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One way to spot well-hidden fraud on eBay


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I have noticed a lot of fraudulent camera listings on eBay. Usually they are easy to spot: there is usually a notice in the photos, or in the item description, that there is a BIN price, and that all bids will be ignored. That's obvious fraud.

 

The less obvious fraud is when the BIN price for an item is suspiciously low, but not stupidly so. There is no disclaimer anywhere that discourages you from bidding. But, for some reason, the item location is given as a non-existence place. For example, Kiev, Italy. Or, St. Petersburg, Germany.

 

Just be careful. I think eBay needs to be more strict as to how accounts are created.

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Every couple of weeks, usually Saturday or Sunday am, a bunch of fake Leica gear auctions show up, and I report them to Ebay so hopefully unsuspecting buyers won't loosen their wallets to these scumbags. As Karim mentioned, when you see a seies of auctions showing up at under $5, and when you scroll down in them, you see a BIN price much higher with contact info outside Ebay...run away...thry aren't real. You can also check the sellers' history and quite often you will find they sell used clothing, low value trinkets, etc., so there is little likelihood they came upon a cache of high end Leica gear to sell.
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seller isn't getting any money till item actually delivered

How do you manage that? Isn't the usual way that the buyer pays and the item is then shipped? Unless some kind of escrow account is used, the seller usually receives the money right away, or not? I haven't sold anything on ebay for quite some time - so things might have changed.

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Ebay is shyte any more. Only thing it's good for is avoiding retail purchases on Amazon- although I've bought a few things from "ebay sellers" that arrive in Amazon packaging! Coe to think of it I bought something on eBay app, that arrive in a Home Depot box once! What in the absolute f. It's getting harder & harder to boycott places! :-0
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I have noticed a lot of fraudulent camera listings on eBay. Usually they are easy to spot: there is usually a notice in the photos, or in the item description, that there is a BIN price, and that all bids will be ignored. That's obvious fraud.

 

There's nothing inherently fraudulent in putting a Buy it Now price on an item. Total FUD. But yes, always be careful in buying any thing on an auction site.

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There's nothing inherently fraudulent in putting a Buy it Now price on an item. Total FUD. But yes, always be careful in buying any thing on an auction site.

The bit about buy-it-now prices that hint at fraud are those that are not offered through eBay's 'mechanism', but are posted in the text of an item's description. Often that description isn't text, but an image of a text, i.e. not machine readable.

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Ebay is shyte any more. Only thing it's good for is avoiding retail purchases on Amazon- although I've bought a few things from "ebay sellers" that arrive in Amazon packaging! Coe to think of it I bought something on eBay app, that arrive in a Home Depot box once! What in the absolute f. It's getting harder & harder to boycott places! :-0

I gather you only had bad experiences buying on eBay. There's not much wrong with eBay, though, as long as you remember that age-old caveat emptor.

 

The box something comes in... only tells you something about what box happened to be available to the seller. What's your gripe with that?

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The bit about buy-it-now prices that hint at fraud are those that are not offered through eBay's 'mechanism', but are posted in the text of an item's description. Often that description isn't text, but an image of a text, i.e. not machine readable.

Got it, thanks. I thought he was talking about the button often included on many auctions. In the words of Emily Literal (Gilda Radner)..."Never mind". :)

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There are non-fraudulent BIN items, but yes they have to be bought the right way.

 

My most recent camera purchase, which I have posted pictures from, and posted it on

"what camera are you using this weekend" is a Nikon D1X for $42.

 

Pretty close to the price it says here: Nikon: D1X Price Guide: estimate a camera value

 

It was sold by Roberts Cameras, which seems to have thousands of reasonably

priced cameras, mostly with BIN pricing. They have 99.7% positive feedback,

and over 160,000 items sold!

 

It seems that now they have D1X at 3 for $129. (In case one isn't enough.)

-- glen

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A just FWIW recent ebay experience:

I bought a cheap 'fitness watch' on ebay, only to find it was a fake and couldn't possibly measure heart rate. It was refunded after complaint to the seller - fair enough so far. But then it gets interesting.

I filled in the request for feedback with a negative due to 'Item not as described' - then received a grovelling plea from the seller to request a withdrawal of feedback.

 

That's not the first time I've received a plea from a seller not to leave negative feedback on an unsatisfactory item either. But one has to draw a line somewhere.

 

I'm gobsmacked. I mean, what use is feedback if it's not going to reflect customer experience? Or can be censored if it's not to the seller's liking?

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I think I have given positive feedback when I got a full refund for a defective product.

But that would be for good faith defects.

 

In the case of an actual fake product, when the seller should have known, I am not sure.

I thought it wasn't possible to withdraw feedback once submitted.

-- glen

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It was sold by Roberts Cameras, which seems to have thousands of reasonably

priced cameras, mostly with BIN pricing. They have 99.7% positive feedback,

and over 160,000 items sold!

 

You can get the equipment cheaper if you go directly to Roberts' webpage at Used Cameras and Used Camera Equipment For Sale | UsedPhotoPro That way, they don't charge slightly more because of ebay fees. Also, if you use the coupon code "take5" when you check out, you'll get 5% off your purchase.

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Feedback can be changed if requested. If you are a seller as well as a buyer, you have a different outlook on feedback. Even one negative out of hundreds of positives knocks you off 100% for a whole year. I've only ever given positive feedback.

 

I get particularly annoyed about people who say they will give good feedback upon receipt of the same.

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I bought some cheap Chinese hub caps on ebay. I had to get 3 shipments of a set of 4 before I got a complete unbroken set. Nothing wrong with the caps, but the packing was completely useless, so they got broken in transit. I then wrote a review saying precisely this. The company then bombarded me with pleas to write a positive review instead. More and free hubcaps were offered. It was quite sad. They must already have made no money whatsoever on the ones I had bought. I didn't change my review.
Robin Smith
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I bought a pretty neat Kodak folder on ebay the other week, complete and working, but the seller sent a derelict folder, larger and with the film winder completely missing, just a big hole in the side. It's beyond me how mistakes like that can be made. The derelict one wasn't even listed.
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One thing that continues to amaze is that people buy stuff on eBay that is cheaper than cheap, so obviously not as good as the many times more expensive stuff, and still complain when it turns out to be what it is expected to be.

 

Re sellers from China, often what you pay including postage is less than what it costs to send a letter to your neighbour. But yes, you have to be patient, and it sometimes takes a few tries. I have never dealt with a Chinese seller that did not make good. Bad experiences (i had a few too, having traded on eBay thousands of times) almost exclusively with European and North American sellers.

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Yes, indeed, the US importer of the caps was embarrassingly eager to please, but it didn't mean that I was not pissed off with having to keep getting back to them in order to get a complete set, and then waiting for another (defective) set to turn up. The hubs themselves were fine, but why they did not pack them in a way that prevented breakage in transit is beyond me since it cost them all their profit, not to mention the time wasted.
Robin Smith
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Yes, indeed, the US importer of the caps was embarrassingly eager to please, but it didn't mean that I was not pissed off with having to keep getting back to them in order to get a complete set, and then waiting for another (defective) set to turn up. The hubs themselves were fine, but why they did not pack them in a way that prevented breakage in transit is beyond me since it cost them all their profit, not to mention the time wasted.

It's a volume thing. Increase packing costs for every single sale vs. taking a loss on a few sales with lower packing costs.

Time is not a factor.

In the end, you were glad you got your set of caps for little money, i guess. Same thing, sort of: cost savings vs. a little inconvenience and extra time. If you wouldn't be happy with that, you should and would have bought the set from a local dealer and carried the things home. So why complain?

 

It looks like it is a "fashionable thing", complain about bargain sales from China or on eBay. But it is not as if we do not know why we buy from and through these channels, and what we might expect (which really isn't that bad, else those channels werren't doing as well as they do). It is our choice. So complain about that instead, i'd say.

Edited by q.g._de_bakker
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Annoying about eBay reviews is, i find, that some sellers harass you for a positive review while holding back on their review for you, their client. That "if you don't give me a good review, i will use my review of you as revenge" thing. I do not give any review of a seller anymore unless he or she has expressed how they liked to get my money.

Ratings, however, are highly overrated.

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