Judge raps eBay over fraud
Summary: Internet fraud is 'extremely easy' to carry out, according to a British judge, but eBay says its doing all it can to fight the problem
Judge Richard Bray said it was "hardly surprising" that eBay was targeted by criminals, given the measures it has put in place to protect users. Judge Bray suggested that letting customers register negative feedback about other users wasn't enough.
"Provided you don't have fraud against you on eBay, you are all right as a fraudster -- you can get on and sell anything you like," Judge Bray said, according to reports on Tuesday.
"It seems to be extremely easy to commit fraud on the Internet," Judge Bray added.
The Judge was residing over the trial of a woman convicted of taking £3,000 from five separate eBay customers for non-existent tickets to the Glastonbury music festival.
EBay insists that its systems are safe and secure."Fewer than 0.01% of all listings on eBay result in a confirmed case of fraud, and when used properly the site is a safe and secure place to buy and sell," said an eBay spokesperson.
"EBay employs approximately 1,000 people at eBay and PayPal [which is owned by eBay] with backgrounds in law enforcement, customer support, advanced computer engineering and analysis, who are dedicated to making eBay one of the safest places in the world to trade. We encourage all users to report any suspected fraudulent activity to customer services who will investigate," the spokesperson added.
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Talkback
oh yea and i want my money back.
lot of time on the computer to get this done i have not ordered anything since then from e-bay
Rohan
I can only hope that the bad publicity in the U.K. will result in some reform of e-Bay and Pay-Pal policies, but I am not planning on holding my breath.
Although I do continue to use Pay-Pal, I now will no longer pay directly from my account for anything over the sum of USD $20.00, as that is all I am willing to risk.
If you are going to spend a significant amount of money for an item on e-Bay, use your credit card through Pay-Pal, that way, you have recourse to your credit card company should something go wrong.
William
I just had a $200-plus auction won by a person with a negative 2 feedback rating that Ebay has permitted to stay registered for FIVE YEARS! The first time they won an auction athey never paid and the next time was 3 years later then now, 2 years after that. Ebay has no telephone support and weak-as-hell on-line live customer support, just sending cheesy form letters that never realy address the actual problem. I think some of these fake buyers are Power Sellers, using this to elliminate smaller individual sellers with whom they compete. I also would not be surprised if Ebay hasI emplyees maintaining multiple identities and doing this type of thing in order to maintian a strong cash-flow. They will demand their $50 fee for a my auction and then give a small refund 2 weeks later. Multiply that times a few thousand transactions ber day and you see how Ebay protects fraud, LIKES fraud, and, most importantly, MAKES MONEY with Fraud.
I suppose you have remember buyer beware and if it seems to good to be true then it probably is.