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For what its worth, thats the "brick scam". As in "you can't sell apple stuff on ebay anymore because of the brick scam". Usually, they send you a return packa
by noonespecial 10y ago
For what its worth, thats the "brick scam". As in "you can't sell apple stuff on ebay anymore because of the brick scam".
Usually, they send you a return package with a rock or brick inside approximating the weight of the original package.
Its famous enough at this point that its impossible that ebay is unaware. They are fully aware and are choosing to continue to profit off of this. So much so that the "shell game" the author faced is likely scripted by this point.
Ebay consumes sellers as a raw material as part of the process. That's their business model.
- tananaev 10y agoJust want to point out that it's not always a planned scam on buyer's side. Actual item might be stolen/replaced on customs, post office, some package sorting facility or even by your neighbors. For a buyer eBay is a great place because everything is protected and you can always get a refund. For a seller, I guess you either have to accept the risk, or get some kind of insurance. Overall, I think auction places always attract scams, so there always be some risks involved.
- MarkMc 10y ago> For a seller, I guess you either have to accept the risk, or get some kind of insurance. Or eBay pays the insurance cost out of the fees they charge.
- seanp2k2 10y agoIt's hard to prove anything without some type of escrow service. It'd be cool if eBay offered such a service for an additional fee.
- 1_2__3 10y ago...are you joking or serious?
- Freak_NL 10y agoWhat's wrong with the notion of an escrow service? For high value items the extra protection may be worth it.
- Leynos 10y agoeBay are partnered with escrow.com to offer this service (which, I admit is different from offering it themselves, but it's there in that form).
- Qwertious 10y agoAIUI you just described Paypal, which they not only provide, but also make mandatory, and part of their mandatory fee pays for insurance.
- palunon 10y agoPayPal doesn't put the item in escrow.
- nommm-nommm 10y agoHardly. An escrow service would be a neutral company that would intercept items and returns to make sure they were the correct item and in the correct condition.
- 1_2__3 10y agoEbay offered escrow services for years prior to purchasing and integrating PayPal. I wasn't trying to be rude, I was trying to figure out if you were doing the old "if only <such and such> existed" when it actually does/did exist.
- unabst 10y ago> everything is protected and you can always get a refund. Hardly. No guarantee that anything is authentic or not stolen. No refunds outside the return window. And you need to know how to use ebay to force your refund. If your return package fails, you'd need to go through all of the USPS insurance hoops. And the protection ebay offers is the same protection most credit card companies offer which is also similar to what paypal offers... so this idea that "ebay provides safety" is a delusion. > you either have to accept the risk, or get some kind of insurance. That's not the point. The point is, ebay doesn't give a shit, and there is no "some kind of insurance". > auction places always attract scams As do all monetary transactions.
- nommm-nommm 10y agoYes, it can be tampered with anywhere along the way. I've heard of bricks or even jars of tomato sauce showing up instead of expensive electronics shipped from Amazon's warehouse.
- JonDav 10y agoCould you record the opening of the box and then go after eBay for allowing the fraud to occur?
- windlep 10y agoHow would you prove you were opening the box as shipped? If investigative news meant anything, they'd be all over this. But most investigative news is gone, and there's so few investigative reporters and trustworthy news outlets left that its hard to hold ebay's feet to the fire.
- raquo 10y agoYou'd need to also record yourself putting a real phone IN the box when you're shipping it, but it seems that even if you did, your evidence would just be ignored by ebay.
- weaksauce 10y agoI mean, you can put a real phone in a box and film it but it's not foolproof as you can just open the box again and ship something else. it's not an easy problem to solve. especially with different jurisdictions in different countries. Even if you had a film of the box being delivered to the post office you could have a corrupt post office friend or a post office worker that is scamming things on their end by opening packages and replacing the contents.
- WalterBright 10y agoI took a photo of handing it to the USPS man.
- megablast 10y agoSo? You can still swap it out, or give him another box, or get your mate to dress up as a USPS man. There is no 100% way to prove you sent what you say you have.