Friday, June 23, 2006

Ever been had?

I'm normally such an up together kind of guy. I can see most scams coming. Please pay small admin cost to allow us transfer vast riches from the Nigerian bank account of our recently deceased uncle to you. Please call us back on this outrageously expensive premium call line to allow us to explain at our leisure what you need to do to claim your free holiday in the Bahamas...

So what happens? I find a set of Callaway golf clubs on eBay. The seller has set up a little golf shop. The feedback is 100% positives. I win the auction. Then I send off a personal cheque for £250. Au revoir, or rather Adieu. That's the last I'll see of that, and I won't get to see the golf clubs either.

I wait patiently for a couple of weeks. Nothing has arrived in the post. I check on Ebay. The seller is no longer a member. I try to find contact details - of course knowing they were on the web I didn't bother to write them down - sorry squire, no longer a member, we can't give you details. Can I post my "Avoid this bastard like the plague" less than positive feedback, what response do I get. "No sorry this person is no longer registered with us, so you cannot post feedback". Then when I look at the details of feedback already registered, I find that there has been one bad bit of feedback, but that this has been withdrawn by mutual consent by both parties.

So the model works like this. Dodgy Dealer Inc sets up shop on Ebay. Develops a trail of positive feedback. In the case of price-slice-golf it seems they were shipping stolen golf kit in a timely manner. Dodgy dealer then decides that it is easier to avoid stealing the goods and just as effective to sell them an not ship at all. The first complainants to post negative feedback get negative feedback posted back against them. Concerned that this will affect their ratings on eBay they mutually agree to withdrawn their comments. Then by the time the torrent of complaints arrive, the seller has deregistered.

Through this scheme you only see the tip of the iceberg of complaints on eBay. By the way there is no place that I could find where feedback on eBay itself can be posted to the site. Am I the only one to have this experience. I think not.