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This is every company that deals with fraud of some sort. They collect evidence. Once evidence is damning enough, they ban, without giving any information. If t
by bvinc 4y ago
This is every company that deals with fraud of some sort. They collect evidence. Once evidence is damning enough, they ban, without giving any information. If they were to give out their evidence, then their evidence collection methods would become known and would no longer be effective.
Furthermore, even when they get it right, people who were banned correctly come on to the internet to complain.
But sometimes they get it wrong. And the only recourse seems to be a public shaming online.
- xwdv 4y agoI doubt this is the full story.
- Maursault 4y agoWhile there is surely more to it, this kind of scenario should have been predicted before Internet companies got big. You see, the company can lose real money if there actually is a legal issue with an account holder and they don't act; they can be implicated in crime and be fined and have to spend money on attorneys to sort it out. However, it costs the company absolutely nothing to find, using automation, all complaints against any account holder valid and instaban them. It's cold, hard business. Everyone accused is punished without any resources spent on investigation to discover the truth. The truth here doesn't matter to the company. People don't matter to the company. Only money matters.
- ranger_danger 4y agoSo we should start accusing all the biggest sellers until somebody does something more useful?
- Maursault 4y agoNo. Business should be regulated to protect the consumer and remove this incentive for businesses to unilaterally screw the consumer.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoThe current situation is screwing a small number of unlucky consumers, but providing a net benefit for the overall aggregate of consumers, due to lower prices and fees. What your proposing is to screw consumers overall in order to provide fairer treatment for the unlucky few due to ebay having to charge much higher fees in order to cover the cost of fraudsters. Since buying and selling goods and services online is not a constitutional right, or any right anywhere as far as I know, a proposal to force such a change does not seem like it will pass muster in a serious court of law. I'm not a lawyer but even to my untrained eye you will need far better arguments to get any traction.
- madrox 4y agoImagine if our justice system worked like this, where you could get convicted without ever seeing the evidence against you because it would reveal the methods the police used. I realize it’s not entirely the same thing, but it’s also not entirely different.
- rdtwo 4y agoTraffic and as speeding tickets almost work the same way
- cjbprime 4y agoYou can contest them in court and demand that evidence is shown. That's not almost the same at all.
- notch656a 4y agoYou can but at least in the last state I lived, a cop's guesstimation is accepted (they count in their head or watch and count the lines or something, or that's the theory). In practice if the cop used an uncalibrated speed gun or whatever he'll always just say it was his guesstimation and precedent holds that the preponderance of the evidence shows that the ticket is valid. So it returns back to the evidence being hidden and parallel construction being used to present the court case.
- ______-_-______ 4y agoI honestly think that's still better than most online bans. If you find out you were ticketed because a cop had a bad day, it's not justice, but at least it's closure. Now you know, and you can accept it or fight/appeal if you're so inclined. If you're permabanned because of a google/ebay AI bug, you can't even get that far.
- cormacrelf 4y agoNot sure if this is your intention or even what jurisdiction you’re talking about, but “a preponderance of the evidence” is a fancy way of saying “to a civil standard” ie “more likely than not”. Seems unlikely for a criminal offence, where that’s never the standard. It was probably a fair bit more complicated than you’re making out.
- yanderekko 4y agoYep. OP's only real recourse is to just try again in 6 months or a year or whatever and hope that their ML algorithm evaluates their data differently. If Ebay gave a credit report-style summary saying "you're banned because you're associated with this IP range" or something, then indeed this becomes information that would be exploited by fraudsters. If OP is actually innocent then their being banned is considered an acceptable risk.... one can only hope that in future model training though that this ban would be considered a false positive.
- rkk3 4y ago>> They collected a ton of my sensitive information (address, phone, bank account, etc) > Yep. OP's only real recourse is to just try again in 6 months or a year or whatever and hope that their ML algorithm evaluates their data differently. And what change their identity? They already have their PII and banned them for life.
- hattmall 4y agoLiterally just use different spelling or ordering of names. Change address slightly or use a PO box, work address, relative house. New bank account etc. If they got the social that may be the sticking point, but I'm not even sure of that.
- hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago> If they were to give out their evidence, then their evidence collection methods would become known and would no longer be effective. I would like to dispute this. Of course, there is a cat-and-mouse game between popular online services and fraudsters, but the argument "if we show you the methods we use to spot them, they won't become effective" is a flawed argument. Sure, it helps a little, but after some time many of these just become public knowledge anyway. I know if I like too many photos on Instagram, they will block me temporarily, and if I repeat it within certain period, they can ban me for a few days and so on. Having these thresholds and other rules spelled out would be helpful to users. They would know what to avoid, and if they misbehave, they can be rightfully punished. Giving blows out of the thin air is simply unfair.
- notahacker 4y ago> I know if I like too many photos on Instagram, they will block me temporarily, and if I repeat it within certain period, they can ban me for a few days and so on. Having these thresholds and other rules spelled out would be helpful to users It would be far more helpful to spammers, who could then set all their bots to send threshold - 1 likes and invitations than the average user who rarely ever considers liking enough stuff to trigger it (and is able to take the hint and just not like stuff as much if they do get a warning). Plus in practice it's probably not just a simple threshold, but a function weighted by timing and topics and relatedness of accounts and which is completely unintelligible to the average person (but potentially informative to more advanced spambot developers).
- dandanua 4y ago> If they were to give out their evidence, then their evidence collection methods would become known and would no longer be effective Companies can give the exact reason for a ban at least, without disclosing the methods of deduction. There is absolutely no reason to hide this information. Such a behavior of companies is a big "f*ck you" to democracy and justice, not to criminals. It's exactly how totalitarianism looks like.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago> It's exactly how totalitarianism looks like.. Ofcourse it does, a corporation is a totalitarian organisation by design - I don't understand why anyone is surprised to learn this. Any disobedience or herecy and you are removed with prejudice.
- bcrosby95 4y agoThe exact reason is probably that their ML model told them to. They probably have no ability to give a more satisfying answer.
- dandanua 4y agoI don't think their model just says them "fraud/no fraud". There are different types of fraud, which should be written in their TOS.
- zippergz 4y agoNo, this is not how these systems work. You're correct that they don't say "fraud/no fraud" but they generate a score (like a credit score) based on a massive number of inputs, and there are thresholds over which action (account ban, etc.) is taken. It does not in any way map to "types of fraud" and it does not map to the TOS. It's about identifying activity or accounts that look sufficiently similar to previous bad actors.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- protomyth 4y agoI still wish some Congress person would introduce a consumer fairness act that required companies to give the specific evidence and reason for any service ban if the company has over 100,000 users. I don't think the security implications override the current level of abuse.
- jhugo 4y agoIt's difficult though; giving the reason would directly lead to an explosion of fraud, because you are telling the fraudsters exactly what they screwed up and how to avoid the ban next time. Anti-fraud is basically all smoke and mirrors; if you reveal the methods it doesn't work any more.
- protomyth 4y agoThey have abused their need to conceal methods by not having proper customer service to resolve situations where innocent people are banned. Internet and banking services are too important to our lives, much like utilities, to allow this abuse to continue. If they wanted secret methods, then they needed to provide adequate customer service to offset their failures.
- jhugo 4y agoIf the human customer service provides an off-ramp from being banned, then the fraudsters will use that too. So the question still boils down to the exact same thing in the end: how do you reliably tell the difference between the fraudsters and the legitimate customers?
- protomyth 4y agoDon't know, not my area, but like every other business in the US that cost should be born by the business not the consumer. Don't push large groups of people to the thin ice if you don't want laws passed.
- CamperBob2 4y agoThere is another recourse, which is legislation. Contact your representatives and let them know that the integrity of eBay's evidence collection methods should be eBay's problem to deal with, and not their customers'.
- Thaxll 4y agoWhat about taking them to court?
- Gigachad 4y agoFor what? They have the right to refuse service.
- PolygonSheep 4y agoThis runs into two problems: 1) It's a private company, they can refuse service to anyone for any reason - this is spelled out in the TOS: > If we believe you are abusing eBay and/or our Services in any way, we may, in our sole discretion and without limiting other remedies, limit, suspend, or terminate your user account(s) and access to our Services, delay or remove hosted content, remove any special status associated with your account(s), remove, not display, and/or demote listings, reduce or eliminate any discounts, and take technical and/or legal steps to prevent you from using our Services. > Additionally, we reserve the right to refuse, modify, or terminate all or part of our Services to anyone for any reason at our discretion. 2) There is a mandatory arbitration clause in the TOS so you can't take them to court. > You and eBay each agree that any and all disputes or claims that have arisen, or may arise, between you and eBay (or any related third parties) that relate in any way to or arise out of this or previous versions of the User Agreement, your use of or access to our Services, the actions of eBay or its agents, or any products or services sold, offered, or purchased through our Services shall be resolved exclusively through final and binding arbitration, rather than in court. I don't like it but that's how it is. For some reason no one - right, left or center - seems interested in regulating these things.
- srcreigh 4y ago> If they were to give out their evidence, then their evidence collection methods would become known and would no longer be effective. Doesn't this argument apply to the criminal justice system?
- spacexsucks 4y agoThis is why i lost $400 thanks to dumbasses like you