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Xarpolis
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 15 Oct 2002
Posts: 2884
Location: Philly, PA
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 Posted: 03/21/04 - 02:56 Post subject: Anyone registered for the New York Time's web page?
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If so, would you mind copy + pasting this story for me?
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/20/technology/20EBAY.html?pagewanted=1
It's aparantly about people who have been scammed by ebay and got p****d off so took maters into their own hands. I just don't feel like registering somewhere else, so if one of you already is... that'd own.
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KapnKimchi
Luke Warm
Joined: 15 Oct 2003
Posts: 311
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Posted: 03/21/04 - 02:59 Post subject:
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E-vigilantes battle e-fraud on eBay
By Katie Hafner
The New York Times
SAN FRANCISCO -- Five months ago, Klaus Priebe, a soft-spoken building contractor who said he was sick and tired of fraud on eBay, decided it was time to catch the cheaters at their game.
In one recent auction, he bid as much as $2.5 million on a telescope worth no more than $2,000. He knew he would not have to pay for the telescope because he was sure that it did not exist.
The listing was a fake, he decided, because the seller offered free shipping and was registered in Andorra, a small country in the Pyrenees that is often listed by swindlers. Priebe said his wild bid was an attempt to protect innocent bidders from falling into the trap he had spotted.
Priebe, 42, is an eBay vigilante, one of a number of eBay members who are stepping in to fight online auction fraud -- a problem they say is getting worse by the week -- because they believe that the company does not do enough policing of its own.
But in eBay's view Priebe and his vigilante brethren are pariahs. Rather than embrace these virtual posses, eBay discourages them, occasionally going so far as to suspend the vigilantes' accounts.
"We love it that people want to help, but there's a right way to do it and a way that isn't constructive or in the interest of a good community marketplace," said Rob Chesnut, eBay's vice president for rules, trust and safety, who added that eBay is doing everything it can to make it safe to buy and sell on its Web site.
Ebay, based in San Jose, has 800 people deployed around the world to fight fraud, he said, and does not need amateur help. "Just like in the offline world," he said, "you can't have people running around taking the law into their hands."
Critics, however, say the company is not only slow to stop fraud, but is loath to reveal how much of it goes on.
"Ebay's denial of the extent of the problem is out of control," said Mark Seiden, a computer security consultant in Manhattan who stumbled upon a fake deal for a high-end espresso maker on eBay several months ago and has since uncovered hundreds of fraudulent listings. "They probably think their brand will be stronger if they hide the fraud."
Priebe, who lives in Pueblo, Colo., is not waiting for someone else to solve the problem. Like other eBay vigilantes, he routinely alerts eBay to listings he believes are fraudulent and sends e-mail messages to people who have bid on items he believes are fake to alert them to the fraud.
"That's a part of safe trading," said Priebe. "I believe that wholeheartedly. Watch my back, and I'll watch yours."
Deception is no stranger to eBay, which has 93 million registered users. Within its warm and fuzzy culture, based on trust and honesty, there have always lurked renegades.
There was the spectacular case in 2000 when a fake Diebenkorn painting was nearly sold for $135,000 on eBay in a shill-bidding fraud. Travel voucher fraud on eBay became such a problem that the company now requires frequent sellers to register with an independent verification company. The sale of fake rare stamps has spawned watchdog groups both on and off the auction site.
Yet far more rampant than art forgeries and fake collectibles these days are fraudulent listings for expensive consumer goods. Plasma televisions and laptop computers, mountain bikes, fancy espresso machines, treadmills, telescopes, even vehicles are prime candidates to be phantom objects on eBay, sometimes promoted with photos and descriptions lifted straight off the manufacturer's Web site. Often, the seller uses auction software to post dozens of items at once, flooding a category with fake listings.
Last year, some $200 million lost to online fraud was reported to the Federal Trade Commission. And nearly half the 166,000 complaints the agency received last year were about online auctions, a 130 percent increase from 2001. While the FTC does not break out figures by companies, the vast majority of online auctions are conducted on eBay.
"It's gone nuts just since November of last year," said Greg Schiller, a computer and network technician in Aztec, N.M., who says he reports hundreds of fraudulent listings every day to eBay.
Against this tide, online vigilantes have had an impact. Last year, they were instrumental in cornering a pair of swindlers from Arizona who bilked eBay users out of nearly $110,000. Often, they are the ones who doggedly trace the source of the fraud to places like Romania, which appears to be a popular redoubt, although many Romanian swindlers claim to be based in Andorra. Indeed, by late last year, Chesnut said, more than 100 arrests had been made in Romania alone.
"It's very difficult to find people who are hiding in foreign countries where there's a language barrier, and it requires cooperation with foreign agencies," said Deborah Matties, a lawyer in the marketing practices division at the FTC and leader of the commission's task force on Internet auction fraud. But she said the agency does not work with vigilantes to ferret out online auction fraud.
Some of the self-appointed crime-fighters, whose total number is unknown, have developed tactics to put scammers on notice such as creating accounts labeled, "Ionlybidonfraudulentitems." Priebe, who was once nearly defrauded himself, has an account in his wife's name called "auctionfraudbeware," which he uses to place his outrageous bids.
Schiller and others say they engage in self-help activities in part because they yearn for the days when eBay was a much safer place. "Ebay is a wonderful thing," Schiller said. "But a lot of people are getting ripped off for a lot of money."
The company says vigilantism, like Priebe's bidding tactics, is not a solution and will not be tolerated. The company also does not allow its members to send e-mail messages to bidders to warn them that they are bidding on something that does not exist, or to post details and item numbers on eBay discussion groups.
"If you allow that sort of activity, even the bad guys start posting about the good guys, and you end up with a big free-for-all and a lot of finger pointing," said Chesnut. "That's not the right way to go about doing things."
Ebay estimates that of the 20 million or so items that are for sale on its Web site at any given time, only about 2,000 items, or one-hundredth of 1 percent, are fraudulent. But that figure reflects only those cases that are settled through the eBay buyer protection claim process.
Seiden, the computer security consultant, believes the actual number of fraudulent auctions is considerably higher. "Ebay's protections don't apply to many kinds of transactions like Western Union scams, so they go uncounted," he said.
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Xarpolis
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 15 Oct 2002
Posts: 2884
Location: Philly, PA
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Posted: 03/21/04 - 03:13 Post subject:
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Thanks a lot.
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Tura
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 29 Oct 2003
Posts: 4865
Location: Raleigh, NC
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Posted: 03/21/04 - 03:27 Post subject:
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| Quote: | | "We love it that people want to help, but there's a right way to do it and a way that isn't constructive or in the interest of a good community marketplace," said Rob Chesnut, eBay's vice president for rules, trust and safety, who added that eBay is doing everything it can to make it safe to buy and sell on its Web site. |
Yeah right....If any of you listen to Clark Howard im sure you've heard the nightmare ebay stories. Ebay doesnt give a flying f**k if you get ripped and they make sure they're in legal bounds to not take any action.
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Frashii
Sir Postalot
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 1338
Location: Anchorage, AK
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Posted: 03/21/04 - 05:14 Post subject:
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If someone has a login for the NYT, I'd really love to borrow it for some searches.
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kireol
RealPoor Master of Posts
Joined: 02 Aug 2003
Posts: 9517
Location: Royal Oak, MI
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Xarpolis
RealPoor Guru
Joined: 15 Oct 2002
Posts: 2884
Location: Philly, PA
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Posted: 03/21/04 - 10:30 Post subject:
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Yeah, but who wants to register and get more spam mail?
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kireol
RealPoor Master of Posts
Joined: 02 Aug 2003
Posts: 9517
Location: Royal Oak, MI
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Posted: 03/21/04 - 10:39 Post subject:
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create a yahoo login for your spam. that's free too =)
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