This is an email I received just before leaving for work today. I cannot speak for it's validity. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Quote:

Hello all,

I hope this is not off topic here. I could really use some help or advice. I was involved in an ebay theft. A man from Ohio sold three different sets of tools over and over again. He got me for $520.00. Paypal wants to give me back $175.00. There were six others that left negative feedback. I was not able to because ebay pulled his account. What makes me mad is they also pulled all of the items. Now there is no way to print the actual item page. It does not exist. Why would they do this?

Anyway, I've been reading this post from the beginning and I know there is a wealth of knowledge here. So here is what I need help with.

1. I need a safe and secure place to group all of the victims together. I've started an email with all of us but it's already getting complicated. Soon the anti virus software will block it. I know there were some discussion boards started here but I don't know if they were private.

2. There was a gentleman on this post that was actively seeking prosecution of illegal ebay items in different states. He seemed to know how to work between the different states. If someone knows how to reach him please email me his handle.

3. I don't want to let these people down. We have been robbed of thousands of dollars. Any advice or experience you email me will be great.

4. The Mentor Ohio Police Department does not know how to charge this guy. Can you give them some ideas?

Feel free to contact me. I'm not going to post my email here.

Thanks


--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MAJOR CAMPAIGN" group.


End Quote

Interesting first comment there.
This morning I received a slap from Liveworld at ebay for posting details of a scam auction which had only ten minutes left to go on the UK Business Seller's discussion board, asking that someone let the winning bidder know it was a scam and not to part with any money.
According to :Liveworld I am not allowed to do this. I was unable to contact the winning bidder myself as I had used up my daily quota of internal ebay emails warning other winning bidders they were being scammed and please don't pay out hundreds of pounds which no-one can afford to lose.

I just sent Liveworld this reply to their slap

The whole point in putting that message on the board was because it was a scammer's listing and I had hoped that someone could contact the winning bidder for me to let them know they were being swindled.
It was far too close to the item ending for T&S to be able to do anything about it and while ebay may not be bothered about people being swindled out of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of pounds in these scam auctions, I can't stand to see it happening.
T&S are far too slow to act and several people I know have (in the past) been swindled in exactly this way. They bid on an item they don't realise is a scam, pay for it when they have won the auction and only some time later are informed by ebay that the listing was not genuine. In each case the winning bidders are still waiting to see the return of any money paid (through Paypal) one has been waiting over 18 months. Needless to say they have not bought anything on the site since nor will they ever retuirn to the site.
At this time of year there are a large number of students just starting out at University and looking for bargains in laptops and computers, as the mother of a student I know how tight their money is.
Do you really want it on your consciences that some poor struggling student has been swindled out of a large proportion of their grant/loan money and is starting out their adult life feeling like a miserable failure because they were gullible enough to believe that buying on ebay was safe?
How do you think they might have to make that loss of money up in order that they can survive the next few year.
HOW DARE YOU CHASTISE ME FOR THIS ACTION.
I am utterly disgusted.
-----------------------------
Do ebay care that there are thousands of scams running every day across the site? When these are removed after being reported (and often they are not removed at all) the scammers have the listings straught back on the site under yet another hijacked account.

It simply isn't safe to buy on ebay anymore.

No ebay doesn't care about scam auctions or else it would do something about the total lack of checking when an ID is set up. You can create a totally spurious account, build false feedback with the 1p e-book scam and then start stealing peoples money.

But it means fees for them so they have no interest in dealing properly with this, and even if you think you are protected by Paypal, think again if anyone is losing out you can be sure it won't be eBay!
Ebay should be closed down by the authorities until they take a responsible attitude to this. No buyer is safe buying on eBay now and everyone is at risk.