and requests the fees back.

I sent this letter to RSwebhelp, hopefully others will as well. To me it is simple ethics - they know full well this is a sham and they are making a ton of $$$ from it. I don't care if they have a legal defense, there is no ethical defense to not refunding every seller whether they caught on and complained or not. That's so disheartening.

[xppman]

Well than you better be READY.
Here comes ebay Express.
I opted out the second I heard the radio button was there.

Oh wait I better go back and check to make sure they didn't OPT
me back IN again.


Hey on a side note check this out:

xppman,

My last post on this board too.

I've closed my ebay account ( imcollectordan ) as you all obviously were having
way too much fun with it ( you can check by looking at the NARU next to my name
).

I still stick by my truth that I am neither of the two people that you have
linked me to above.

Also, want to apologise to Tlcwoodworks / xppman for my rant the other day - it
gets kinda frustrating when you post truths on this board and they get deleted
by the moderator.

So, that's the end from me on here and on the PP board. You're welcome to go
over there and tell everyone that I'm now NARU - it will give many of them great
pleasure to know.

Good day to you all.

Mark.

http://www.paypalsucks.com/forums/showthread.php?fid=16&tid=10051
Sent By: exxppman

[amy]

:'(

[Anita]

To me it is simple ethics - they know full well this is a sham and they are making a ton of $$$ from it.

Where is the smiley facing holding his/her breath?

edited to add:  Hell, eBay is probably behind it!

[bargainbloodhound]

7500 usernames that are systematically generated

All 7500 could have been prevented if eBay toughened up its verification during registration

[xppman]

Oh but there is apparently some lawyer type
asking all the questions that no one has asked before or knows the answers to.

I'm so ready to slap this one down. But what does that do??

Show I'm a bigger sock than he or she.

You know once the  is in the mix. 

You just can't win. 

[sneakymagenta]

I'm wondering if this new gang is just harvesting email addresses and if they are......what is the purpose?
For sending spoof/phishing emails perhaps?

I've always thought many non paying bidders are harvesting emails.