There is a new kind of eBay fraud going on. Now that there there is no tit for tat retaliation for buyer negative feedback, some sellers are burning their integrity down on the way out the door.

What I mean, is they are taking money and not delivering goods. This is especially when paid by postal money order. I guess they don't understand the gravity of felony postal fraud, but they will soon find out. These money orders have numbers, so payment is tracked.

Those who were mostly good at shipping as promised, shipping on time, and shipping at all have decided there is not a good reason to stay on ebay when they cannot retaliate against buyers who mark them down on feedback for late or non-shipping.

They are on the way out the door. They are folding up their tent for home side business and leaving. They are stealing from customers on the way out. They don't care about their shop since they have decided they cannot or willnot do business when buyer's cannot be held hostage for entering negative feedback comments. Ebay feedback was broken before. Now it his even more screwed up. I call it corporate negligence.

I've had one seller "never receive my money order" and another say he shipped on 5/16 to Maryland from Pennsylvania, but the goods are still not here tonight, on 5/27/08. The second guy has "account closed" on ebay feedback and no itmes for sale on eBay. He closed up his tent and he is ripping folks off now. I will burn his a$$. That is how I am. I will give $100 bucks to a buddy in need, but I will burn a thief for cheating me $30 because of principle. I will spend $200 of my time burning a cheat. Really that is an obligation in society and mostly I have been successful through insistance. Just ask the guy four years ago about the stolen NAPA carb he sent for a "no. matching carb". Yeah, don't ship stolen goods in boxes with UPS tracking numbers to the NAPA store where they were special ordered and then stolen.... lol!

As these guys close up shop, they are stealing from customers.

I say wait for the dust to settle before you buy on eBay again.

Don't buy or sell on eBay until they sort this out.

gee thanks 68Bigbird,what am i supposed to do till than?give the grocery store an iou so i can eat?the mortgage company wont wait,i will lose my rental spots where i keep my part cars.i agree the feedback system sucks.i have buyers trying to extort money already.they are happy with the part,service but they feel like they can get away with it now cause i cant do anything about it.i just turn them in to ebay but i cant warn other sellers about the buyers practices.all feedback should get approved by a nutral party before it goes public in my opinion

There's two sides to it. I had a perfect eBay record until one seller had issues with his payment system (initially tried to ship to a non-verified address), I emailed him, he replied and I followed his instructions, completed the transaction, and the successful transaction shows up in my history. However, he never cancelled the locked up transaction and gave me a non-paying bidder strike despite eBay mediation, a full six months after the transaction was initiated. So my eBay record is permanently flawed because of one seller.

And I was screwed on a transaction, seller took a Postal Money order but never shipped the package, closed his eBay account, and failed to respond. eBay says tough luck. And because the seller closed his account, there is no way to leave negative feedback.

I HAVE ONLY HAD ONE PROBLEM FROM THE BUYING END.AND IT WAS WITH THE PARTS PLACE INC.THEY SENT ME WHAT IN THEIR AD LOOKED AND WAS DISCRIBED AS A NEW PMD WOOD WHEEL CENTER CAP AND IT WAS A REPO.THEY NEVER STATED IT WAS A REPO IN THE DISCRIPTION AND IT WAS WHEN THEY FIRST CAME OUT.I LEFT THEM A NUTRAL AND THEY LEFT ME A NEG.THE REPO WAS NOT VERY GOOD AND I FELT THEY USED DECEPTIVE SELLING PRACTICES.THE ONLY ONES THIS FEEDBACK SYSTEM IS GOING TO HURT IS THE HONEST SELLER THAT IS JUST TRYING TO MAKE A LIVING AND IS NOT OUT TO CHEAT ANYONE.

My personal opinion is feedback should be kept confidential until both parties add there feedback. Once they both have, than it goes public. It will probably reduce the overall number of feedbacks posted, but oh well.

There's an answer/fix for every problem and I've found the perfect fix for this one.
All you gotta do is pay for your eBay item with PayPal. One more thing, you need to use a major credit card as the source. I like to use the Sears card because they are very interactive. If your item isn't received as fast as you think it should, make sure you contact your seller a few times in the days that it's late. When it gets 10-14 days late you call Sears, tell them your seller is not answering/helping and you didn't receive anything, and they take the money back. This is a good, two-way, street. All the seller has to do to get his/her money back is to prove it was delivered. Everyone is covered. You will always get your item or your money back. This doesn't help much when you get your item and do not like it, but at least you get something.... It's even funny how fast a balking seller will get you your item when you yank their money back. And you sellers, make sure you always get delivery confirmation to cover your arse.

Not all sellers accept PayPal. To limit purchases only to those who do would have me missing out on a lot of good items.

Ever try to buy a car with PayPal? It gets expensive.

Not excepting PayPal would be the first red flag. I haven't missed out on anything but rip offs by not buying from members that shun PayPal.
Cars are another animal that none of this applies to. If you buy a car like it's a regular eBay item then you are bound to get substantially burned....

good idea...

Generalizations again.

There are a lot of honest folk who are not willing to link a bank account to a PayPal account. In literally hundreds of transactions, I've only been ripped once on eBay, dealing for the most part with sellers I don't know. That's the same failure rate as I've had with transactions here on FGF.

I've bought 4 Firebirds on eBay now. Only one of them I saw and transacted in person (my project coupe) as it happened to be local. I've been perfectly satisfied with all of them, they were exactly as portrayed if not better once all the questions were answered and photos viewed. And I wired or mailed money to the seller in advance of shipping on each of them.

The problem of the thread poster was not receiving his item...ever. I present an answer, not just a generization..... If eBay has evolved to this point then PayPal is the only real answer. There's no debate of what's better if only one thing works....

Paypal is a big risk for sellers. A buyer can write Paypal that you sent a carton of rocks and Paypal will lock down your account for as long as they chose while they "investigate". They don't seem to care about hundreds of happy transactions either. They give buyer all the advantage. And then their decision is final and arbitrary. Yet sometimes a seller ships a carton of rocks. Or a picture of the item for sale. How do they sort this out?

Judge Judy

I took Paypal many years ago and didn't have any issues. Ebay was much safer then too. I closed down the link between my checking account because Paypal started acting arbitrarily and the complaints from sellers were becoming frequent. There was no one to answer phone inquiry. Sellers had their full account deposit locked up, not just the disputed amount. I bailed out because it seemed to risky to me. Savings, Checking, direct deposit and paypal linked together just seemed like an accident waiting to happen.

I take only USPS money order after receiving a bum check for $150 for goods that cost me $40 to ship. The man sent a check he dang well knew he didn't have the funds for in his account. That's bad check/fraud in my book. Eventually he made the check good. That was when eBay safe harbor was more responsive. I don't sell often enough to need the worry about Paypal and scaming buyers.

Paypal does not mediate disputes fairly. IMO they arbitrarily flip a coin. No way should a buyer keep both his money and the goods he complains about, but that is how they have it set up now.

I bought something from a guy in February and paid with Paypal. Quite the a$$, after several weeks of no contact from him (not even a note "got your paypal") and no shipping notice, the seller responded to inquiry by sending a tracking number he got by providing UPS with "shipping address information" for an item he still had not shipped. When he finally shipped ten days later, $50 worth of parts were missing. I asked for the missing items through eBay contact. He promised to send the missing parts. Weeks later, still nothing. I asked Paypal to mediate by adjusting the price downwards by $50 and cited examples of $50 value for the missing items. This was a heat pump compressor I needed for heating my home in February, so there was some urgency to receive the goods.

Seller didn't respond to the dispute. On dispute expiry, Paypal confiscated the full $190 for the transaction and put it back in my VISA account. I contacted Paypal and asked them to reopen the dispute to pay him $140 for the portion I received because I felt the buyer was due a partial payment for partial goods. They respond the case was "resolved in my favor" and the "matter closed". It was not a fair decision. It did not resolve the matter. Now I have his partial shipment. It's still the seller's property since I have not paid for it after this refund. So I can't use it. He's not answering eBay contact button when I write him to return his property. During the dispute, he denied living at his eBay registered address, so I can't really ship this heavy item back and have it declined. Now I have to store his stuff for three years in case he wants to collect his property some future date. Maybe he's not answering because he's locked up?

To lump "won't take Paypal" is a red flag isn't accurate or fair. I sell once in a while and for me to leave Paypal uncontrolled access to extract money my checking account would present an unwarranted risk. Checking accounts don't have the fraud protection credit cards have. Paypal is not FDIC insured. Where will the compensation/insurance come from if Paypal fails like some banks recently have? Unfettered access to my checking account by others could leave me with my checks bouncing all over town without it being my fault. That is why no one has direct withdrawl from my account.

I would have to be an idiot to scam someone by taking and cashing a USPS money order because that is mail fraud.

Mail Fraud

I've had only once complaint from a buyer and that was for "damage" in shipment of a $22 CD changer/player. I sent all his money back after a few emails between us showed sure enough the unit was broken when he received it. I forwarded the damage claim to FedEx and I lost the shipping cost and ebay fees. I tested the CD player just before it went in the box, so I know it worked. When he got it, the carousel drawer was loose and it wouldn't play.

Buy a car you never inspected, you're headed for disappointment. They are hard enough to sort out when they are right there in front of you. And yet I've bought two cars through ebay and feel I paid about fair price because I looked them over first. I think the only car's I've been cheated on were new ones that rolled of the dealer lot. That's been twenty-five years ago...

I should start selling pictures of cell phones on ebay! That was crazy!