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View Full Version : a better way to stop the scammers :)


bunglator
October 13th, 2004, 07:47 AM
have a funny story on something each and everyone of you can do when your bored, and not only is it fun but it stops them scummy ebay scam artists too.

We all know about the people on ebay who sell those stupid links to matrix sites, the way they write pages and pages of information on a new sexy laptop and you think yes yes YES! cos the price is so low, however you scroll right down to the bottom to find the words "THIS ACTION IS FOR A LINK TO A VERY GOOD AND LEGITIMATE WEB SITE WHERE YOU CAN GET THIS LAPTOP FOR ON £20" or something similar.

The other day me and my mate were at work and we were bored, we noticed that on a lot of these sellers item people were actually bidding, and not just a couple of quid, oh no, i am talking hundreds. We sat for a while and dreampt of a new life as a millionaire selling these links ourselves, but then a conscience appeared and we realised how wrong it was, damn that conscience.

We got thinking, for a way to screw these scammers back, then we thought about the ebay fees and how they are Proportional to the value of the item on the winning bid. to make it easier to understand go here http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/fees.html

We understood that these items are agaist ebay policy and that reporting the item to ebay will have it removed, however there a much more interesting way to stop the items from screwing people over.

What you will need:
1. an ebay account
2. a Mate with an ebay account (or multiple mates)
3. that same mate whos ebay account doesnt have an address or phone number linked to it incase these people get annoyed and come and kill you
4. some music (just for the atmosphere)
5. maybe something to drink, a latte or perhaps a nice blended fruit drink
6. a sense of humour.

These may not seem as funny when reading it but try this yourself with a mate. Find one of these people that are selling links to matrix sites, keep a record of the item number or the seller id. Then all of you log into you ebay accounts and go crazy. Bid like you are some kind of crazy rich person. You will suprised what a great feeling you get when u have just bid 1 million quid for a web link. and its great fun just trying to beat ur mates on these bid in the closing minutes with your millions of pounds.

Of course thats not the only funny bit, the great thing is that the seller cant ever leave u bad feedback cos ebay would have to remove it as you were assisting them in stopping a illegal item sell. But wait thats not the funniest part....remeber the link to ebay fees i pasted above? well let me just show u a quick calculation

me and my mate bid like crazy, well actually we just wacked in a huge value cos it was quicker and we were testing it out. when the item finished this is the fee's the seller will have on there account, this is just for one item that they sold illegally on ebay:
so for the first £30 it works out at £1.75
the next £600 is £19.50
and then the 1.75% of the final price, this is the best bit, £175,000
imagine the persons face when there dodgy item sells for £10,000,000 and they realise they have a ebay fee of over £175,000 for the one item.(of course i believe they can get the item cancelled and not have to pay the fee but if they forgot it would be fantastic

For added effect list a sellers items and bid millions on all of his dodgy link sells, i believe ebay will let a single account (well this is what ours allowed) bid about £40,000,000 over around 4 items but u may manage more i am not sure.

so there you have it, one night at work, and we find a new past time. I hope you all have fun doing this cos its well funny, esspecially some of the funny emails you get back from the sellers. People should post thier item sells and thier emails from sellers, i bet some of them will be well funny.

Hope it was as interesting for u as it was for us.

bye

jokach
October 13th, 2004, 08:42 AM
Hi bungaltor!

Although your idea of scamming the scammer hits them right where it hurts and it is amusing, there is still the moral question of whether its right to do that or not. What you are suggesting is against eBay policy as well, its called shill bidding. At some point eBay will suspend your account, and your mates account, for doing it too many times (or possibly after one time by taking a bid up to a million dollars).

My opinion is to go the honest way and continue to report the auctions to eBay, because they are beginning now to close more and more of these auctions that we report each day. Basically, two wrongs don't make a right ... if we make the effort to shut the scammers down the right way, eventually they will go away and realize that their nonsense isn't acceptable.

jokach

mercinary
October 13th, 2004, 08:48 AM
bungaltor,

Welcome to MatrixWatch!! I definately appreciate your enthusiasm for getting back at these scammers, but I do have to agree with Jokach here. Shill bidding will quickly get your eBay accounts closed. There have been other vigilanti groups who have tried this method, and the same thing always happens.

Once again, welcome! It sounds like you might be interested in being a watchdog here at MW. If so, let me know.

-Merc

weirdid
October 13th, 2004, 05:07 PM
I saw this happen befor, a mobile phone was bid up to £55000, the winner left negative feedback.

2 days later, the ID's that did the shilling were NARU'd, the negative was removed, but not one of the scammers auctions were pulled.


weird

motyl24
October 13th, 2004, 06:56 PM
Bungaltor,
not to mention that if you bid, you actually scam the people that already spent their money with matrix sites!! So in fact you're not hurting the matrix site, but innocent people...

MatrixWatch
October 14th, 2004, 02:41 AM
Welcome to the site bunglator! :)

I've heard of methods like yours. The biggest bummer is that it has to come to this. eBay is not doing a solid job with fraud prevention and as a result vigilatism becomes widespread.

While I would say that I personally diagree with your approach, and I think that the team here has implemented some more effective (and ethical) methods, I totally understand were you are coming from. These scammers are very frustrating, and hopefully we can continue to build our strong base here at MatrixWatch and make a combined effort to getting these scams off eBay for good.

weirdid
October 14th, 2004, 06:26 AM
ebay.co.uk are having a big advertising campaign on radio and tv, i have already noticed that some newbies are bidding silly money on links.

The advertising will be a complete waste of time and money, as those that get ripped off will soon spread the word that ebay is not a safe place to buy.


weird

cybertrax
October 14th, 2004, 07:44 AM
It is actually the 'newbies' that riun things for everyone. They get excited by their first bids at auction, and get carried away with it all - forgetting to read the adverts before placing a bid. After they have won, they then realise what they have actually bid for, and refuse to pay.

This is not the fault of the seller, nor is it the fault of eBay. The responsibility lies with the bidder, who has not bothered to actually read the auction advert correctly and so has 'ignored' the basic premise of an auction - all bids are binding.

One thing thast you forget, Bunglator, is that it is not just eBay that you would have to worry about with your actions. As all bids are legally-binding, you would lay yourself open to legal action, including being taken to court, in order to get payment from you. This is stated in all auction sales; once you have placed your bid you are asked to confirm it, and are reminded that your bids are legally-binding and you cannot change your mind afterwards. The only exception to this is real estate, which is a non-binding sale.

Placing a silly bid, say for instance £10,000, could actually backfire on you - you might end up facing the consequences, and having to actually pay that silly amount.

mercinary
October 14th, 2004, 08:45 AM
Actually, cybertrax is a bit off here. If an auction is against eBay's TOS, then it is arguable that bids are not binding. I haven't looked over eBay's help section to find out their "official" stance on this, but I doubt that eBay (or a legal authority) would force anyone to pay $10,000 on an auction that eBay shouldn't have let run in the first place.

Additionally, the fault does not sit with the bidder. Certainly the bidder should read the entire auction, but the fact of the matter is that these auctions are against eBay TOS partly because they are misleading. It is the sellers who the burden is on, not the bidders. If sellers stuck to the eBay TOS, there would be no issue here.

But I digress, as I can see this slipping into the pro-matrix vs anti-matrix realm....

-Merc