Hi Roo and Bobby....reading your posts with interest.....what you are describing is Predatory behaviour........Roo, as you know, a group of us each helped many hundreds of fraud victims on the RT last year, and for our trouble, we were attacked left, right and centre....These were people who had lost huge amounts of money, were very distressed, and offered ABSOLUTELY NO HELP from Ebay or Paypal in terms of customer service...in fact, directly following the Paypal imposition, it was ironic, given that a good majority of the EBS victims for instance, used Paypal, and looked like getting diddled anyway..that was until fellow Consumers took it into their own hands to fight them in the Media on behalf of those victims. To this day, we are still being trolled around by various ne're do wells..yes even now.
Even better...all four of the largest frauds last year were Powersellers......lt's all a bloody big sham. Just consider Philips research on shill bidding...makes sense doesn't it? Shill bidding is functional to Ebay's bottom line.....and Fraud is functional to the Extortionate push of Paypal . It seems that is why Ebay do absolutely nothing to curtail either...in other words, it's not in their interest to clean up their marketplace. You'd be blown away by the fact that the 2006 study by Comslaw Going, Going Gone ! concluded exactly the same thing....Ebay have no incentive to curb the fraudulent and unconscionable behaviour, because they profit by it. I'll fish out the exec summary...fascinatingly study.
Id' like to set up a reporting facility for ripped off consumers to get some assistance in lodging Fair Trade complaints against any seller on Ebay who rips them off, (and Ebay itself for failing to provide a safe marketplace)... The more cases that come before FT tribunals implicating Ebay as having exercised no duty of care, the more likely it will be that they will be made accountable. People just give up.....and that's also what the Going Going Gone study found.
Soon....all States in Australia will have Unfair Consumer Contract legislation and what that means is that no more will companies like Ebay be able to fall back on their unconscionable UA to argue no accountability in a FT tribunal or civil law setting. The stage has already been set in Victoria with the Evagora V Ebay case, which (although outdated in some aspects), identifies Ebay as a SERVICE PROVIDER and as such accountable to it's members/consumers, even if no money changes hands...so that's buyers and sellers alike. Same with Paypal...Ebay don't tell consumers that they have a right to OBJECTIVE dispute resolution with BFSO, if they disagree with Paypal. They also don't tell them that it makes no difference if they are a buyer or seller...they are both consumers and the complaint is against Paypal.
It all comes back to verification doesn't it?...mmmmmhhhhh?????
Take a look at the traditional market structure.....NOBODY get's to rent a market stall, full time or casually without being verified and therefore accountable for what they are selling. Makes sense doesn't it?. Why do we simply accept that just because it's on the NET, the rules should be different or non existent all together? The rules are there to protect consumers.
Currently, businesses who trade on the Net only, are not required to be registered....and that's the first problem......All shop owners/traders on Ebay should be required to at least register a business name.....Casual sellers are not in that category and should perhaps be classified as 'Artists' 'Collectors' 'Cyber Garage Salers'...(still verified).
Fraud flourishes in the absence of safeguards and deterrents, of which Ebay have none. There needs to be rules and consequences. e.g. if you are a casual or business seller at a Market and you are caught selling stolen goods or fakes? Guess what?....you're pinched...no escaping it. Not so on Ebay, because everyone is anonymous....and ebay throw their hands up claiming 'venue only'.
Nobody is going to convince Ebay to clean up it's marketplace, whilst it's so functional to their bottom line....the only way to achieve that is with consumer power......and constant reporting to FT whenever they act unconscionably. Also a letter campaign to respective Fair Trade Ministers wouldn't hurt. It's been done before with great success. *wink*
