posted on August 10, 2000 02:42:41 PM new
Never received item paid for over a month ago by paypal.Seller also has lots of negative feedback,which I should have checked first.Response(on 7/21) to several emails was it was lost when moving.No response to emails since even after threatening neg feedback and reporting to FTC
and auction watch.I have bought numerous items on ebay without a problem this was my first Yahoo item and if this seller is typical,my last.Any others with same problem?
[ edited by bloodman on Aug 10, 2000 02:44 PM ]
posted on August 11, 2000 08:01:44 AM new
Contact [email protected]. PP has announced that they are offering protection against fraud. Let us know what happens.
posted on August 13, 2000 07:58:37 AM new
You can file your complaints with the following websites. I have used their services in the past and I always got my merchandise or money back. However, it takes a while.
http://www.framed.usps.com/postalinspectors/ USPS POSTAL INSPECTORS
https://www.ifccfbi.gov/ FBI INTERNET FRAUD UNIT
http://www.ecomplaints.com/ ECOMPLAINS AN EXCELLENT SITE TO POST COMPLAINTS
http://www.fraud.org/internet/intset.htm NATIONAL FRAUD ORGANIZATION
http://www.ago.state.mo.us/ YOUR ATTORNEY GENERAL ~ WHERE IT HAS ".mo." REPLACED WITH YOUR STATE ABBREVIATION
Send the sellers by email a copy of all your complaints filed. Sellers generally changes their tune rapidly.
Don't blame Yahoo, it is not the site's problem, most of my problems were on eBay.
posted on August 15, 2000 07:07:52 PM new
Just being burned for the second time by a seller not sending me the number of pieces offered as an item (got them at a really low bid/not my fault,but my good luck/or so I thought).
When I tried to open communacations with seller I got the jolt of my auction-life. The response (when it came) was in the form of an attack on me because (amoung other things said) "you have been rude to me" and they were now blocking all email from me and to just go ahead and tell eBay, because they weren't selling anything there anymore!!! Whoopy!
A negative feedback does not replace the item I was bidding on and now what recourse do I have?
Insurance I could have handled, but this is simply a case of not sending the item in the first place.
So what do we do? When does it become postal fraud? They send their items through the postoffice at a rate Goodness knows is high enough, but if it isn't there when you open the package, then what, tough toenails?
This is too long, but I am really disgusted by thier ability to get away with this bad conduct. Makes me think I'd best not be buying over the net. But don't like being made a fool of and that is what they are doing to unwary buyers like us. Maybe we should post their auction ID's, so others will know who they are. What you think?
posted on August 18, 2000 10:16:22 AM new
I've had more no pays from Yahoo then the other auctions but no one who hasn't shipped the product that I have purchased. I've found that almost all sellers are honest, they want to grow their business and have no intention of stiffing anyone. But there's always a bad apple in every barrel. I always check the feedback first and try to deal with business sellers.
posted on August 18, 2000 10:24:06 AM new
Kcproduc: I'm glad you haven't been ripped off yet. I hate to be a "doom and gloom" spreader because overall I find that there's a great deal of honesty on the net. However, Yahoo auctions has a high rate of fraud. Yahoo does nothing to validate IDs of bidders or sellers. It takes a minute to get a fake ID. In ten minutes, a seller can get ten fake ID and use them to post fake feedback to his own IDs. The guy who ripped off people for $15,000 worth of hard drives and forced Payapl to change their TOS? He was kicked off of ebay months earlier. Yahoo was warned about him. But he was still posting and cheating people. I have read several articles in papers and on the net about auction fraud. Almost all of them quoted someone at ebay or amazon discussing what they were doing about it and then Yahoo saying "We dont get involved between buyer and seller." Yahoo just doesnt give a damn. If you email them you get a canned response that they are not responsible. Visit the Yahoo club for sellers (I'm not allowed to post the link but you can find it from there) and read about dozens of crooks operating with impunity. A group of honest sellers have banded together to try and stop them because Yahoo is doing nothing.
posted on August 24, 2000 04:01:07 AM new
Unfortunately since Yahoo is free you get what you pay for, they have no way of actually tracking buyers and sellers like eBay and Amazon. I tried selling on Yahoo and most people didn't pay for the item, one girl left me a negative feedback cause I didn't contact her within hours of auction close about the item (you do have three days...). Know your merchandise and your seller. I have gone so far as emailing folks leaving negative feedback for someone if the item I am considering is high dollar...
posted on August 24, 2000 04:23:59 AM new
Im sorry,but to beadmavens response i have to disagree.Yahoo does have a way of tracking sellers as you must provide a valid credit card to sell just as you do with ebay..(but as stated there is a bad apple in every barrel.I sold on yahoo for 8 months without one problem.I decided to sell on ebay and try it.What a mistake.I have never had so many retracted bids or cop outs.
One instance was an auction on the first day getting a bid of 275.00(the auction was running for 8 days)On the last day the bidder retracted his bid with an excuse of wrong amount,only to look in the that category to find he had bid on a similar product that was cheaper..Ebay makes it to easy to back out of an auction.
I have also had several instances where sellers have backed out because the item went for to little of money,saying it fell and broke during packaging...etc..
I geuss the whole point is as long as auction sites offer ways to let this happen then it is never going toi stop,and your not safe on any auction site ,so becareful and good luck....
posted on August 24, 2000 06:28:12 AM new
>>Yahoo does have a way of tracking sellers as you must provide a valid credit card to sell just as you do with ebay<<
No, for yahoo you just have to provide a CC number. It does not have to be yours. Others sites check that the card matches the name and address used in the account. Yahoo does not. A seller created the ID of phony guy in phony city and was able to post auctions. He entered the number of someone else's CC and was accepted. His auctions read "this auction is a fraud. I just wanted to illustrate how easy it is for frauds to sell at Yahoo." When I came across this auction and posted it on the Seller Zone (where yahoo employees lurk) they jumped into action and shut it down and then proclaimed "see, we got rid of him" like this was some kind of major accomplishment. If he felt like wasting the time, he could have been back the next day under another fake ID and another CC number that wasnt his. The point was totally missed by Y!. They have to do something to verify IDs or the site will remain a joke.
posted on August 26, 2000 08:54:48 AM new
To add to the "fire" - no pun intended. About 6 months ago, there was a seller on Yahoo advertising numerous state-of-the-art computer systems with NO reserve, and wanting payment in CASH ONLY - BY MAIL! Smelled like fraud to me, so I called Yahoo to bring it to their attention - thinking that they could/would shut them down. The response that I received was one of total indifference and that they could really care less.
Alhough I still watch an occasional auction on Yahoo... their attitude towards what turned out to be a totally fraudulent auction, left me with a very sour taste for Yahoo... in general.
In this particular case, I contacted the FBI regarding the fraud... but until someone actually lost money on it... they said they could not get involved. Several of the bidders were in contact with each other after the auctions closed, and fortunately, no one sent cash... but there were a number of very upset bidders!
Having said that, it is good to know that in certain cases, there are government agencies that will get involved - be it the FBI... or the USPS for mail fraud, even the state's Attorney General where the seller lives.
Fraud, regardless of the intent, is a crime, and there are legal remedies...
posted on August 26, 2000 09:41:54 AM new
To dokken69:
In response to someone withdrawing their bid because they found it cheaper, that is going to happen on all auction sites, just like in the stores, folks purchase something and they haven't used it yet or taken the tags off and it goes on sale the next week they will return the item and get it at a reduced price.
This did happen once to us, I did leave the bidder negative feedback, asking him in the future to be careful of this practice. Although we give refunds, we will not refund for buyers remorse....
To xd2rsha
Yahoo seems to have a "we aren't putting anymore effort into this auction stuff then we have to" perception of the on line auction business. It is to bad for one it sours folks if that is their first auction experience and two I don't know if this is correct or not, but they may be liable if they know about fraud and don't stop it. A couple of times of being sued, may grab their attention. I believe eBay was told that they may be held accountable for the sale of various items whose catagories have been banned.
To yisgood
I thought that Yahoo didn't check on credit cards or cross reference any information....
posted on August 28, 2000 07:19:44 AM new
You are right about Yahoo! not checking credit cards it is more of a scare tactic than anything. The problem with Yahoo! is that they are not an e-commerce site so they do not have the sophisticated fraud protections that Amazon Auctions or Priceline Perfect YardSale have.
However, Yahoo! just launched the new person to person payment service. I thought they were throwing in the towel on auctions, but this new product may mean they are resurging.
posted on August 28, 2000 07:24:45 AM new
I wish this were true, but I dont think so. Y! has always been about clicks and ads. They dont care who clicks as long as they get them. They have had featured auctions for a while, Yahoo wallet and now a payment service. But what they have never had and still don't is customer service, any real attempt at weeding out the scammers, any real attempt at ID verification. It's sort of like "we have this auction site here and it's not taking much of our effort. Let's see if there's some way we can make some $ while not doing any real work."
I have seen articles and posts in other threads about how Y! was warned that scammers were on their site and refused to take any action. The guy who cheated over $10k in hard drives and causes Paypal to change their terms was on Y! and ebay. Ebay kicked him off. Y! let him continue. They just dont seem to care.
posted on September 9, 2000 04:38:47 AM new
I must be the luckiest guy in the world, cuz I sell on yahoo and ebay, and have had no problems on yahoo at all, except for some slow payers. Ebay has had a lot of backouts and non payers, and this is where i would lose money!! I have never purchased something from anyone and not recieved what i bought. (KNOCK ON WOOD!!) I still follow the same practice though, if you can't afford to take that money and have a chance that it spontaneously combusts, don't buy it without using an escrow service!! This would be anything over say $300 for me. Most people in this world are honest, just gotta watch out for the scammers, who really are easy to spot. People with low feedback ratings or no feedback are a warning sign, and IF IT IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, IT IS!! I sell on yahoo because its free, and I make my minimum bid the minimum that I would sell it for. On Ebay, nobody wants to pay even close to fair market value for my cards, and it would cost me more to list everything on there then I would get in sales. The only thing I use Ebay for is for my nice grab bag deals and have it featured, then I know for a fact, everyone looking in that category has seen it!! Not yahoo's stupid, it will show up more if you spend more, but not everyone will see it. Ebay would put everyone out of business for good if they just had free listings and charged you what they charge for when you actually sell your item. But really, who can argue with all of the money both of these companies make! I had an idea of putting them all out of business, but then i found this site, and basically this site was my idea, lol. So my allwebauctions.com idea didn't work, too bad i didn't know about this site until I had registered the domain name! Oh well, anyone wants it, let me know!! At least i think its a better name than auctionwatch, who knows, i still might do it later. Happy auctioning everyone!
posted on September 10, 2000 09:02:01 PM newrandalman
I have deleted your post because it contained the ID of an eBay Seller. There are very stringent guidelines that must be followed if you wish to post identifying information, including IDs, email addresses, auction numbers etc, within the AW Forums.
For more information, please follow the link to the CGs: