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Comment by Spooky23 | Hacker News Reader

That's a variant of one of the oldest scams in the book on EBay. Removing seller feedback actually fixed the issue, at least for buyers.

Back in the day, the formula for an EBay sell-side scammer was to:

1 - Setup a phony account, or network of accounts.

2 - start selling small value things to each other. (Postcards, keychains, digital pictures, etc) Leave positive feedback, including nonsensical feedback (ie. My laptop works great, A++++ for a $0.99 recipie).

3 - Wait a few months for the active links to the auctions to be de-activated by EBay

4 - Start selling a dozen high-value items like laptops. Ship nothing or empty boxes.

5 - Withdraw funds asap.

Now the same scheme works, but only in reverse for high-value items that have immediate cash value.

Solution: Never use EBay for anything.

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Regarding #3, it's shocking that Ebay feel the need to remove all auction information after a few months. Is hard drive space that expensive?! The Ebay site is a remnant of the 90s, it's crazy they're still a viable company.

They've overhauled it recently, but due to the amateurish look and text of the offers they probably can't shake that 90s feeling

Ebay works great for buyers now, it just sucks for sellers.

I buy on Ebay all the time, you can find all kinds of things there really cheap.

Have you ever tried to get your money back after getting scammed as a buyer?

Several times, and for each and every one it was as easy as filing a complaint and having the money refunded to my paypal within a few days.

I ended up getting a knockoff XBOX game and it was pretty painless to get it refunded from ebay.

"Item not as described" is the secret passphrase. Seller has absolutely no recourse. I've never tried it as a buyer, but as a seller it's been 100% effective in the scammer getting their money back from me.

What I don't understand is why using this passphrase doesn't obligate the buyer to return the item.

THIS.

Except, I suppose, how do you validate THAT?

If I'm the seller, and you send me back an empty box or an old iPhone 3GS, what do I do then?

Just also tell them, "Item not as described".

Item not as not as described

I had an issue, as a buyer, very recently. The item was not as described. I was frankly flabbergasted how quickly and decisively eBay worked in my direction. A little too quickly. (There were issues with my purchase that could have been fixed with a partial refund, but instead I got everything back, while I still have the item. I actually feel a little bad about it, like I don't want to use eBay again, even though they probably think they made me happy.)

Exactly. It doesn't make sense unless eBay just considers all sellers to be high volume resellers who write off small item losses as part of doing business.

If they actually had to devote much resources to investigate our claim, they would probably lose money on the transaction.

But, really, it's okay to lose money on some transactions, especially if you reduce buyer/seller stress on other transactions.

I have, eBay ignored all my complaints and requests. Never got anything but the odd automated 'we have received your report' emails. I'll never use eBay again for any reason.

Make a credit card chargeback

Never been scammed as a buyer in hundreds of transactions.

Yes. I received some counterfeit DVDs many years back and I ended up getting my money back from PayPal.

Actually, I have. I got a knock-off memory card once. I threatened the seller with all kinds of things (basically send the feds after him), and he sent me the money back. Didn't even need to involve Ebay/PayPal.

"Solution: Never use eBay for anything."

That is just plain silly... I'm "paranoid" and don't want to be ripped off $500 or $1000.

Biggest I was ever scammed was $70 (it's ok, I can stomach that).

So I don't use eBay for big transactions which I have no recourse on in case something bad happen (e.g. I'm not a famous blogger so it's unlikely eBay / PayPal would ever help me like they helped OP).

But I do still use eBay a lot:

- for tiny transactions / items I really want that are cheap (e.g. some cheap but rare to find obsolete hardware I need to fix one of my old-but-cool printers)

- for big transactions where I can go to the seller's place to pay in cash and take delivery of the item.

Saying "don't use Ebay for anything" doesn't make sense, even if you're paranoid.

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