E-bay Rating Scam

[aeonf242]

Just a warning to people bidding on e-bay...LOOK AT THE SELLERS FEEDBACK VERY CAREFULLY...MAKE SURE IT'S NOT FAKE!

There seems to be a little cottage industry for people boosting ratings by selling something for a nominal fee then the buyer and seller exchange meaningless feedback...hence boosting each others ratings.

Has anyone been stung by these guys?

Anyone successfully reported them to e-bay? (ukcswebhelp@ebay.com)

EXAMPLES :

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...tem=2974757451

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...tem=2977025718

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...tem=3451321387

[joshwa]

of the first link - 3 of the people appear to be "not a registered user" so perhaps people who do this end up getting kicked off by ebay?

[joshwa]

that's just stupid - in the 3rd one it's obvious that people have got fake feedback - but i suppose they will get away with it because most people don't bother checking the history.

[joshwa]

you could always buy the "free feedback" and leave nagative feedback for him telling him how much you think what he's doing stinks

[aeonf242]

I'll take your word for it that they're not registered, they all appear to be for me :-)
Still they're just examples.
I did think of buying and OUTING but then they'll only end up leaving negative feedback on me.
Most I do is report them to e-bay.

[Lee]

My friend was attacked by these crooks a while back. Bought a TFT monitor and lost over £500 in the process. Not a thing the police or eBay could do about it. Annoying.

[ERU]

I'll take your word for it that they're not registered, they all appear to be for me :-)

They must be registered or it wouldnt contribute towards his final feedback rating. I report stuff like that quite a bit as i have been stung myself. eBay do remove them and ban them on the 3rd warning but i guess they just need to start again; hence only 99 feedbacks and not 1000's

[aeonf242]

If you look carefully feedback stays even if it's from non registered users.

So presumably if people are building each others ratings up and one goes down the other remain

e.g.
niceandsilky( -1 ) Not a registered user 19-Dec-03 19:03:36 GMT 3372514853 S
Complaint : THIS RETARD SELLS LINKS!! DONT TRUST A CON CON CON CON READ CAREFULLY

[J4MES]

i've been banned (and so was a mate) when we did this: bid on each others unsold items, to get feedback, rather than loose money - it only took 2/3 'mutual' purchase untill eBay closed both our accounts, emailing us telling us that they thought we were one and the same person... so i can't complain - they try to protect us (and their reputation) by doing this, and i'm reassured...

even tho eBay sux

[malfunction]

eBay sux

Indeed... After e-mailing them about the 3rd link (the most obvious fraudster) I got this reply:

Hello,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us with this information.

We are concerned about violations on our site and strive to thoroughly
investigate each report we receive. Unfortunately, we are only able to
accept reports of this nature through our Rules and Safety Web Form.

This form will help us classify and investigate the matter in a timelier
fashion. Please be aware that in order to use this form, you must have
the specific item number of a questionable listing. We cannot accept
reports of eBay User Ids, search results, or URLs.

Or in otherwords "We can't be arsed"

[aeonf242]

That response does suck.
I get the normal response of "We're not telling you what we did, blah". You have to assume that they get a slap on the wrists.
It'd be nice to name and shame though.

[Rory]

Uh they are still not banned... Anyway can someone explain to me about how people sell links (webpage) over ebay :| I was looking for P900's out of interest and there are people bidding £150 + just for a link :S...

[aeonf242]

If you want to sell a link you basically dress teh auction up as if it were real, then put a little line saying what you're actually going to do is shaft them.
People will fall for it, especially at the last minute or if they think they're gettinga bargain.
It's basically riping of stupid people, which isn't nice..or even worse preying on poor people desperate to get a PC.

[Swafe]

my mate did it and got 1 free good feedback

seems like it works and not scam?

[aeonf242]

It's only a scam by the fact it's not in the spirit of it, blah, blah.

If you get 1 + rating fair enough but if you build 100+'s then sell rogue links to idiots...you're SCUM!

[Swafe]

you have a good point, i hate people who sell links, i almost bought one till i was luckily outbid, i didnt realise till it was after

someone last night i noticed paid 98 quid for a link to get a 20 quid 7250i, obviously he thought it was the phone, and i know what site it is and wouldnt sell the link, its worthless just another pyramid scam

as for feedback , i see where its a scam there, people can easily get their rating up, then con people thinking they are trustworthy


a good thing is tho, the feedback sellers have to pay listing fee, also % of sale, so are probably paying 20p per feedback, 1000 feedback will cost em 200 quid, then ebay will bust the suckers and delete there account ! well, hopefully