Cranking up the heat

[mercinary]

Well, I know I was on leave for a week or so, but to make up for it, I put some time into updating my search and destroy script to include about a dozen+ new searches.

I'm cranking up the heat on these sellers!

-Merc

[mercinary]

You can see the effectiveness of the buffed-up search script by checking out the "auctions to be reported" thread.

Batch #81 was this mornings run with the old script.

Batch #82 was another run, including all the new searches (but not including anything found in batch #81). You can see that it more than doubled the output.

Combine the two together, and that is the search-horsepower we are talking about on a daily basis!!!!

-Merc

[mercinary]

naughteblonde had a post on our "auctions to report" thread, which gave me a new idea for a script.

naughteblonde's idea was to report auction sellers to paypal, and get their paypal accounts shut down. This is a new approach (at least it is the first I have heard of it).

I built a script that searches our master-list of current ebay auctions that have not been invalidated by ebay. The script then kicks out a list of all sellers that have the word pay-pal in any one of their violating auctions.

Script is actually running right this second, and when it finishes you'll see a new thread for it.

I also need suggestions on how to improve this particular script. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Merc

[weirdid]

WoWeeeeeeeee, that is impressive, double the output.

Nice work mercinary, ebay are going to have to take on more staff to cope with that load. :D

weird

[mercinary]

Jokack and weirdid,

I also forgot to mention that this could impact your daily reports, as my script now covers some of your search areas. Please make sure to double check that your reported auctions are indeed new, and not covered by my script now.

-Merc

[weirdid]

If i only report auctions that i have not reported befor, will that be ok ?, if i have to check my list against your list, this will take forever.

Also as there are more then one of us now reporting ebay.uk, this could lead to problems.

[mercinary]

For the time being, I guess that is how things will have to be.

Jokach and I are working on a potential online version of the scripts I run, as well an online version of the auction database I keep. If this goes into production, then hopefully we will avoid all double-reporting in the future.

For the heck of it, I cross-referenced your latest batch of auctions (batch 37) against my database. There were only 4 duplicates out of the 200 in that batch, so I'm not too worried. You searches are still (for the most part) untouched by my scripts.

-Merc

[MatrixWatch]

I am so impressed with you guys that I am awestruck!

Fantastic work.

Now, let me know how the site could be more functionable for you as well. If you need an announcement posted, new links added, or content updated then contact either me or a couple of the other dedicated members.

I know that I could use some help updating the site content so if ANYONE has suggestions please PM me or email me.

My only request is that we keep the site balanced. At certain times the people who report matrix sites to government officials are very active, and at other times the eBay team is active. I wouldn't want to polarize the site toward one single effort, but I see that you are already concious of that. That being said, I don't want anything here to hold you back, so feel free to act as if the site belongs to you.

The same goes for ycchen, concerned, and everyone else. This is your campaign too.

In addition, if any of you plan to use your efforts here as resume material then I would be willing to provide a reference. Technically, your efforts here count as service for a community and effort for social justice.

I hope that your efforts here will open more doors for you in the future.

[ycchen]

Getting their paypal account frozen is a brilliant idea!! Let me know what I can do to help a bit, as usuall.

I won't worry too much about duplicated reporting. Since several of us are reporting the same lists, so few % of overlaping will not be a problem, I guess.

I can see that we are picking up speed to elimiate their advertisement avenues. Our goal is to force all of them to advertise ONLY on pro-matrix forum. Let them kill each others on their own turf .:D

Great job doggies!

[weirdid]

I have just had a look back over some of mercinary's old status reports.
In the last 2 months, matrix sales on ebay have rocketed up, more auctions are being listed than ebay remove.

may 17, 1556 auctions, 20% removed

july 14, 8648 auctions, 39% removed

Listings have gone up 5.5 times, percentage of removals has doubled.
At this rate of increase, they should hit 10000 next month.

If only ebay would put a member of staff on the job full time, most could be wiped out in the first day, and from then on, about an hour per day would keep ebay link free.

Just my 2 cents worth.

weird

[jokach]

let me know what I can do with reporting paypal stuff. Anything I can do to help out, just say the word ...

It is unfortunate that Ebay doesn't take our reports serious enough to dedicate a person to fraud prevention like weird stated. You would think that their integrity as a company would play into the equation of having a 'safe-trading' environment. Does anyone have any connections with any magazine/newspaper writers to try and dig into this more and let ebays customers know whats reallyy happening? I would think if a well-written article got written and achieved national attention, Ebay wouldn't have a choice then address the issue more seriously ... when their credibility is on the line ...

-jokach