Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

My wife used to run a small volume eBay shop, maybe 50 listings at a time. About once a month she would have to deal with outright fraud, and eBay almost always sided with the buyers. I'm talking about things like brand new items of clothing returned completely destroyed by the buyer---huge tears, burn marks, etc---and my wife would be forced to refund the purchase price and shipping costs. It certainly wasn't worth her time or all of the stress.



eBay is rampant with fraud..I have a buddy that does a tremendous amount of of business there and the amount of crazy crap he puts up with is insane. "I just lost 2k today, well back to work"

The scammers on eBay are bold because they know eBay doesn't care at all about the sellers.


Not only that but they benefit from buyer fraud.

I have experienced first hand refusal to refund selling fees (even after escalating the issue) after an item was fraudulently returned.


Interesting, I don't discount your experience, but with PayPal/eBay sides with the buyer, case closed. Their customer support to a seller might as out right have "fuck off" in their script.


I paid for my university tuition using eBay. I’d buy broken printers and repair them and sell them.

Eventually someone started buying printers from me, claiming they were broken and getting refunds. They would open new accounts and do it under different names, to the point where one week over half my sales were all scammed in the same way. I was out 5 printers, and had no recourse. That ended a very successful 3 year venture.


I suppose part of the problem is that most of eBay is large-volume-low-price, so there's no chance at all of a law-enforcement solution to the fraud.

It it practical to implement a We don't sell to brand-new accounts policy, as an eBay seller?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: