eBay Robbed This Man of $4700 and Suspended His Account When He Asked Questions

https://old.reddit.com/r/iamatotalpieceofshit/comments/uleq7s/ebay_robbed_this_man_of_4700_dollars_and/

by bitcharmer • 4 years ago

184 121 4 years ago

old.reddit.com

socialist_coder• 4 years ago

Based on the comments it seems this practice started when eBay switched to their own internal payments system.

A lot of anecdotal evidence in the thread that this is a common thing.

I assume there is more to it...

bodge5000• 4 years ago

In my experience, PayPal aren't much better.

A few years ago I ordered something off eBay. It was overpriced, but it was the only place selling this particular variant of the item. Anyway, the next day they sent me a message saying that variant was out of stock and could send me another instead, but of course I opted to cancel. After a lot of back and forth (them offering me dodgy extras and me refusing) they sent it anyway and told me to return it.

To cut a long story short, they did indeed send the item, but not me. And the mad part is, PayPal admitted to not caring, even with written proof from Royal Mail that the order wasn't addressed to me, PayPal pretty much said (I cant find the original dispute now, so not verbatim) that as long as the order was sent to someone, I have nothing to complain about.

In the end I just asked my bank for a chargeback, which took 5 minutes compared to the literal month the above took.

altarius• 4 years ago

That's a pretty common scam in the US with FedEx as well... someone must have access to lots of tracking numbers, they sell stuff on ebay and provide a tracking that sort of matches your city and paypal won't do anything as long as tracking sort of matches the supposed destination.

I ordered a drone, but the package supposedly weighed 75lbs and consisted of 2 palets and went to my city but the wrong zip code according to tracking -- I documented everything and started a dispute but paypal did not care.

This works best with Fedex because they won't release full tracking details afaik unless you know the destination address, which you don't know, of course.

kingcharles2• 4 years ago

I had the same thing. Company sent me something, FedEx screwed up and it got returned and delivered back to the merchant. I tried to do a chargeback, but my bank (Square) said that it had been "delivered" somewhere, which was enough for their support script. They couldn't change their support script to handle the fact it hadn't been delivered to me, so they terminated my account to solve the issue, per their T&Cs which allow terminations for no reason.

sophacles2• 4 years ago

Well yeah, eBay couldn't do it before they had their own payment system. They outsourced that stuff to PayPal

debug-desperado• 4 years ago

Their internal payment system is so terrible it won't even work with smaller banks. The verification system just fails with an unhelpful error message.

Customer service's approach to fixing this is to submit a ticket to engineering that never gets looked at, then encouraging you to open a new account with one of the larger banks (Wells Fargo, Chase, etc.).

You know things are bad when your customers are pining for Paypal back.

chris_wot• 4 years ago

Why does anyone use eBay? They clearly can’t be trusted and the chance of being scammed is high. Now we find they suspend accounts with no explanation… just doesn’t seem worth it.

loceng• 4 years ago

Arguably because there's no parallel system where all complaints a company receives must go to a government-public system to get more eyeballs on it, to actually determine case counts, and if a company adequately and thoroughly responds in all cases.

Nextgrid• 4 years ago

There's no other option if you need access to a global market for niche goods.

For common stuff, your local Craigslist equivalent is usually a better option, but let's say you have some niche/specialized industrial electronics, video game collectibles or retro consoles, etc.

Semaphor2• 4 years ago

For common stuff, your local Craigslist equivalent is usually a better option

Which, funnily enough, is eBay Kleinanzeigen (literally: eBay classifieds) here in Germany.

LeoPanthera• 4 years ago

Because that's where the buyers are. Skipping eBay means 99% of potential customers will never see your listing.

HPsquared• 4 years ago

Everyone uses it because everyone else uses it.

The buyers use it because it has all the sellers; the sellers because it has all the buyers.

officeplant• 4 years ago

It has often been the best place to buy/sell computer parts. Mostly because facebook marketplace killed Craigslist for me locally and I refuse to get on facebook.

mod2• 4 years ago

I need to join you in this. Unfortunately I like to buy certain things used--vehicles, appliances, outdoor equipment--that is larger and heavier than I care to ship.

So I have a Facebook account, unfollowed everyone, and just use marketplace sometimes.

I wish Craigslist was better here. It gets maybe .1% of the volume marketplace gets, just not even close. I used it extensively in previous areas.

jalgos_eminator• 4 years ago

As a buyer, Ebay is still the place to find specialty used items. I've also bought some uncommon tools that were brand new (at full retail price) because I would rather not buy from Amazon. But the real reason you would use Ebay is for the used items. I've only been disappointed a couple times and I've bought probably 30 used items in the last 2 years from Ebay. Never had a problem with new items.

pcan77• 4 years ago

same, I feel like if you're not gullible the experience is really smooth. I've bought everything from live coral to jackhammers on ebay no problem.

adamredwoods• 4 years ago

I buy all my used computers, phones, books, hard-to-find Lego from there for the past 10+ years. Only had a problem once, but was resolved quickly. I only buy from reputable sellers.

lvass4• 4 years ago

Incredibly common on a certain LatAm fintech/marketplace as well. A lot of people with suspended accounts with funds, nonexistent support. This is why crypto unfortunately makes a lot of sense, not that it should, but it often does feel safer, specially in the third world.

cowpig• 4 years ago

crypto
safer

?????

donkarma• 4 years ago

would love to know how you could practically chargeback someone's bitcoin after you send it to them

lvass4• 4 years ago

I guess that's a normal reaction when your money feels untouchable, almost sacred, stored in the world's reserve currency in one of the largest institutions. Digital money is no man's land (and unbearably inflationary) in some parts of the world, with crypto you can just actually take care of your damn keys and don't depend on trusting someone suspicious.

KineticArms• 4 years ago

"a certain ..."

I hate when people do this, just say it.

lvass4• 4 years ago

Mercadolibre/Mercadopago.

nawgz• 4 years ago

crypto makes sense

Does it? You have the technical hurdle of securing your own wallet, the technisocial challenges of constant scams, the inability to exchange to and from fiat without major, centralized, unregulated exchanges, and even worse than inflation a completely random value story which is somehow "inexplicably" also tied to the fortunes of the markets.

Should you try to work around some of these risks by just using an exchange, you're equally finagled in fintech, and overall I just find it impossibly hard to imagine crypto is actually saving anyone from brutal financial conditions in spite of all these claims.

jagger27• 4 years ago

Escrow. You're talking about escrow.

minerva23• 4 years ago

Clickbait hyperbolic title

robbery n. 1) the direct taking of property from a person through force, threat or intimidation. Robbery is a felony. [1]

“Screwed” is likely the word you wanted as it is a concept of justice and not criminality.

[1] https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1868

zmgsabst• 4 years ago

I think seizing someone else’s money without legal basis when acting as a fiduciary rises to the level of fraud or theft.

And for $4700, is likely a felony.

lbriner• 4 years ago

In the UK, it would be purely civil since it would not be fraud (false representation for gain) or theft (taking without permission) automatically if EBay are unaware that there is actually a problem.

If they took your money and you have proof, you take them to Court and get your money back. Annoying but hardly rare in the business world.

snake_doc• 4 years ago

Please don’t be pretentious by citing a “law” dictionary on HN. Even that definition is not completely accurate under California state law.

This is a general forum, the verb “rob” can be used with other meanings more generally[1], “to deprive of something due, expected, or desired”.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rob

electric_mayhem• 4 years ago

Why has Reddit deliberately broken browsing via web on mobile when it works just fine on desktop operating systems?

To drive app installs? Completely asinine.

millzlane2• 4 years ago

It's not designed for us. It's for the others that would look at it and see nothing wrong with that.

mlindner• 4 years ago

Replace the URL with old.reddit.com for a sane interface. Works on both desktop and phone.

SOLAR_FIELDS• 4 years ago

"Works" is relative on a phone. I guess if you have laser vision and fingertips that are the size of a pen point it's great.

I still use i.reddit.com for mobile. Blazing fast, zero ads, has most of the actually worthwhile functionality.

Thiez• 4 years ago

Agreed. You can get a much better/faster mobile experience by simply adding an 'i.' in front of the hostname, like so: https://i.reddit.com/r/iamatotalpieceofshit/comments/uleq7s/... . That way you will get the old mobile UI, which is a great way of browsing reddit on a mobile device without installing any apps.

fold3• 4 years ago

if just for browsing, you cand use libreddit frontend like https://leddit.xyz/r/iamatotalpieceofshit/comments/uleq7s/eb...

jaimehrubiks• 4 years ago

Yes. I use kiwi browser (chrome but with addons) and installed an extension that redirects to old.* reddit, there are a few similar in the extensions store.

Snowworm2• 4 years ago

Do you mind letting me know the name of this extension?

layer8• 4 years ago

I agree that it’s bad, but just FYI “Request Desktop Website” works, as do i.reddit.com and old.reddit.com.

josephcsible• 4 years ago

Yes, that's exactly why. And I assume they're pushing the app so hard because it's immune to ad blocking browsers and it can harvest more of your data.

foodstances• 4 years ago

And because they can deliver push notifications once the app is installed to re-engage users over and over.

tjpnz• 4 years ago

PiHole/some VPNs can take care of in-app ads. Haven't confirmed this with Reddit though.

honkdaddy• 4 years ago

Our only real means of pushback against practices like this is to avoid working for companies that rely on them.

When reddit recruiters or hiring managers cold reach out to you, do what I do and politely tell them that reddit's new growth strategies make working there a total non-starters. Not every company has this little respect for its users when it comes to funnelling traffic, it's completely reasonable for a native and web-app to coexist happily, even if the latter results in less lucrative ad impressions.

notyourwork• 4 years ago

To drive app installs? Completely asinine.

Because you cannot do all the reddit features on a web browser. /s It drives me crazy that everything has an app. Need a pizza, get an app.

Handytinge• 4 years ago

Yep, absolutely wild. Apparently I'm not allowed to view it because it hasn't been reviewed:

Unreviewed Content
This community has not been reviewed and might contain content inappropriate for certain viewers. View in the Reddit app to continue.

But it's ok if it's unreviewed in the app. Who are reddit is reviewing subreddits?

treis• 4 years ago

Anyone got a TLDW?

yellow_lead• 4 years ago

Guy sold his camera on eBay, eBay holds the funds, eBay later suspends his account for "suspicious activity", 7+ months pass and he still hasn't received it. Support barely wants to talk to him.

_fat_santa• 4 years ago

Why do I get the feeling this happened:

- Sale went through

- Some internal bug occurred preventing money from being released

- Customer calls and asks about the money, support staff can't figure it out.

- Customer keeps calling because they want their money

- "Hey this customer that want's his money is getting annoying, can we please ban him?"

PUSH_AX• 4 years ago

Or the user violated some TOS? Occam's razor and all that.

sixothree• 4 years ago

There are too many stories of legitimate users having this issue and the process is too opaque to be trusted for me to assume that.

sophacles2• 4 years ago

Im pretty sure I saw this in eBay's TOS: Consider yourself lucky to be empowered by eBay to make us money! If you are lucky, we may send you some money too. If you ask about your money you will be told to fuck off.

kingcharles2• 4 years ago

That's what happened with my bank (Square). They had a bug in their support script that wouldn't let them do a chargeback, so they just terminated my account to solve the problem. Bizarre.

pizza234• 4 years ago

This is actually pretty normal. A person I know worked for FamousCompany's support, and told me that the support system was buggy (which is highly ironic, since FamousCompany is high tech, while the (bottom of the barrel) support system and (unqualified) employees are third party), but they couldn't say this to the customers, so they had to say b.s.

throwawayffffas2• 4 years ago

I find it more credible that there was no internal bug, but an anti fraud system that raised a flag because it does not like 4700 dollar transactions on Thursdays or something along those lines.

I think the only reasonable recourse is to hire a lawyer to send a letter asking for the money and interest.

gaius_baltar2• 4 years ago

Small claims court? It depends on local laws, so maybe it does not apply. At least is should cost less than a lawyer fees and allow the victim to also recoup some of the money used to sue.

paulmd2• 4 years ago

Something really needs to be done about these "money transmitter" services. They essentially get all the power of a bank and none of the oversight, and de-facto there is very little way to avoid them when transacting on the internet.

The EU can do giro transfers but in the US, if you want to send money and you don't want to do a check (which have a lot of gotchas, like availability-vs-clearance of funds) then you pretty much have to use a money transmitter service. And these stories have been happening for 15 years at this point, it feels like a matter of "when" they screw you more than "if" at this point.

Pretty unlikely that constructive legislation gets passed in the US ever again though. We have passed the point-of-no-return where even the most obvious stuff can't get passed let alone if Paypal or whoever writes a big check to a congressperson to avoid regulation.

leetcrew• 4 years ago

Something really needs to be done about these "money transmitter" services. They essentially get all the power of a bank and none of the oversight, and de-facto there is very little way to avoid them when transacting on the internet.

I guess it depends what kinds of transactions you are making on the internet... I have never used paypal or anything similar to send money to a stranger. I occasionally use venmo to send small sums to friends, but never an amount I would be sad to lose.

if you want all the guarantees that come from dealing with a regulated financial institution, you should... go to your bank? they should be happy to set up an ach/wire transfer for you.

colpabar2• 4 years ago

Your argument is kind of similar to saying "we don't need to force cars to have seatbelts and airbags because I only ride a horse."

mvc3• 4 years ago

I guess it depends what kinds of transactions you are making on the internet

We're long past the time when that kind of excuse can be used by internet companies. They have taken enough market share now from "traditional" companies to be held to the similar standards. We see the billions they make in profits. Let's now see them use some of those profits to provide the service they boast of in their marketing.

irrational• 4 years ago

FYI, do not do a wire transfer from a bank. They charge exorbitant fees. Places like your local grocery store will do it for you for less than $1. My local store does it for 25 cents.

gok• 4 years ago

Money transmitter services, including PayPal, are highly regulated in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_transmitter

(Note that eBay no longer owns PayPal, nor was it even used in this case)

gnopgnip• 4 years ago

Money transmitters are still subject to Reg E and oversight.

The truth is these same things happen with regular bank accounts. If you bounce some checks, or you have a "risky" business even without any chargebacks, the bank will ask for more info and then close your account and keep the money until you prove that you aren't someone else that previously defrauded them, a nearly impossible task. The recourse is mostly the same.

paulmd2• 4 years ago

So, what do you think the guy did in this case?

There's lots of people who don't do anything wrong and then they just get flagged for whatever reason, and their assets are frozen with no recourse other than "go to arbitration [paid for by the company] and hope they give your money back".

sizzle• 4 years ago

Make a service that usurps eBay with crypto payments and an escrow service that signs the transaction after proof of KYc for scam sellers and a reserve fund to reimburse buyers for fraud, etc. I can think of so many better ways than the PayPal/eBay fund freezing Mafia

TruthWillHurt• 4 years ago

We need a site where people banned/snubbed by mega-corps can share their case and unite for action.

We get the stories about Google, Apple, Facebook and the likes all the time.

Strength in unity.

RajT88• 4 years ago

I have done some selling on eBay, and spent time reading through the support forums to understand how I should handle various situations.

eBay generally sides with the buyer. Malicious buyers know this, and will buy things, and just claim they didn't get them and demand a refund. If you don't capitulate, they file a dispute, or outright report you for fraud. Chances are good they end up with free stuff, and as a seller you're SOL. For cheaper items, it's worth it to eat the cost instead of fighting it.

/\--- I had this happen once, with a buyer from Belgium who bid up an item to more than it was worth. (At the time, no package tracking was available to Belgium - this is why some listers insist on "no international shipping" to this day)

bikingbismuth• 4 years ago

PayPal hasn’t been a part of eBay since 2015.

etataetaet• 4 years ago

Although true, from what I remember they still forced you to use PayPal for payouts until a year or two ago.

kevin_thibedeau• 4 years ago

I've had a seller pull a tracking number and then never ship the item.

mod2• 4 years ago

I bought and sold a lot, and I've never had a bad experience as a buyer.

About 10% of selling experiences were bad, whether because of scams or just shady or entitled buyers.

Lastly, though I generally did my best, a few things that gave my buyers bad experiences have happened:

1) eBay sold items while I'm on vacation mode. I got about 5 hours away from home on a month long trip when they sold my item, despite me using their vacation mode option. This happened many times.

2) USPS delivery failing. We've all seen this, packages floating in loops, or never moving. Another time an item was claimed to be broken. Maybe it was, maybe scam.

3) eBay selling my items after I removed my store and unlisted everything. Eventually I had to literally delete all my listings. I had planned on just taking a break, but no way I'm entering all those again. Anyway a couple things sold and I just immediately returned the money and told them no.

temp8964• 4 years ago

I had once a guy in California bought my used phone and claimed the screen was cracked and attached a picture of the cracked screen. I reverse searched the image and found it was online long ago. Tried to explain this to customer service for many times. They just couldn’t understand it…

I made the guy return to me and threat to report to his local police if he dares to not return to me. He eventually returned it to me. Terrible experience.

camerashy• 4 years ago

Once tried selling a $1k camera via eBay, with the no international buyers caveat.

First day received a purchase order with an address to a derelict house in Detroit followed by a private message to please send the camera to an address in Africa. Took about a day to cancel the order, and eBay still demanded a cut for this non-existent, fraudulent transaction.

Second day receive a virtually identical attempt, only this time eBay refused my cancellation. Attempted to fight it, no avail. Received a variety of indignant messages from the seller claiming I was some sort of scammer. Once again eBay demanded a cut of this bullshit transaction.

I logged out of the account and sold it via Amazon in about a day no problem. eBay is a joke.

obnauticus• 4 years ago

I had a similar bug happen to me with refunds Q1 of 2022. They withdrew money from my account mistakenly a few times and are still trying to resolve it. I suspended all transfers from my checking account to eBay and now they’re sending menacing emails. They still seem like they are unable to fix the problem and their systems are threatening me with collections even though their support teams openly admit it’s a mistake.

Feel free to DM me as well, I seriously wonder if there is some security vulnerability being exploited here that eBay is either incompetent to find or is trying to cover up.

mongol• 4 years ago

Time for a lawsuit

gandalfian• 4 years ago

https://youtu.be/m9SK1pG_BLQ Nick Janssen original video I think, not clear if the Reddit submission has any connection to the video creator. All a little nonspecific to me.

twofornone2• 4 years ago

I shipped 6 1080TIs out to a buyer a few years ago. He tore open the package and pretended that 4 of the cards were missing. This was a signature delivery, which means the buyer ostensibly accepted the package with a giant hole in it if his story is to be believed. Ebay immediately sided with the buyer and wouldn't help with the obvious scam until we took it to twitter and got the attention of some VP. We were out thousands of dollars.

tintor• 4 years ago

Why do you believe that buyer was able to see and inspect the package before they signed it?

twofornone2• 4 years ago

Isn't that the point of a signature? An opportunity for a recipient to accept or reject a package based on it's condition?

uuyi• 4 years ago

Had this on eBay a couple of times. You need to photograph the package before you send it inside and out if it’s worth anything significant. UPS and Hermes at least won’t pay out on delivery unless you have some evidence.

Other option is hire someone with a chair leg to go and get the parts back. If it’s eBay look at their for sale list - some people are stupid enough to relist what “didn’t turn up”.

joshgroban• 4 years ago

Only a small proportion of people are actually going to sue, and often people like this guy come onto the site, sell one item, and leave. There is little reason to try to retain him, he's demonstrated no value to the company. There's a certain amount of money that can be made by banning single-sale accounts after receiving the funds and a smaller expected loss from lawsuits. Compound this with the fact that small claims courts are closed in many states and it's clear eBay is actually being very shrewd here. I get that it's sad to lose some money, but it's an important lesson that you can't just swoop in to benefit off of others' work without providing value yourself.

DocTomoe• 4 years ago

And that's the exact reason we need some kind of "corporate death penalty" for companies who have demonstrated a history of scamming. When triggered, it liquidates the corporation, takes all the money, and bans anyone in management from starting a new business for 10 years.

kirykl• 4 years ago

Tangential fact, another way eBay robs sellers is charging sellers fees on the sales tax eBay opts to collect from buyers, at the same rate as the sold item’s category driven final value fee.

Basically they end up collecting sales tax from buyer, as mandated by marketplace laws, but charge the seller typically 13% of the collected sales tax as a fee

user3939382• 4 years ago

I agree. I’ve filed reports with multiple Attorneys General over this and written their executives about it but apparently nobody cares. F* scumbags.

gamblor956• 4 years ago

In Hawaii they are actually required to do that. (Hawaii's GET is levied on the gross amount, recursively applied to any taxes, etc. passed on.)

A few other states also tax marketplaces on their gross marketplace revenue, and the marketplaces reasonably pass those costs on to their sellers. Though these marketplace taxes are <1% of gross marketplace revenue, not 13% or whatever the local sales tax is.

duxup• 4 years ago

I wish we had some view of how the customer service dysfunction works at these companies.

I get that they really don't 'care'. Programmatic bans happen and whatever.

I just wonder that after someone finds some sort of avenue to contact these companies, what happens exactly? Are the front line customer service folks just instructed to close their ticket if they can't solve it? Does it get forwarded to some other customer service system where they do nothing?

lizardactivist• 4 years ago

I'm glad I have no connection to, or need of, Google Pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, e-bay, and similar large net-based services.

It's almost like they're beginning to pull the same crap American insurance companies do, where they have policies to reject 10% of all claims regardless of validity, just to reduce expenses.

dang• 4 years ago

Recent and related:

Tell HN: I was permanently banned from eBay in one hour - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31305341 - May 2022 (422 comments)

Also this from a few months ago:

Your eBay account has been suspended - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29435091 - Dec 2021 (141 comments)

mherdeg2• 4 years ago

My cell phone carrier sent me a pair of Apple Airpods as a promotion after I signed up for an account. I didn't need them, so I snapped a photo of the box and used the eBay mobile app's "list by scanning this item's barcode" feature to list them for sale.

Nobody bought them, so I lowered the price and re-listed them. Somebody made an offer that I accepted, then stopped responding for a week, so I cancelled the accepted offer and re-listed them again.

eBay then sent me an email telling me that my listing had been removed because they had determined my Airpods were counterfeit. I sent an email to an executive CS contact asking "what is going on?" and eBay sent me another email telling me that my account had been suspended and I should never try to open a new one.

So I took the Airpods out and paired them to an iPhone and obviously they work fine and aren't fake etc. If eBay has some special knowledge here I'd be happy to convey it to the police, Apple, Verizon, etc. Otherwise it's just kind of confusing?

mherdeg2• 4 years ago

Update: eBay exec customer service called me back today and said

(1) They have removed the suspension on my account

(2) They erroneously flagged my Airpods as counterfeit because (a) none of the photos in the listing clearly showed the serial number and the listing price was too low.

This seems kind of odd to me as (a) I uploaded five photos, and the 3rd one showed most of the serial number but not the whole thing); (b) the listing price, $158, was higher than the highest offer I had previously gotten ($150) and about the same price as completed listings or a little higher.

But I guess you just email exec CS with these erroneous fraud flags and you're all set.

nichohel• 4 years ago

Remember small claims court. Having just won $600 from a local company that damaged my property, I can say it works!

astro19238_• 4 years ago

Can't he report it to the police? If this is not illegal I will start my own E-Bay asap.

kuczmama• 4 years ago

I also just had my ebay account banned for no apparent reason. I listed some watches that I had, and with no reason banned the account.

I guess I'll be using facebook marketplace from now on.

eBay Robbed This Man of $4700 and Suspended His Account When He Asked Questions

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