eBay Strategies

eBay fraud on Oprah

On Friday, Oprah had a scam/fraud show and one of the segments featured eBay.  The segment covered a person that was bidding on a wedding dress, lost it, but got a fraudulent second-chance-offer.  She wired the 'seller' some $$ and of course never got the dress.

They had Rob Chestnut on who did a good job explaining why that wasn't eBay fraud and what they do to combat fraud.

Unfortunately it's never a positive when there's someone with Oprah's reach out there associating eBay+fraud so I think it was a net negative.

BBC - more ebay fraud noise

Link: BBC has an article about fraud on ebay.co.uk.

eBay fraud noise picking up.

I don't know if it's the holidays or what, but all of the sudden eBay fraud appears top of mind.  The various ebay message boards, etc.  It's starting to hit some of the more popular blogs as well.

Example, this ebay phishing article popped up on digg this am.  This one is pretty bad where even eBay can't tell that the email sent out was phishing. 

It will be interesting to see what the new competitors like Google Base and Microsoft Fremont do to minimize all the different flavors of fraud.

eCommerce Times article about stolen goods on eBay...

I don't know if its the holiday's, being burned out on elections or what, but in the last week there has been a surge in ebay Fraud articles in local/national papers.

This one is actually pretty good.

eBay continues to take a hands off policy with this requiring a police report and other items to actually take action->

We have to get direction from law enforcement, that they believe something is stolen and a report has been filed, before we can start looking for it," Durzy said. "It can never be pre-emptive, because we are not a law enforcement agency ourselves."

Durzy emphasized that eBay never took possession of the items sold on its sites. As a result, he asserted, it was impossible for the company to check whether the items were stolen, or for it to sell stolen goods deliberately. "Criminal liability requires the intent to commit a crime," he said. "We have never been sued in a case of stolen property."

eBay fraud detective

Interesting article in WSJ about ebay fraud and a detective, George Fawrup, in LA that chases them down. Kind of a good guy with great intentions, but the article doesn't have a happy ending.

Not sure I agree with this sentiment:

"This is no different than the offline world -- the bad guys come up with more creative ways of doing things," says Rob Chestnut, vice president of rules, trust and safety at eBay headquarters...

But this is kind of funny:

"This is no different than the offline world -- the bad guys come up with more creative ways of doing things," says Rob Chestnut, vice president of rules, trust and safety at eBay headquarters in San Jose.

Note to people that steal stuff and sell it on ebay - don't offer customer pick up, or use one of the many ebay drop off centers.

Scot

eBay fencing story

Another story of how eBay was used to fence stolen goods - a watch stolen 20yrs ago.

Man charged with eBay Fraud

$23k worth of fraud. Guy sold ton of sports memorabilia he didn't own on eBay.

Scot

Waaaaaaaaa!

eBay Fraud has hit a new low when some poor parent gets scammed buying Baby formula. Jeez! Seriously this article shows how a serious ebay buyer can be turned off by one bad experience.

Want to impress some Sorority Girls?

Post their key on eBay and try to sell their house.

Come on folks - Ebay is not for pranks.

Stupid crime of the day

Two guidelines for any future criminals out there:

1. Don't steal from churches.
2. If you do, don't sell the stuff on eBay