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—>Glassdoor released its report of the 50 lowest-rated CEOs as determined by employee reviews on its site. I scractched out all the companies you don't care about and ended up with this list of the 10 Crappiest CEOs (of consumer-facing compaines) (according to their employees)... More »
—>PayPal has locked Jessica's account and won't release her funds until she pays off the negative balance in her other account. That's fine, except that she doesn't have another account. Whatever they linked her to, it's not hers. Of course, this being PayPal, they won't give her any information about the other account. She can't even access it to see what the balance is or who it belongs to. More »
—>This Friday and Saturday, the state of California is going to hold a massive garage sale (they're actually calling it that) to try to get rid of surplus state property while also raising enough money to pay the bills for another month. If you're in Sacramento you can attend the event in person. If not, you can still take a look at the things they've posted on eBay. Who knows, maybe you'll find a cool car! More »
—>GM just realized that the downstairs hall closet is a freakin' mess. Mom went down there and saw all these, like, Pontiacs and stuff in there and now everyone is in trouble for letting it get this bad. The solution? An eBay store! More »
—>Have you ever picked up something at a yard sale and wondered where the heck it came from? Like a disturbing clown painting that the owner has a hard time parting with, or a queer Hummel knockoff. The bloggers at Significant Objects seem to have. More »
—>General Motors is considering a partnership with eBay to make it easier for consumers to impulse-buy new vehicles, the recently solvent car maker announced yesterday. Though the deal isn't yet finalized, General Motors would like to sell their vehicles both through traditional auctions and with a "Buy It Now" option. More »
—>Stephanie reminded us of the little-known customer service phone number for Half.com. If you need to call them up, point your phone to 1-800-545-9857. More »
—>The USPS is getting all modern-like, hooking up with eBay to let sellers be billed later for postal services rather than pay immediately. Also, a new tool will let sellers roll streamline the shipping process by letting them buy and print labels without having to juggle accounts or wait in line at the post office. More »
Over the last 1-2 years Skype has gone from being a great alternative to the greedy phone companies, to being worse than AT&T, Time Warner Cable and Comcast combined. Skype's shady business practices are unlike anything I have experienced with ANY phone or cable company before. And I am saying this as someone who spends $150/year on Skype subscriptions and at least another $50-$75/year on additional Skype out credits. More »
—>A Dallas Morning News blogger decided to test out RadioShack's new trade-in program, where you mail them your unwanted cellphone, for example, and they mail you a gift card, which you can then turn around and use to buy 7,000 house brand AAA batteries. As you might expect, RadioShack didn't offer him as much money for his Blackberry Storm as he saw them going for on eBay, but the real problem came from the missed deadlines and delays in getting his gift card: what they said would take one week ended up taking 5 1/2 weeks, and might have taken longer had he not emailed them. More »
—>A lot of Consumerist readers use Skype. (I mostly use it to call my cell phone when I can't find it, but I also use SkypeIn for my business line.) Many of said readers, such as George, have technical or billing problems with Skype, but can't get a response out of the Web-based customer support system. What should they do? More »
—>Lillian bought what she thought was a new phone from an eBay seller with a lot of great feedback. The longer she has it, though, the more evidence she finds that it's probably not new. Sometimes buying electronics off of eBay is like slowly peeling an onion. More »
—>An internet auction giant, payment processor and ticket broker? Or a troubled car company that used your bailout money to buy an ad thanking you for your bailout money? Which do you hate more? More »
—>We've posted before about security keys—those little digital keyfobs that generate expiring security codes over and over and make it incredibly hard for someone to gain unauthorized access to your account. They're a great idea, and now if you own an iPhone you can install a Verisign app that will work with Paypal and eBay, as well as about two dozen lesser known sites. It's probably the easiest step you can take to vastly improve security on those accounts. More »
—>An internet auction giant, payment processor and ticket broker? Or the parent company of CNBC, retail store card giant, maker of light bulbs and appliances... No, we don't mean the Sheinhardt Wig Company... More »
—>Web brokers Google and PayPal don't believe in human-to-human communication, and one place where you really need that is when you're troubleshooting financial transactions. An interface designer/developer who used Google Checkout to sell an ebook has just been given a huge serving of suck by the "don't be evil" company—they closed her account on her without warning and refuse to tell her why the closed it. The $200 in earnings that hadn't been paid out yet are unretrievable, and she can't open a new one. More »
—>PC Mag has assembled a list of instructions on how to wipe your account from a long list of websites, including Classmates.com (you'll have to call), Windows Live ID (it's complicated), and Friendster (ha ha ha). In many cases, canceling is as straightforward as clicking a link and authorizing the cancellation, but it's nice to see all the phone numbers and tips collected in one spot. More »
—>By exploiting loopholes in their policies, scammers are using eBay, Paypal and UPS to rip unsuspecting sellers off, like reader Chad. The buyer reported the item as "destroyed" and demanded and got a refund from Paypal. When the buyer shipped it back to Chad and he opened it, he found there was nothing wrong with it - except that the scammer had removed the memory, processor and hard drive. Now Chad is out $500 and left with a shell of a computer, and since the item was "received" Paypal won't do anything. His sad tale, inside... More »
—>Dear DVD Planet, you might want to sit down with the person who designed your customer account system and have a long talk. You know, about things like data security. After we posted this story yesterday about an Amazon shopper who was surprised to find you'd automatically created a barely secure account in his name with his data, another reader—this time a former eBay customer from nearly two years ago—decided to check whether you'd done the same thing to her. Yep! And the password was "Ebay." More »
—>Amazon announced the Kindle 2 today and there are already people on eBay trying to sell their "place in line" for a huge markup. The new Kindle will retail for $359.00 (you can pre-order them now) but if you are really impatient can pay some person on eBay $599.99 for their presumably better pre-order spot.. ugh. More »
—>Meet Gregg and Brittiny Peters. They've had a pretty terrible year. Two of their children were diagnosed with costly medical disorders, and as the bills began to mount, they decided to start over by selling all their worldly possessions on eBay. Enter Donnia and Keith Blair, who upon learning of the Peters' plight, bid $20,000 and won the auction. Here's the catch: the Blair's are willing to pay, but they don't want to take any of the Peters' things. This has apparently infuriated the Peters.
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—>Fees may be a way for sellers to offer a low "landing price" to attract buyers in, but then make it up by the time of final sale by tacking on extra charges, but not all surcharges are created equal. The seller's reputation impacts whether buyers will pull the trigger or not, according to a new study. More »
—>Inside, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses for over 100 different companies to inject your customer service complaints into their corporate executive offices, and get it well on the way to success. More »
—>Herman's tale of eBay/Paypal buyer fraud is unusual because he not only met the scammer in person, he placed his item right in the guy's hands. Here's what happened: More »
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- Giant Set Of Pro Quality Cables: XLR, Guitar, RCA etc
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A man in the UK has been sued by an eBay seller for leaving negative feedback. [Daily Mail] (Thanks, Everyone!) More »
—>Meet Pythias Brown. Until recently, he was a TSA screener at Newark airport, and if you're missing any pricey electronics, you might have Mr. Brown to thank for it. He's accused of stealing more than $200,000 worth of electronics, including a $47,000 camera from HBO. Oddly, it was CNN that helped bust the "one man crimewave" when an employee noticed some of their equipment being sold on eBay. More »
—>Joanne Smith from Chicago now owns an abandoned home in Saginaw, Michigan, and she only paid $1.75 for it on eBay. Well, there's also $850 in "back taxes and yard cleanup cost," reports MSNBC. Smith says she hasn't seen the house yet or visited the town, but we're thinking hello summer home! Or maybe it's a good place to put the parents when they retire. More »
—>People! Always wipe your cell phone before you sell it, give it away, or trade it in. Do not assume or expect that someone else will do this for you! This was just one of the mistakes that led to Rachel Swanson being called by strangers several weeks after she thought she donated her old phone to charity. But the store that handled the donation, and the company responsible for actually processing the donated phones, screwed up their parts, too. Here's how it was supposed to have work, and what you should always do before donating your phone to any organization. More »
Inquiring readers named Kurt want to know: If a buyer from Canada buys something from someone in America on eBay, pays for it, including shipping, and then it shows up with a $50 C.O.D. charge for imports and customs, is that kosher? Discuss... More »
—>The word is that eBay is banning checks and money orders, and buyers will have to use PayPal or (if the seller has a credit card merchant account or an account with a service called ProPay), credit cards. More »
—>Remember the French lawsuit that Louis Vuitton won against eBay earlier this month? A French court said eBay was responsible for policing their auctions for counterfeit items—at least that was the official language. It also, unfortunately, helped solidify LVMH's tight control over who sells its luxury merchandise. This week a judge in New York ruled the opposite direction against Tiffany & Co., telling them, "Tiffany must ultimately bear the burden of protecting its trademark." It's a win for eBay. Is it for the consumer? More »
—>If your email account is with Google or Yahoo, your days of seeing phishing emails from fake eBay or PayPal addresses should be over. Google announced last week that it's now using DomainKeys to verify messages really do come from paypal.com or ebay.com—if they don't, they never even make it to your In Box. This is possible because eBay and PayPal are now making sure "that all their email is signed with DomainKeys and DKIM." Since Yahoo! also uses DomainKeys and DKIM (they developed it, in fact), phishing attacks for Yahoo! Mail accounts should also disappear. More »
—>That headline is the good news. The bad news is the $61 million in damages ordered by a French court isn't meant for regular shoppers who have been defrauded when shopping on eBay. Instead, it's been awarded to LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the French luxury goods company behind Louis Vuitton purses (among other fancy things, as you can see from their name). LVMH argued that "90 percent of the Louis Vuitton bags and Dior perfumes sold on eBay are fakes," and that eBay profited off the sales without doing enough to stop them. EBay can appeal the decision, or simply click the "Pay It Now!" button. More »
—>Reader Mike reports he got screwed buying a used TiVo off eBay. It turned out 1) It would need a new $20 access card for DirecTV to activate it and 2) DirecTV wouldn't authorize sending a new access card because the box was linked to a defaulted account. The lesson Mike says he learned is that, "If anyone plans on buying any used DirectTV equipment make sure you call DirectTV with the Serial Number and RID number off the unit BEFORE you purchase it to make sure it's not coming from a defaulted account. If not, you chance buying an electronic brick." This is true when buying other used electronic service items with service contracts linked to them, like cellphones. More »
—>The ever-thoughtful economists over at Freakonomics are stumped by eBay member lpinok, who bid $55.71 for a $50 Target gift card. More »
—>Here are over 450 pieces of internal email addresses and phone numbers to reach a real live human at Paypal/eBay. Anyone who has ever experienced Paypal unfairly freezing their funds, Paypal siding with someone who scammed them and losing money because of it, Paypal seizing funds from their bank account or credit card without permission, or just the simple impenetrable, rude, and useless customer service can surely appreciate this list. There's contact info for executive relations, high executives, practically every department, and more, both US and international. The information comes courtesy of Screw-Paypal.com, a site started by a man who says Paypal wrongfully denied access to his funds for four years. I guess that's how long it takes to track down every single piece of Paypal contact info. He got his money back eventually, and you can too, with the email addresses and phone numbers inside... More »
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—>Marketplace Money took a look at some folks who are selling their possessions on eBay and Craigslist in order to pay their bills. The main interviewee was a former mortgage broker who used to make six figures but was now selling his collection of cool amps to pay off his $5,000 a month mortgage and $50,000 in credit card debt. More »
This is Round 39 in our Worst Company in America contest, Sallie Mae vs eBay/Paypal! More »
—>A link to the following letter to T-Mobile's president just popped into our inbox. It seems that if you receive a T-Mobile Sidekick for Christmas and it's defective... your options are fairly limited. T-Mobile's best solution to your broken phone? Sell it on eBay. More »
Timothy, our hapless eBay seller who kept having problems listing his laptop on the auction site, was contacted by a Real Live Human from eBay the day after we posted his story. "Garrison" apologized for the frustration, and said he'd be making a note on Timothy's account to keep it from getting shut down by other agents. He also suggested several listing options that were pretty well-covered by our commenters in the original thread. More »
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—>This lady is trying to eBay her family's $103,245.11 in debt. It comes with her house and car (loving family not included). I guess it could be useful if you're trying to decrease your tax liability, or you just want to feel part of the credit crunch crisis. Maybe you could work out a Prince and the Pauper thing. More »
—>Matt just got his first taste of Ebay, and it wasn't good—as soon as he mailed off the Best Buy gift card to the buyer, the buyer reversed payment on Matt's PayPal account and stopped communicating with him. We're pretty sure he's screwed on this one, but does anyone have any good advice for what he can do next? More »
—>Veteran Ebay buyer/seller Monty has just come off a triple play of misrepresented auctions, each from a different seller, and has had zero luck getting things straightened out with any of them. More »
—>Emily noticed that the weird puppet crap she was thinking of buying on Ebay would make her PayPal account explode:
I know shipping products can be expensive, what with the rising fuel costs and all, but this shipping charge from the UK to Utah is ridiculous! Maybe the seller's just padding the fee, I don't know. :)More »
This is Round 14 in our Worst Company in America contest, eBay/Paypal vs COX cable. More »
—>The guy who won a BMW for $60k on eBay only to have the dealership back out is chaffing at the conditions the dealership imposed after the two, following an international onslaught of criticism, came to terms. The two conditions the dealership asked for were 1) That Ken not sell the car for a certain number of years after he bought it and 2) That Ken has to go around to all the internet sites that picked up his story and tell them that the dealership worked out the deal. Ken's lawyer was able to get the first one struck but Ken really doesn't like the second one, especially after the following quote from the dealership appeared in the Journal-Star, "These bloggers out there, they have lots of time on their hands to do this." To this, Ken wrote, "I got placed under the impression that the dealership really isn't sorry for anything they have done here. Their attitude, it seemed was that I am to blame for the firestorm that culminated, implying that I wasn't being proactive enough in getting the word out...I had no intention of becoming a pawn for this dealer, not after the way they treated me!" For their part, the dealership says they are ready to sell the car at the agreed-upon price once they receive payment from Ken. More »
—>The dealership that refused to honor a BMW 3 Sedan for sold on eBay for $60,000 seems to have buckled under the deluge of criticism, emails, and phone calls made by irate internetizens sympathetic to the buyer's plight. A post by buyer Ken on m3post.com says that the dealership has agreed to honor the original price. However, there will be certain "conditions," which Ken wasn't yet able to specify. Ken's story appeared in various auto forums, and on Autoblog, Consumerist, Fark, and Digg (although for some reason, it got buried even though it has 475+ diggs...dealership sockpuppets at work?). Online social justice networking is in effect. More »
—>UPDATE: Facing Online Onslaught, Dealership Honors eBay Sale More »
—> EBay's highly criticized fee changes—lower listing prices but a 67% increase in seller fees—kicked in last week, and next month eBay's payment service PayPal will start holding certain deposits for up to 21 days if PayPal considers the transaction "high risk." PayPal earns interest on any money it holds—and it's perfectly legal because PayPal is a deposit broker and not a bank. If you do find your money stuck in "high risk" detention, there's only one way you can attempt to earn money from the delay, and that's by sticking it in PayPal's Money Market Fund. More »
—>USAToday says the eBay boycott over fee and policy changes has driven listings down as much as 13%: More »
—>Here we are a few days into a week-long eBay boycott over policy and fee changes and no one is sure if it is having any effect. It appears that listings are down 3%, but no one is sure if the drop is the result of the boycott. More »
—> EBay doesn't share data on bidders' maximum bid amounts, so it's always been difficult to quantify whether or not buyers are actually saving money, but a new study has attempted to put hard numbers behind the transactions. The study's authors use data from bidders who used a specific sniping agent—by measuring what those bidders were willing to pay versus actual winning amounts, they've determined that the average winning bid comes in about 30% lower than the maximum amount the buyer was willing to spend. More »
—>Holy crap! A "multiagency" investigation that started with a single shoplifting incident has lead to the arrest of an 18 person crime ring in Florida, says The Ledger. More »
—>If your family gave you something crappy this year, why not help the item find its intended audience by selling it online? The Chicago Tribune caught up with one woman who did just that. She didn't want to return the singing penguin figurines her mother purchased from QVC, because she didn't want to hurt mom's feelings, so she sold them on eBay. More »
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About six months ago I moved into my apartment in Chicago to learn that the only service available was with DirecTV. Not only that, but we were forced to use MDU communications, a DirecTV reseller. With no options for television, I reluctantly purchased my own HD receiver off eBay (The HR-20) to avoid entering into a contract with them for two years. When I received my unit, I called MDU to sign up and the CSR at MDU told me that since I had my own receiver, I could sign directly up with DirecTV. Awesome I thought, I can cut out the middle man. The CSR at MDU even transferred me to DirecTV account set up line himself.More »
—>I saw your article on the Wii shortage and in the spirit of the holiday I want to come clean and confess my consumer sins. I am a reseller. More »
—>There's infinite space on the virtual folding table that is the comments section for readers to add their eBay auctions - a great way to clean out the closets and make some extra cash to pay down bills or build up savings. We'll get this started with two items of our own: More »
There will be a Consumerist Neighborhood eBay Garage Sale starting tomorrow, Monday. Get your listings up and when the post appears, add your stuff in the comments. Let's clean out the closets and make some cash. More »
—> A North Carolina woman named Quantina Moore-Perry pleaded guilty to wire fraud last week for stealing $412,000 worth of merchandise from television retailer QVC in 2005. She discovered and exploited a bug in QVC's online ordering system, where she would still receive the merchandise without being charged if she canceled the order immediately after placing it. She would then sell the items on eBay. More »
—> The retail industry claims it loses $30 billion a year from organized retail crime—rings of professional shoplifters who sell their goods at flea markets, pawn shops, and online through auction sites like eBay—so they're asking online sellers to help by posting serial numbers of products and by providing more information on high-volume sellers. Right now all they can do is ask, but there are politicians in Washington who are making noises about pursuing a legislative solution. More »
—> Ebay isn't the only shopping site revamping its look: Goodwill's online shopping website, which has been around since 1999, is about to launch a redesigned site that's cleaner and easier to navigate. Because the only sellers on the site are member organizations of Goodwill Industries International, the selection may not be as big as eBay, but the fraud is minimal as well—and the member pool is large enough to have "posted more than 17,000 items from inventory that includes antiques, collectibles, clothing, electronics, books and musical instruments, which are arranged according to category. " More »
—>If you still thrill to the joys of a real arcade, or take your kids to Chukee Cheese's or Kings Dominion or other amusement parks, you can save on tokens by getting them on eBay. After reading about how you could do it on this Mighty Bargain Hunter's post, we found a few auctions which looked decent: More »
—> If you have a PayPal or eBay account, or use OpenID to login to participating sites, then for $5 you can add a second layer of security that is virtually impossible to break unless the thief physically locates you and steals a little plastic device. The PayPal Security Key is a small, keychain-ready fob with a unique ID that's tied to your account. It generates a new six-digit code very 30 seconds, which you have to enter whenever you log in. The down side is you have to have your security key with you in order to read the code. But the benefits are huge: you basically have a 2nd password that changes 2,880 times every day—and that isn't available anywhere online. More »
—> Planning on doing some buying or selling online? Wired offers some tips on how to spot scammers when you're on eBay or Craigslist. More »
—>eBay has been hacked, says Ars Technica, and several members have had their accounts disabled. eBay's Trust and Safety team issued a statement in which they said (adorably) that the hacker was "a known fraudster to us." More »
—>It's time for another Consumerist Neighborhood eBay Garage Sale, where plucky Consumerists looking to clear out their garage and get some extra cash add their ebay auctions in the comments. Check out each other's deals, add some of your own. Stuck at work? Hey, I bet they don't really need that extra stapler... This week we'll kick things off with several used American DJ lights and control devices: More »
Looking for a project this weekend that will earn you some cash? We're going to have a Consumerist eBay Neighborhood Garage Sale tomorrow, so load up your goodies on eBay and then you can link to them in the comments on the announcement post. More »
—> The recall procedure in the U.S. is pretty streamlined by this point, what with all the practice we get. Pretty much every manufacturer or retailer publicizes its recalls as they happen, and the media then pushes it out to the country in news reports, blogs, etc. So what about eBay? How do defective, tainted, cursed, or otherwise unsavory items get the recall treatment in secondary markets? Today eBay announced that it's working with the CPSC to "educate consumers" on recent recalls to help ensure a safe and successful buying experience online." More »
—>There's infinite space on the virtual folding table that is the comments section for readers to add their eBay auctions - a great way to make some extra cash to pay down bills or build up savings. We'll get this started with some items from our gizmo box. More »
—>TypoTrawler scans eBay looking for misspellings. Savvy eBay shoppers know that misspelled listings result in fewer bidders, because they're harder to find, so they offer the opportunity for getting a lower final auction price and/or making the item easier to win. You can select which categories you want to view and you can vote on which items are really misspelled or not, as well as click through to the eBay page. More »
—>Manufacturers are getting eBay auctions canceled for selling their products "too cheaply," reports the Consumer Law & Policy blog... More »
—>"Hi, my name is Holly Forman-Petersen and I used to be a Special Agent at The Geek Squad. I am eBaying my Special Agent badge. More »
—>The usual cast and crew of operation greymarket are out of luck with the iPhone, according to the Boston Globe. Unlike Nintendo and their still-scarce Wii, Apple appears to be meeting demand. From the Boston Globe:
David Flashner thought he had it wired: Buy two iPhones last Friday when they first went on sale, keep one, and sell the other at a profit so big it would pay for most of the first one. More »
—>Welcome to Consumerist Neighborhood eBay Garage Sale! Let's push these beanie babies off to the side of the folding table... here we are, there's a space in the comments right there for you to add your auctions. More »
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I haven't sold very many things on Ebay. I run a DJ company and had a brand new Pioneer DJ CD player that sells for over $1000 that I wanted to sell on Ebay. I went through the process of selling it and the winning bidder (who had very low feedback) payed me very quickly via paypal. The address the person gave me was for her son in Nigeria. Yes, I know Nigeria I should have known, but I was naive and trusted this person. Plus, I had seen on the Paypal website that they have up to $1000 - $2000 of seller protection. So I figured if it was a scam, then I was covered. More »
—>We're hosting another Consumerist Neighborhood eBay garage sale starting Tuesday morning. So if you have any crap priceless artifacts to dispose of, put 'em up for auction and then link to them in the comments on the relevant post that day. More »
—>Once upon a time we worked at an office where a certain loud individual would sit around bidding on her own stuff on eBay in a sad attempt to drive prices up on her collection of bedazzled jeans. We know this because she not only bid on her own stuff, she asked other people in the office to "fake bid" on her tacky crap. More »
—>Not every eBay seller throughly spellchecks their listings, a little fact you can exploit to buy stuff for cheaper, says Kiplinger's: More »
—>We're selling some more of our old electronics on eBay. Everything is currently at $.99, except for the laptop which is up to $20.50. More »
—>Seller "awesome_electronics" (feedback zero) is selling "pictures" of items. Get it. It's just a picture.. Ha, ha, ha. From ebay:
You are Bidding on a picture of a Apple iPod Video Black 30 gb that is BRAND New In BOX. As you can see in the picture it has never been opened. I Only Ship to the continental United States. I do not ship to PO Boxs. This is an as is sale There will be no returns. Payment is due within 3 days of sale ending. Thank you for looking at my sale and Happy Bidding!We guess this is what happens when 12 year olds think of scams to pull on the internet. Sadly, according to BoingBoing at least one person fell for it before their post drove the bidding up over $100,000 (for a picture of a HAM radio.) Hardy har har. —MEGHANN MARCO More »
—>No Credit Needed made over $1000 in 2005 selling baby clothes on eBay as a way to get out of debt. He's sharing 15 tips he learned, but fear not, childless readers, most apply to selling any kind of item at the online auction site. For one, More »
—>We're selling off some of our gadgets and extra gear this week on eBay. Everything is currently at $.99 except for the CD Mixer, which is at $13.34. Good deals to be had. More »
Lay and Skilling, who also served as CEO, were convicted in May 2006 for their role in the accounting fraud that led to the collapse of Enron in 2001. The bankruptcy erased billions in investors' money and wiped out the pensions of thousands of Enron employees. More »
—>How is that Paypal gets away with having a customer service system completely unreachable by humans? More »
—>Remember our reader, Charles, who got his camera stolen by a Delta baggage handler? And how Charles found the camera on eBay and got the guy tracked down, fired, and arrested? And how Delta didn't give a shit and wasn't going to refund Charles any money? After we ran his story, the fine folks at the PeterGreenberg radio show stepped in, and Delta agreed to reimburse Charles for the full cost of his original flight. Here's what they said: More »
This could be you. More »
—>A minor annoyance of the Paypal security key is that it introduces a second login screen for your six-digit code. Did you know you can skip the secondary screening? More »
You can get yours from PayPal for $5 here. — BEN POPKEN More »
—>Unwitting consumers are falling for a new twist on the old "advance fee scam." In this variation, a consumer receives what looks like a legitimate check in the mail, either as "foreign lottery proceeds," "prize money," or even payment for goods via classifieds (which includes Craigslist and eBay). More »
"So that left me in a moral dilemma. In effect, I was witnessing some bad stuff happening in real time. .... What to do? I downloaded the latest version of the harvested data and pondered. More »
Delta won't refund Charles' money after his camera was stolen from his luggage by a baggage checker, even after he tracked the camera down on eBay and got the thief fired, arrested, and prosecuted. More »
—>Derek O'Brien wanted to buy his girlfriend an engagement ring. What better way to do it, he thought, than by buying PS3s and selling them for a profit on Ebay. Whoops. More »
We caved and bought a Wii on eBay. We got a Wii + nunchuck + Wii sports for $325 + $25 shipping. More »
- Attention Seller: More »
—>When the Walmart Nazi thirt story first broke, the shirts appeared on eBay the very next day. Bidding was scarce and we never saw the prices rise above their $10 retail value. Now reader David points out they're selling for up to $31 a pop. More »
—>Reader Homerjay's story bolsters our big prediction for 2007: Paypal is going down. More »
—>Balance is being restored to the universe. Is it karma? Is it the work of a Jedi? Yoda? Are you there, buddy? More »
—>This retard bought three playstations for $900. That's not the in-demand PS3, but the original Playstation, which regularly sells on Ebay for around $20 to $40. More »
—>We had a lot of fun last night watching crazy people on Ebay fuck with the douchebags trying to sell their PS3s for thousands of dollars. We bet the Ebay fraud team is going to have fun cleaning up auctions like this one. They were the norm last night, believe it or not. More »
Image redacted. More »
—>Last night, an explosion rocked Paypal's network operations center, blasting windows and leaving a haze in its wake. More »
—>"Whatever IT is, you can get IT on Ebay," goes the promise. Unfortunately for reader Wil, "it" has meant, "almost being scammed." More »
—>Our cottage-cheese-golem brethren over at Kotaku took a break from mouthbreathing and fantasizing about imaginary elves who live in their computer to throw us a couple of links yesterday. Never say we don't return the favor. More »
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—>How does eBay tell if you're a pirate? Your peg-legged swagger? Your use of arghs as punctuation? The foul-mouthed parrot crapping on your shoulder? More »
—>I bought three boxes of my favorite pens on eBay. They arrived. Compare the silkiness and plenitude of the three boxes to the two, gnawed, scratchy pens I'd somehow been scraping by with for like, oh, two months. These babies usually retail for $16.99 per box of 12 but I snagged 36 pens for $19.20 plus $3.95 S&H. My life is five thousand times better right now. More »
—>When Kiel Sturm, an online stone retailer, sold a piece of smoky quartz over eBay for $2.33, it turned out to be a business destroying transaction. "F MINUS MINUS MINUS MINUS! WOULD NOT DO BUSINESS AGAIN!" was the gyst of the feedback left. More »
—>Savvy Ebay shoppers look at a seller's satisfaction rating, but it takes more than a glance. More »
—>New developments in the ever-popular story of a guy who got revenge on an ebay seller who sold him a broken laptop by posting embarrassing photos found on the notebook once it arrived. More »
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—>Amir Massoud Tofangsazan has gotten more popular than he could have ever dreamed, or wanted. More »
—>Someone over at StreamCast Networks is channeling the ogresque spirit of Patrick Byrne: they've sued eBay, Skype and 21 other companies for engineering an insidious, overarching conspiracy to cost StreamCast billions of dollars. Luckily, they did not describe the conspiracy as originating from the Dark Lord of the Sith, but you generally don't say such a thing in a legal briefing. More »
—>"Hello. My name is Amir Massoud Tofangsazan and i live in Barnet. I'm 19 but pretend to be a lot older and like to pretend that I'm a big businessman when I'm not actually that clever." More »
Last week we wrote about Max, who tried to send money to his friend through Paypal but found himself ensnarled in a technical and customer service nightmare. In the end, his road of good intentions lead to B"anned from Paypal and Ebay Land," a decidedly unhappy place excised from The Wizard of Oz as it frightened the focus group children terribly so. More »
—>At first he though it was a phish but it turned out to be for real. Adam's flawless eBay account was suspended for being "associated" with a previously suspended user. More »
—>Thanks to some zealous Paypal security, mixed with tech snafus and a little lack of information about how Paypal works, Max had to go through leaps and hurdles to retrieve his money after he committed the crime of lending money to his friend. More »
—>Ah, the thrills and chills of hearing the rumblings of the world's next great superpower: Chinese Ebay. More »
—>Barclay's Photo employees are a pile of snivelling scum bucket sleazebags not fit to clean the sluice gate of a pig factory killing floor. More »
—>We love this quote from AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre, referring to Google, eBay and Amazon.com: "Why should they be able to use my pipes for free?" Pointing out that people are actually paying for the bandwidth going through his pipes hasn't swayed good old Ed. If the man ran FedEx, both the sender and receiver would pay for a package. More »
—>It's Good Friday, and we here in Ireland are a little bit angry. Not only are our Gawker overlords making us actually work today, but it seems Irish off-licenses don't sell alcohol on Good Friday and the theological reminder that Jesus actually drank wine on the day of his death isn't enough to get them to open up, no matter how many times we call the owner's house and scream Bible verses at him. More »
Julia's got an eBay protocol question for you: More »
—>You know, we've always gotten the feeling that things purchased on eBay actually cost more than if you bought them locally. But to what degree exactly do you need to slope your head to have your liquified gray matter start slopping out of your ear to purchase a McDonald's coupon book (value: fifty dollars) for fifty-one dollars off of eBay? That's not including shipping and handling. More »
—>A new study shows that most Ebay shoppers would rather pay less and pay for shipping than pay more and have free shipping. More »
—>You sell your stereo equipment, frequent the bathrooms at Kohl's and Time Warner Center and lift bills from your grandma's purse. The beast that is your New Coke habit demands so. It's a tough monkey to beat off your back. More »
—>Solid article here on purchasing a notebook computer online. Much of the advice is common sense but are good reminders to review when salivating over the latest i-Thingy, like verifying the repair history, seeing if there are any dead pixels, and making sure the CD/DVD drive isn't filled with peanut butter. More »
While I think we can all agree that what happened to Chris Dotson—getting scammed out of over three grand on eBay and Paypal—sucks to high heaven, he raises a more interesting point at the end of his post: Is there a market for a third-party eBay scam collection service? More »
—>Ignoring all the Chapelle Show nonsense, there's no denying that Rick James was a bad motherfucker. His hair could pollute the pin feathers of an arctic duck at forty paces and he often wore spacesuits made from Rue McClanahan's lingerie. More »
Do you want to get rich by playing the supply-exploit-demand eBay game on the next big video game console? Did you see those ridiculous $1000 X-Box 360 eBay auctions and think, "Man, I wish I could get in on some of that exploitive action?" Your prayers have been answered, because this blog has a remarkably sleazy and delusional article up on the fine art of console reselling. More »
Reader Ben P. writes with his horrible experiences with the Southern California 'we sell your stuff on eBay' chain, iSold.
I've sold items on eBay several times before, and while it's a bit of a hassle, it never overwhelmed me. Late last year though, during a move, I had multiple items I thought would sell well on eBay that I couldn't justify loading into the Uhaul, and having plenty on my plate with the move, thought I could just drop off at iSold it and wash my hands of the transaction. Their motto is after all: "The Easy Way to Sell on Ebay." More »
Silicon Era has posted a great expose of Game Quest Direct, a once-retail video game chain that hit it big by acting as a bulk republisher of particularly sought-after games. Inspired by the absolutely mad eBay prices on games like Disagaea or Resident Evil 3 for the Gamecube, these guys decided to strike up deals with the publishers to get these games back in circulation at a reasonable price. The problem? The very same gaggle of eBay speculators who inspired GCD's business are now calling foul: More »
—>If you're going to run a successful Suck Site, you should aim for a big target. PayPal Sucks may have stumbled on powerful internet suck alchemy. Anyone who has used eBay (the owner of PayPal) more than casually will have run afoul of PayPal at least once. And thus, a hit is born. More »
• Today only, pay just 10 cents to list an item on the store the sows distrust in your fellow man: eBay. Obviously they are encouraging you to dump all the crap you got this Christmas and we think you should take advantage of it, because you are never going to fit into that after what you ate this weekend. More »
eBay UK is getting fraudier, reports the BBC. Crooks aren't using just the standard, in-system scam, either—selling something they don't have—but are instead hijacking high-scoring accounts, so better to lure in those who really want to buy a used hot tub.
Adidas told the BBC that it monitored up to 12,000 auctions involving its goods every day on the British site - yet it estimated that up to 40% of all Adidas products available were counterfeit.It's an online auction site—there are going to be some scams. Forty percent, however, is somewhat amazing. And if we can't trust customer ratings, then what does eBay offer that Craigslist does not? More »
—>Any ideas, eBayers? More »
—>This guerrilla campaign by eBay in Brussels shows how marketing obviates the need for facts and figures when a hastily-slapped sign can say so much more. These stores went out of business, for god-knows-what reasons—perhaps a death in the family, or a shortage of mayonnaise—but that didn't stop eBay from taking the credit. More »
—>If we figure that the lowest average price for an Xbox 360 Premium kit is around $450ish after tax, the going rate on Ebay this morning would seem to be around $945—nearly double the retail price. That's not a bad bit of profit for anyone who could get their hands on a system, let alone three or four. More »
