Almost got scammed on eBay!!!

Without going into detail, I nearly fell for this one today. I figured it out when trying to arrange a local pickup/pay transaction...

It seems scammers are gaining access to and using DORMANT eBay user ID's. I look on eBay all the time and I'm finding more and more Canon equipment listings from old (but still valid) eBay users with no feedback for YEARS, no other items for sale, and no history of camera equipment transactions; but all of a sudden they have nice Canon equipment for sale.

Worse still, the scammers are specifically NOT using eBays stock listing content, but pulling images and descriptions from non-eBay forums so it looks and sounds like they are a legitimate private seller that knows what they're talking about. Unfortunately, you can't verify the seller as legitimate because the scammer has access to the eBay messaging features and that's the only way to contact buyers/sellers through eBay. So even if you make an inquiry, they send back a short response and there's still no way to tell for sure they're legit.

Worst of all, have you ever tried reporting a scam to eBay - good grief, it's like filing a tax return! You'd think they would want an army of volunteers watching for bogus listings, like the Craig's List community does. No wonder there are so many scammers out there - and no wonder more and more people are using Craig's List and forums like this for transactions. (Incidentally, eBay already owns 25% of Craig's List - fact, not a rumor - so enjoy it while you still can.)

I know there are lots of legitimate sellers on eBay who would fit my description. But for me, nice Canon equipment + eBay seller w/ no recent feedback + no other items + no camera related transactions = scam alert!!!

Klynam,
I went though this one day when I was shopping for a few lenses. I reported 35 bogus listing, 15 listings to go to another site, and 3 listings for bogus escrow sites, and 1 shill bidding bot.

I followed all of this up in both the fourms and a letter to the secuity director outlining each case number, issue with the listing, and a request to actually have them get off their duff and do something about it, and streamline the submission of fraudulent postings.

I got a one line email back to a written letter. "Thank you for contacting the ebay management, your request will be reviewed."

I responded with F*** YOU, solve your own fraud then, and hope you and paypal get another class action lawsuit brought against you.

At times like these, I am absolutely bewildered that no credible alternative to eBay has emerged. Yes, I know: Craigslist, Amazon, User Forums, etc. But for a true mass market auction site, eBay has no real competitor. Come on Microsoft, you monopolize everything else, why not build a better eBay???

Ewww becareful what you ask for...

If you have unlimited email addresses, for fun, go and create a few ebay accounts to be used as scam notifications. Ebay will also do this, if you read through the community.

Then just bid up an item to $1M or something silly, and prevent anybody else from getting the items. It has been done by non-Ebay support as well. Accounts are obviously very easy to obtain, considering I get 2-3 marketing spam "contact seller" messages per listed item by a user id with 1 feedback, only to be followed a day later by an Ebay message to disregard. Totally retarded...

Create ids like this_is_a_scam, etc.