ebay

[Captainebay]

Tonight with Trevor McDonald. This evenings programme was all about the fraud and scams on eBay, Every programme I have seen , be it on ITV or the BBC have been on the negative side of ebay ! I find this quiet irritating, since i have been a seller with eBay since July 2000 , Why is there no programme that gives the positive side ! .. I have made a Good Business out of eBay, paying Large Tax's and VAT , I contribute well to the society, but feel these programmes are affecting my Business, by " Putting people off " .. I have brought a lot of happiness to MANY peoples lives, by offering Unique pieces of Jewellery , Pieces that are not seen everyday in the likes of your local high st jewellers, The people that buy from me come from all walks of life, People who dont get the opportunity to shop about looking for something different , because they work all the hours god sends, The most important people of all are the Disabled and housebound, these people rely on others to take them shopping, eBay has brought them a New way of life, they can buy gifts for loved ones without them having to take them to the shops,! and I know this has happened many times , I have regular customers now, people who have bought from me since the day I started selling on ebay are STILL coming back for more, people from all over the world. I just think its about time someone somewhere produced a Positive programme showing the BENIFITS of eBay , this side well OUTWEIGHS the Negative side.. PLEASE give us HONEST EBAY SELLERS A CHANCE , Does anyone agree ? .. Deborah Walker eBay ID captain6-antiquediamonds

[vehelpfulguy]

eBay does not only get bad publicilty, if that was the case nobody would ever use it.

But you have to agree that a crime that has over 3,000 victims, and nets hundreds of thousands of pounds, has to be reported.

[Captainebay]

Vehelpfulguy ~I do agree, it most certainly should be reported, I have no problem with that, you have miss understood while they are reporting these scams in the same token they should be giving the positive side ! when you think how BIG ebay is the amount of fraudulent activity is tiny in comparison, there are thousands upon thousands of people on ebay every day, I myself have encountered these fraudsters offering pieces to my underbidders,claiming to have these items, ebay states all over Western union is not accepted , you cannot fail to miss, another obvious sign is the way these scammers word emails in particular the grammer, spelling is all very broken english, Im not disagreeing, but im yet to see a postive side of ebay in a programme, if there has been one ive missed it !

[kempie]

It's the same old story as with any business or service provider; the majority of reports you hear about are only when things go wrong because tales of a complaint travel so much faster and further than any praise would.

The adage goes that you probably recommend a satisfactory company to only a few people, however if you are dissatisfied you will tell ten friends and they will tell ten of their friends, who will each tell ten friends etc. etc.

[smorodina]

There was a fairly positive report a couple of months back, but I do agree that people are more likely to remember the bad. Provided you take reasonable care, ebay is a great place to shop. The scammers are pretty easy to spot. Any offer that's too good to be true is just that.

I was almost taken in by a different scam when I had a piano for sale on a site. It was only because the 'buyer' wrote of 'the item' and asked for the price when it was clearly stated in the ad, that I smelt a rat.

[surfer mike]

Agree with kempie..The media feed off negativity, its their fix...they can take something like this ebay story involving a few crooked romanians and make it sound like the entire ebay site is at the mercy of them..i have been a member for 4 years with no trouble whatsoever, and will continue to use this site, whatever negative stuff i read..as long as you use your common sense you'll be ok.

[LeMarchand]

Not put me off, but I tend to read the descriptions and feedback very carefully. I would disagree that there is only a tiny percentage of fraudulent sellers, though. A lot of the DVDs I have looked at have patently been bootlegs; at the moment someone is offering "Lost Season 2" for �2.25 (obviously instructions on how to use P2P), and there are always those "Sky for �4.99" offers.

Yes, the majority of sellers are on the level, but the fact that eBay doesn't boot off the patently dodgy ones (and makes it quite difficult to report them) doesn't make them seem as if they care (and they still get their cut of the sale).

P.S. Re the bad grammar of fraudulent sellers, you ought to check your own post before criticising, Captainebay! ;o)

[Captainebay]

lemarchand, I agree with you to , my grammar is poor, what I should have said is the scam emails are always wrote out in bad English ~

[joko]

I guess, with this kind of thing, it's like writing an essay - you must focus on a certain aspect, rather than try to cover every angle in a limited amount of space/time.

I have had a few negative experiences on ebay and have only bought about 20 things!

So, I think its important that people aren't lulled into false sense of security by all the good reports, and are aware of the pitfalls and how to spot a scam.

its easy to play the 'common sense' card, but unfortunately a lot of people don't have much, and don't deserve to be ripped off because of it.

any show that highlights scams is a good thing, though I agree it would be good to acknowledge the good aspects too.

[Insane Wally]

Nothing to do with ebay, but whenever I've watched the program Airline, it always seems to have travellers warning people not to use EasyJet, but I don't think many people their advice.

For every 1 person that won't use ebay, there's hundreds (possibly thousands) that do.