does ebay actually do anything to bad sellers?? 0

[dollarfan]

 

i have been looking at some coins that i deem very suspect from one seller.  after reviewing all the bid histories of the higher end items it appears the seller has multiple schill bidders that simply bid on his auctions and nobody elses.  the bidder/seller ratios are 100%, 92%, 85% with hundreds of bids on hundreds of auctions/   i think this activity ruins things for people like me who want to fairly bid and buy coins.  does ebay actually do anything.  it says on their site dont bother to report it because they already got this???  really??

[MarkFeld]

Sometimes they take action, other times not. I frequently report counterfeits and fraudulent listings, but it’s a never ending, (largely) losing battle.

Please report and cross your fingers.

[dollarfan]

13 minutes ago, MarkFeld said:

Sometimes they take action, other times not. I frequently report counterfeits and fraudulent listings, but it’s a never ending, (largely) losing battle.

Please report and cross your fingers.

yeah i reported but like you said who knows what they will do.  this seller has a long history of alleged bad practices (to put it nicely) via google search (20 years worth) and many ebay complaints but still selling away.  I would be willing to wager that you already know of the person with your experience.  it just pisses me off that people can get away with such obvious bad behavior.  and i ONLY buy off ebay, so it really pisses me off.  he is the proud owner of the 1826 dime i posted earlier.  SAD!

[MarkFeld]

10 minutes ago, dollarfan said:

yeah i reported but like you said who knows what they will do.  this seller has a long history of alleged bad practices (to put it nicely) via google search (20 years worth) and many ebay complaints but still selling away.  I would be willing to wager that you already know of the person with your experience.  it just pisses me off that people can get away with such obvious bad behavior.  and i ONLY buy off ebay, so it really pisses me off.  he is the proud owner of the 1826 dime i posted earlier.  SAD!

If you meant an 1829 dime, I know of whom you’re speaking.

[dollarfan]

1 minute ago, MarkFeld said:

If you meant an 1829 dime, I know of whom you’re speaking.

yeah thats the one,  im not sure how he has it set up but he has multiple (like 10 or more?) bidders that are bidding on almost EVERY one of his listings.  if ebay doesnt do anything im gonna call them tomorrow   major going on   

1895-O morgan listing ending in several minutes bid bid bid bid bid bid bid choice unc??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MarkFeld]

9 minutes ago, dollarfan said:

yeah thats the one,  im not sure how he has it set up but he has multiple (like 10 or more?) bidders that are bidding on almost EVERY one of his listings.  if ebay doesnt do anything im gonna call them tomorrow   major going on   

1895-O morgan listing ending in several minutes bid bid bid bid bid bid bid choice unc??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve heard similar thoughts from others over the years. I don’t know whether they ended up providing EBay with specifics.

[Hoghead515]

I noticed that about a seller who was running up bids on his also. People complained about it in the feedback and he admitted to it. Said he was allowed to do that. I didn't think you was allowed. I cant remember his name but if I ever find it ill share it on here. 

[JKK]

2 hours ago, Hoghead515 said:

I noticed that about a seller who was running up bids on his also. People complained about it in the feedback and he admitted to it. Said he was allowed to do that. I didn't think you was allowed. I cant remember his name but if I ever find it ill share it on here. 

Shill bidding isn't allowed and they can permaban people for it.

The best weapon against bad sellers is to give them negative feedback. In most areas, anything less than 99.5% positive and I steer clear. Not that it's not inflated; it seriously is. But if there is negative feedback, I read it, and I also look to see how they respond to it. If they're smart, they avoid mudslinging. If they pitch a b-word fit, repeatedly, that suggests to me that they're probably part of the problem. It also means I'm probably not buying from them. I would not neg anyone casually, but bad sellers should be negged hard and often.

[RWB]

Until a few years ago ebay employed a retired teaching nun (Sister Brutus from the Order of the Sisters of St. Bernard) who was sent out to give malefactors a sharp wack on the hand  (or neck) with her wooden ruler. I recall reading that Sister Brutus quit after breaking a gross of rulers and wearing out her custom-made steel toed jackboots. She then took a job with the Greenbay Packers as left tackle. At 375 lbs she could make quite an impression on the field. (The silver cross she wore with the sharpened upright might also have contributed to her success.)

....or maybe it was a different nun....

Edited January 5, 2021 by RWB

[Alex in PA.]

12 hours ago, JKK said:

Shill bidding isn't allowed and they can permaban people for it.

EBay bans them today and they are right back tomorrow with a new ID.  Sorry to be so negative but it's almost impossible to get rid of the crooks.  

[JKK]

4 hours ago, Alex in PA. said:

EBay bans them today and they are right back tomorrow with a new ID.  Sorry to be so negative but it's almost impossible to get rid of the crooks.  

Indeed. However, it's not so immediate to build up a reputation. Any seller with low feedback, I ask myself why. Where it is not possible to fully get rid of bad people, it's at least possible to make it harder for them to do well. The feedback math is such that if even two of their first fifty are negative (on a new circumventing account), it'll look lousy for them. They'll never know how many people just came, looked, rolled eyes, and left without buying. Even a hundred feedbacks take some time to accumulate, unless there's some cheating method I don't know about. (I guess one could have 25 accounts each 'buying' for 'local pickup' one cheap item which is marked paid, all leaving positive feedback, each spaced over a week apart for a month, but that might be more headache than just earning the feedback for real.)

It's especially important because good business and good Ebenezer etiquette don't suggest it's worth just hanging a neg on someone. The person who has a problem and knows the score will typically write to the vendor, explain the problem, and ask for it to be addressed. Often it's a partial refund. Only very foolish vendors fail to understand the subtext: "If I get fair value when this is said and done, I'm happy. I don't have a desire to hurt your feedback unless that's my only recourse. Your move." Sensible vendors make an offer that will remove the buyer's sense of having been damaged. Sensible buyers accept, smile, and either leave no feedback or something positive. A neg is most likely when that process didn't work well.

And in those cases, thinking potential customers look at a neg and ask themselves: does it look like this is fair criticism that was never addressed, or does this just look like the kind of random trash truck that motates around the world looking for a dump? If it's one in hundreds, I tend to figure this vendor just got Karened with a mighty Karening. It'll happen to every seller eventually. But if it's a pattern, I look for that pattern.

Edited January 4, 2021 by JKK

[Crawtomatic]

Well stated @JKK

As for reporting and what eBay will do I don't have much insight.  I know there's times I'll go through and report each listing that has NGC/PCGS in the item details when it's a raw coin but that hasn't stopped ArlingtonCoins or others from listing them.  I don't mind if it's search manipulation and it's limited to the title of the listing but when a seller puts it in the item details then that affects the filters.  Generally I only bother with a watchdog move like that when I have a listing in said category of world or minor coins where the population of actual encapsulated items is a small percentage of the market.

Devil's Advocate for potential shill bidders.  There's seller tools for distribution lists and marketing emails.  It's possible that these same bidders all receive the weekly marketing email and are interested in the items up for auction.  If they're similar type coins I could see that.  If they're different coin types with the same bidders then it'd get a little more questionable.

[JKK]

I sell sports cards and I don't even estimate a grade. I've seen how little faith I should put in most sellers' card grading. All my listings are very clear, as part of the boilerplate, that no given grade is guaranteed or implied. Instead I give them two good photos, the kind of description you'd expect from a numismatist who also collected cards, and let them make up their own minds. If I graded them myself, I'd be wide open to all sorts of the same complaints I have so often had valid grounds to make as a buyer (though I usually just blacklist rather than neg them). I sell fewer cards than most people would, but I get no complaints.

[gmarguli]

Let's assume that shill bidding raises the final price and doesn't just replace other legitimate bids that would have been placed. What is the incentive to stop it when eBay takes a percentage of the sale price? 

eBay won't even touch blatant counterfeit sellers. Check out the Medieval coin section. There are a handful of sellers that sell nothing but counterfeits. They've been reported numerous times by several people, yet no action taken. 

[JKK]

Ebenezer is the fresh-hell-of-the-month club for me. If there were a more effective platform I'd use it. I'm convinced they've got a PHB there somewhere who just motors around the cubicles thinking up random ways to make the UI more rectacular, or add some other pain in the nalgas to make it more painful and less profitable.

[NevadaS&G]

Ebay is a strange place, I can't understand the amount of buyers I've seen buying 1 Ounce Gold Buffalos on ebay from sellers with (11) feedback and one recent Red Strike on their feedback. 

It must be some money making scam that I don't understand. A few months ago I found countless low feedback sellers selling 1 Ounce Gold Buffalos. It had to be some kind of scam.

There is a seller with 0 feedback right now selling one on Ebay - 14 hours left 2 bids already @  2025.00

The seller only has 1 item for Sale with 0 Feedback which just happens to be a high value 2020 1 Ounce Buffalo ? I've seen hundreds of these sales in the last few months. There has to be some Criminality

involved in these Ebay Transactions. Money Laundering, Something..... Dems funding their Party maybe 

Edited January 5, 2021 by NevadaS&G

[NevadaS&G]

It could be far fetched but If a new seller was selling a high $ item and waits the 30 Days for Payment he should be able to Dispute the Charge with his bank within 45 days. Thus he gets to keep the Ebay money and the money

for the Chargeback along with his imaginary coin because he returned the item. 

I think This is how Ebay keeps it's seller fees so low for us legitimate sellers.

Edited January 5, 2021 by NevadaS&G

[Hoghead515]

43 minutes ago, NevadaS&G said:

Ebay is a strange place, I can't understand the amount of buyers I've seen buying 1 Ounce Gold Buffalos on ebay from sellers with (11) feedback and one recent Red Strike on their feedback. 

It must be some money making scam that I don't understand. A few months ago I found countless low feedback sellers selling 1 Ounce Gold Buffalos. It had to be some kind of scam.

There is a seller with 0 feedback right now selling one on Ebay - 14 hours left 2 bids already @  2025.00

The seller only has 1 item for Sale with 0 Feedback which just happens to be a high value 2020 1 Ounce Buffalo ? I've seen hundreds of these sales in the last few months. There has to be some Criminality

involved in these Ebay Transactions. Money Laundering, Something..... Dems funding their Party maybe 

I've noticed that also. Im really afraid to buy something very high dollar off there with someone with 10 reviews. And 1 of them bad. 

[NevadaS&G]

3 hours ago, Hoghead515 said:

I've noticed that also. Im really afraid to buy something very high dollar off there with someone with 10 reviews. And 1 of them bad. 

Yeah check it out, I blacked out the Seller Id, I've counted hundreds of these things listings

[NevadaS&G]

How about trying to sell a crockpot first, jeez. I wish Ebay's Return Loss Information could be public so we know what's really going on.

Edited January 5, 2021 by NevadaS&G