MercuryNews.com | 01/28/2006 | Biting into online fraud

Durzy said eBay can't be responsible for everything that happens on the site.

"The people who were defrauded maybe didn't take the proper steps to begin with when they were shopping," he said. "Maybe they didn't take advantage of the fact that they could see the history of the seller."

gumshoo.com - The simplest, quickest, safest way to shop eBay.

Seeing Fakes, Angry Traders Confront EBay - New York Times

This article demonstrates that it's getting harder and harder for eBay to argue that they have no responsibility to protect their users from the various scams and fraud being perpetrated all over the site.

While eBay claims that these scams account for only a tiny fraction of transactions on the site, their estimates wildly under represent the extent of the problem becuase many users never bother pursuing rip-offs when they've lost less than $50. In most cases, it's simply not worth the time or effort and users only recover a fraction of their losses.

While these scams may represent a small fraction of the total transactions on eBay, they amount to thousands upon thousands of questionable auctions on the site at any given time. Just do a search for Xbox 360 or iPod Nano to get a quick idea of how pervasive the problem is. A large percentage of these auctions are either misleading or outright fraudulent. But eBay collects listing and closing fees on these auctions, so they are presented with a very strong conflict of interest.

eBay's conflict of interest has opened an opportunity for sites like gumshoo.com to provide eBay shoppers with in-depth risk analysis of eBay auctions. With a third-party site, there is no conflict of interest in telling buyers that an item presents higher than normal risk because the site is focused on helping buyers make more informed decisions when shopping eBay.

Picasa Floating Teddy Bear

Picasa Floating Teddy Bear
Originally uploaded by cvilly.

WTF? There's a floating teddy bear in my Picasa! Is this an Easter egg? Has anyone else seen this?

I heard it on the radio....

Just before stepping out of my car this morning, I heard the beginning of a radio commercial that asked, "what would you do with a pool that let you swim as long as you wanted without ever reaching the edge?" I thought about that question for a moment and surmised that eventually I would get tired and drown.

Wired News: EBay Scam Uses IPods as Bait

This is a great article about the "matrix scams" being perpetrated on eBay. You know the ones. They appear to offer iPods for dirt cheap or free, but they are simply pyramid schemes designed to get you and 6 or 7 of your closest friends to sign up for music clubs and other services which cost money.

Here's my favorite part of the article:

EBay spokesman Hani Durzy said he was unaware of the scams. However, he said eBay allows some informational listings as long as they are clearly marked and placed in the correct categories. If an auction is in violation of the policy it will be removed, and repeat violators are banned.

"We have 20 million items on the site at any one time. In the grand scheme of things it is insignificant," Durzy said, referring to the large number of matrix listings on eBay.

Huh? He is "unaware" of these types of listings? Come on! That's simply unbelievable. All you have to do is search for an iPod and you'll see dozens of these types of scams. The bottom line is eBay makes money off these listings, so they are not likely to take them down. Monster.com has had similar problems with fake job postings and work at home scams. The perpetrators are paying them, so they are in no hurry to put a stop to it. What these companies need to realize is that scams like this undermine their credibility and hurt them in the long run.

Gumshoo.com does a good job of identifying these kind of scams. If you're fed up with all the noise on eBay thanks to these types of information only listings, I'd recommend you give it a try.

www.gumshoo.com