The point is that eBay is still not making any effort to verify “buying” users; they simply do not care about fraud (unless it is fraud on them) because to do anything more than clumsily react after the fact to a user’s report would cost them resources and that would have a further adverse affect on their already ever-diminishing bottom line.
Sorry people, you’re going to have to look after yourselves in this respect and hope that you notice anything untoward early enough that the lesson to be learnt is not too expensive for you. And if the unscrupulous buyer does not get you directly by you shipping the item too promptly, before you subsequently receive the dreaded “notice of suspicious payment” from eBay’s most ugly adopted daughter, PreyPal, he can just as easily get you later indirectly through PreyPal, by simply claiming that the item never arrived or whatever.
I suspect that a notice of “suspicious payment” from PreyPal is for a “payment” that their system has already advised you has been made but PreyPal then subsequently finds that there are no funds available from the buyer’s nominated bank account or credit card to cover the purchase. So much for the clunky PreyPal system. This does not happen with the retail banks-supported credit card system because it is the buyer’s bank that manages the risk and approves the payment, not PreyPal.
I would always delay shipping anything paid for by PreyPal at least 48 hours, and even then you will find that PreyPal’s “all responsibility avoiding” UA will admit of no responsibility for them. With both these ugly commercial entities, you are literally on your own.
The fact is, you are here dealing with the two most unprofessional, unscrupulous, greedy, commercial entities on the planet. That some governmental consumer affairs regulator has not yet taken these two rampant criminal fraud facilitators to the cleaners yet, is a very sad reflection on the effectiveness of our consumer affairs regulators.
Anyway, good luck all you eBay users (buyers and sellers); but do keep your eyes open.
Enron / eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking.
