alanwilliamson
Have you ever looked at peoples feedback scores on eBay and envied their large scores. How do you get a score of 1,000 feedback or more, or even higher?
The eBay feedback system works in a very simple way; you rate the buyer (Good, Bad, Neutral) and the buyer rates you. You each gain a point for all Good feedback left. The total feedback you see for a given user, is the total of all Good feedbacks (from different people) minus all the bad feedback. So a feedback of say 45, says that user has 45 Good transactions, as either a buyer or a seller.
Well dig a little deeper and you'll discover a whole scam going on underneath the community driven feedback system. If all you need to do is complete a transaction then it is of interest to both parties that the transaction goes without hitch and what better way to do that than to sell something for 1p and have no actual goods in the equation.
Let me illustrate with an example. Here is an example of an auction that is selling feedback. The value is 1p and the product is for an image for your mobile phone that is actually in the auction description. They even list in the description that positive feedback is always left. Do a search around eBay and you will discover literally thousands of auctions of this type. All effectively selling positive feedback.
So now that you have bought yourself a good eBay feedback, how can you now lure trusting buyers? Again, let us look at an example. How does a job lot of new PS/3 sound to you? Too good to be true you think. Of course it is. But look at the guys feedback, he even draws attention to it in his description. But look at the feedback and you will see none of it as a seller and its all for 1p items. Hopefully the more savy eBay user will steer well clear.
Technically speaking they are not doing anything wrong. They are playing the system since the system allows it to be played. It does however cross the spirit of the feedback system.
As always, the best advice is before you do any buying is to thoroughly check out the person you are buying from. Take some time to view their history and look at the items they have previously sold or bought. You can view their item history for the last 90 days.
Remember, the safest thing you can always do -- walk away.
Comments
please note, all comments will be moderated for spam and abuse before being publicly posted.
Article Details
- Published:
12:03 PM GMT, Thursday, 22 March 2007 - Categories:
General - Tags:
ebay feedback auction - Comments:
5 left; add comment
Related Articles
Article Archives
Recent Cloud posts
Recent JAVA posts
Latest CFML posts
|
Site Links |
Recommended Sites/Blogs
|
Since ebay won't do anything about members selling feedback i have done it myself and listed 1000's of them online at eBuster,co,uk complete with adverts, feedback and 'feedback left for others'
Alan i see your image at the top has gone so maybe you would like the one at www,ebuster,co,uk/images/eBaySellingFeedback.JPG that shows Google with 129m hits for people buying feedback. "What on Earth are those 1,000 fraud agents doing?" let me answer that one please. They are giving so called special trainning to the police in the UK and thats why the police won't investigate eBay crime and i know after reporting to the police a scammer that had no less than eight eBay accounts, all false details and is selling cars that should not be on the road ! police responce is it's a cival matter and the IPCC are a total joke aswell. eBay has some powerfull friends in high placesI've just had this in reverse. I have several das on Ebay .com pointing people to my Ebay shop. Ebay.co.UK shops do not automatically appear on Ebay.com. I had a buyer who bought from the ad. despite the fact that clearly stated is that nothing is for sale here but to visit my shop on Ebay.co.uk for great deals. The buyer buys $0.99 of ad. I return the money via Paypal and mail the purchaser to explain that nothing is for sale, but he is welome to buy from the shop. He threatens me with bad feedback, 3 times, by which time I had deleted the sale from my own account. Now I can't even leav him feedback if I want to. Then I get a bad feedback accompanied by an Ebay mail system message saying 'you made it so easy for me to leave you bad feedback. Frustrating to say the least.
so much for ebay having anti fraud staff i was ripped off by a seller on ebay selling alloy wheels he didnt even own i found him under two other names selling alloys again i emailed ebay by the time they decided to do anything the creep had another 9oo quid in his bank account as he does not have apypal theres not much you can do
Thank you for the warnings ... no wonder a lot of big sellers do not give positive feedback for a quick sale! The two links provided no longer work.
An excellent post, Alan - love the linked examples. At my last count, eBay had over 1,000 employees dedicated to preventing fraud. Their failure to automate more fraud detection baffles me. Identifying users with an abundance of 1p purchases - clearly a simple task ripe for automation - should bring their accounts to the attention of eBay's "anti-fraud" staff for further investigation. What on Earth are those 1,000 fraud agents doing?