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jask
Joined: 17 Mar 2006
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Location: kamloops BC
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oliverg
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 800
Location: Melbourne, Australia
TV/Projector: Sony G90 X2 - Vidikron Vision 1
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:33 am Post subject: |
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Why do eBay make it so difficult to report this type of thing?
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Dave Lister
Joined: 16 Jan 2007
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Location: Adelaide, South Australia
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Zebu Fellenz
Joined: 21 Dec 2006
Posts: 2567
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 3:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Why do eBay make it so difficult to report this type of thing? |
Because then you would have people trying to delete legit listings because they don't like the seller
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ecrabb
Forum Moderator
Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 15909
Location: Utah
TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 3:45 pm Post subject: |
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How is it so hard, Oliver? Other than a 'report this listing' button right on the item's page, I don't know how they could make it much easier.
From the fradulent listing page:
Help Menu, Contact Us -> Report an Item (middle of the page, first hyperlink).
That's two clicks from the item listing to the page where you select the options and report the listing!!! When I report them (several per week), they're usually gone within hours.
I think ebay does a pretty decent job considering the sheer number of people who willingly give up their account info to scammers' phishing attacks every day.
SC
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deronmoped
Joined: 03 Nov 2006
Posts: 1154
Location: San Diego
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:37 pm Post subject: |
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I do not get it, the guy has decent feedback, has does this scam work?
Deron.
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ecrabb
Forum Moderator
Joined: 13 Mar 2006
Posts: 15909
Location: Utah
TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010
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| Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:44 pm Post subject: |
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It's a hacked account - probably from a phishing attack. The dead giveaways are the high-dollar item, and a picture that doesn't even match and the "don't contact me through ebay, email me at this gmail/hotmail/aol/etc. email address or I won't respond.
The shitbag lists an item and hopes to scam somebody out of a down payment or something before the account owner notices they have an item listed under their account. That's why they have to have you contact them outside ebay. They can say, "Oh, western union me $1000, and I'll end the auction early and get the item shipped to you. You can PayPal me the balance when you receive it.
Riiiiggghhttt...
SC
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oliverg
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 800
Location: Melbourne, Australia
TV/Projector: Sony G90 X2 - Vidikron Vision 1
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 3:09 am Post subject: |
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| ecrabb wrote: | How is it so hard, Oliver? Other than a 'report this listing' button right on the item's page, I don't know how they could make it much easier.
From the fradulent listing page:
Help Menu, Contact Us -> Report an Item (middle of the page, first hyperlink).
That's two clicks from the item listing to the page where you select the options and report the listing!!! When I report them (several per week), they're usually gone within hours.
I think ebay does a pretty decent job considering the sheer number of people who willingly give up their account info to scammers' phishing attacks every day.
SC |
I followed that exact procedure and was rewarded with a help file that only approximately answered my requirements.
Try actually going through the process.
Most of the time eBay makes it very difficult to do even simple things .Their UI is terrible. Why? Because most people will give up, thus reducing the requirements for support. Even when you contact their support people "help-less desk", 9 times out of ten the answers they give have absolutely nothing to do with the question you've asked.
Why? Because eBay use templated responses and automated answering systems and it takes quite some time to reach a human and even then, it can take days to resolve an issue.
Last time this happened to me, my Vision 1 had been BIN'ed by a hijacked account. Do you think eBay accepted that the account had been hijacked? It took 2 weeks and me doing most of their work for them before they even acknowledged there was a problem. During that 2 week period, 95% of the responses they gave had absolutely no bearing on the issue at hand... for example, when I told them the buyer's account had been hijacked, they sent me a templated response on how to prevent your own account from being hijacked... followed by another response advising that they had contacted the account holder and the account hadn't been shanghai'd at all.
In the end, I had to give the scammer an email address I created so I could get the header information (which proved the scammer was in Lagos, Nigeria) .. Then trying to explain this to eBay was another 4-5 day process.
Most of eBay's support work is sub standard, on purpose. There are a considerable amount of people that just throw their hands up in the air and give up. Fortunately, I'm a little more tenacious. Any issue that is remotely complex requires an inordinate amount of attention and effort.
I understand this is all to do with cutting costs and looking after shareholders - but one day, (like what recently happened in China) a competitor backed by someone like Richard Branson will be launched. They will provide the essentials, like phone support (not based in Dehli) .. a better feedback system - a better UI - and so on.
And eBay will lose their monopoly.
I can't wait.
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ecrabb
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Joined: 13 Mar 2006
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Location: Utah
TV/Projector: JVC RS40, Epson 5010
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 3:48 am Post subject: |
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Oliver, I forgot - it's three clicks, not two. On that screen that you were rewarded with, there's a link at the bottom of the page that says, "Email us with your question or concern" under the heading "Contact Customer Support." When you click on that (click #3), you get an email form with the subject line "You suspect that a listing is fraudulent - you didn't bid". That's 3 whole clicks. Usability-wise, that's not bad at all. Actually, it's pretty good. If it were Microsoft software, it'd be in a "properties" box buried in the "about dialog" -> "support" pane -> "contact" tab. You'd be able to get to it three different ways (that had nothing to do with each other), but all three methods would still take 5 clicks, and you'd never be able to remember any of the 3 methods without clicking around in 7 different dialog boxes to find it!!!
Get this: I'm a designer with education and experience in usability and accessibility. From my perspective, ebay is actually pretty decent! You're right that they do intentionally put up some roadblocks to people emailing support, but it's out of necessity! There are millions of users, and if it was easy to just email support, they'd get so many email support inquiries that the whole email support mechanism would become worthless to everyone. Every dumb-ass newbie user that couldn't figure out how to bold their listing would email an inquiry. Same with canned responses. They NEED to have canned responses because it would simply be impossible to reply to every customer inquiry with a custom message. They do these things specifically to REDUCE inquiries to support by hopefully answering their question before you GET to email support. Yes, that make it more difficult to get real help, but at least there's help there - eventually.
Besides, what huge company do you know of that deals with tens of millions of customers and transactions every day that DOESN'T have a customer service infrastructure similar to ebay's (i.e. difficult to get personal help)? I'm not saying ebay is any shining example of how to do customer service and support, but I can list off a whole slew of other companies with similar support structures, interactive voice response, canned inquiry replies, etc. Ebay is not unique in this regard. This is how large companies support user bases and still remain profitable. It's the way of the world, not just how ebay runs their business.
As or Richard Branson starting another auction site to compete w/ebay, I'm sure something like that will eventually happen, but to think it will happen soon because ebay is somehow bad at what they do is just silly.
SC
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oliverg
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 800
Location: Melbourne, Australia
TV/Projector: Sony G90 X2 - Vidikron Vision 1
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 4:17 am Post subject: |
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SC.. I started Australia's first profitable web development company back in 1995. I currently own an IT company that has its own web development team of ten people in house people, from designers all the way across to .net developers and a project manager.
One of the services we offer is to assess and audit client's websites and see how well their UIs are structured.. flow analysis, technical writing, content delivery, management reporting, custom intra/extranet applications etc .. not to mention as to whether or not the website actively assists meeting the client's business objectives. We quantify exactly how a web site is helping or hindering the subject's nett margin.
From my perspective, eBay is a total mess. Its not designed to help buyers or sellers - its there to minimise support costs. It is overly complex, cumbersome and often does not follow any type of logical navigation protocols. In fact, to say its a mess is a total understatement.
It doesn't have to be that way... but the bean counters have decided that being a "duck's back" with regard to support is ultimately more profitable than designing a site in such a way that it makes it easy to use. Have you noticed that all the features of eBay that make it money are easy to use? Streamlined? The total opposite is the case when it comes to needing to do something that requires eBay to act/or commit resources to resolve an issue. Regardless of whether its a buyer or seller.
One day, eBay will face some actual competition ... competition that has a substantial global marketing budget. Come that day, watch how fast eBay changes everything around. Until then, they don't give a damn.
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Dave Lister
Joined: 16 Jan 2007
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betel
Joined: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 448
Location: Maryville, Tennessee (Just South of Knoxville)
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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I think that this auction is a scam is obvious to everone. I think the bidders are playing with the seller. Of course the account owner may not be aware the auction is even happening.
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Sonynut
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
Posts: 367
Location: Bradford,PA
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 2:43 pm Post subject: |
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Too bad there's no way to ENSURE that a message will get to the owner's actual email address..........
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Last edited by Sonynut on Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:19 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Rolls-Royce
Joined: 30 Sep 2007
Posts: 288
Location: Victorville, CA
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:32 pm Post subject: |
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Looks like eBay got the message. I just clicked on the OP's link above, and got an eBay page showing that the item had been removed.
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greg_mitch
Joined: 03 May 2006
Posts: 5320
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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| oliverg wrote: | SC.. I started Australia's first profitable web development company back in 1995. I currently own an IT company that has its own web development team of ten people in house people, from designers all the way across to .net developers and a project manager.
One of the services we offer is to assess and audit client's websites and see how well their UIs are structured.. flow analysis, technical writing, content delivery, management reporting, custom intra/extranet applications etc .. not to mention as to whether or not the website actively assists meeting the client's business objectives. We quantify exactly how a web site is helping or hindering the subject's nett margin.
From my perspective, eBay is a total mess. Its not designed to help buyers or sellers - its there to minimise support costs. It is overly complex, cumbersome and often does not follow any type of logical navigation protocols. In fact, to say its a mess is a total understatement.
It doesn't have to be that way... but the bean counters have decided that being a "duck's back" with regard to support is ultimately more profitable than designing a site in such a way that it makes it easy to use. Have you noticed that all the features of eBay that make it money are easy to use? Streamlined? The total opposite is the case when it comes to needing to do something that requires eBay to act/or commit resources to resolve an issue. Regardless of whether its a buyer or seller.
One day, eBay will face some actual competition ... competition that has a substantial global marketing budget. Come that day, watch how fast eBay changes everything around. Until then, they don't give a damn. |
It seems to me that your clients have a different MO than eBay. eBay is trying to make money by not wasting time answering simple questions whereas it seems your clients are interested in making their website "easy" to use.
Do any of your clients have millions of unique users a day?
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Person99
Joined: 09 Mar 2006
Posts: 4899
Location: Flower Mound, TX
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:07 pm Post subject: |
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Insure means to provide insurance. I believe you mean "ensure".
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A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station....
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Sonynut
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
Posts: 367
Location: Bradford,PA
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| Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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True.. I had a long night.  Fixed.
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parsonic
Joined: 23 Feb 2008
Posts: 7
Location: Hannover Germany
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| Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 2:31 pm Post subject: |
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Aaaand here he goes again.
This time he botherd enough to steal a pic of a G90 somewhere.
330214399741
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Fujifrontier
Joined: 20 Oct 2007
Posts: 354
Location: San Antonio, Texas
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| Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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bid the sh*t out of it, bid it to a million, and don't pay. let him be stuck with the fees.
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oliverg
Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 800
Location: Melbourne, Australia
TV/Projector: Sony G90 X2 - Vidikron Vision 1
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| Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:46 pm Post subject: |
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| greg_mitch wrote: |
It seems to me that your clients have a different MO than eBay. eBay is trying to make money by not wasting time answering simple questions whereas it seems your clients are interested in making their website "easy" to use.
Do any of your clients have millions of unique users a day? |
Easy to use and able to generate large amounts of profit aren't necassarily mutually exclusive.
And yes.
We've developed a payment gateway/engine that interfaces between several very large international banks and mobile phone carriers (believe it or not in some countries credit on your phone can be used as currency). Right now the team is working on something that is very close to the subject matter (eBay) except not based in the US. If the pilot is succesful, my business partner will be moving to another country to finalise development.
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this guy is too lazy to even steal the correct picture for the auction.....
