Fwd: Suspicious auctions on E-Bay...
2004-05-17 by Laurent Lemaire
FYI... ----- Forwarded message from Synhouse Multimedia Corporation <mail@synhouse.com> Hi, thank you for taking the time to write and warn me. I wrote to eBay and they closed his account. However, it was the same guy as synhousee (synhouse with an extra "e") who was trying to impersonate me and collect the money from the auction of the IIx, I got him kicked out, then he did this, I got him kicked out, now today he is back as muzicamea2001, stealing the text and photos from the guy who has been trying to sell an old MFX3 for months now. You can see what I wrote to eBay below this message. Thanks again. John Hill synhouse ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I must say briefly, thank you for kicking him off eBay, but only very, very briefly, because he is already back and it took me .2 seconds to find him!!!!!!!! Here he is: muzicamea2001 This item has been listed and relisted, now muzicamea2001 has stolen the photos and text: 3723637092 Do you see a pattern developing here?!?!?! In all likelyhood, you don't even know who the person is. As both a big time buyer and seller on eBay, I am constantly being victimized or the butt of attempted ripoffs. eBay does nothing sensible to stop it. I have had so many nonpaying bidders it isn't even funny. If you JUST SIMPLY required a major credit card (and charged nonpaying bids to it), ID, real ISP e-mail address, and real name, and verified all the information (sort of the way your Paypal does it), there would be 90% less fraud. I understand your company likes to brag about having tenhundredthousandmillion users, and many people hoping to be eBay users don't have a major credit card and ISP mail, but it hurts the brand when scams like this run completely undetected by you until it is too late. When I started my company and e-commerce website several years ago, all the money and focus went into online sales. Put simply, if you did not have internet access and Visa/MC/Amex to order online, you could not buy my product. Some people complained or advised me against losing a lot of potential buyers by having this strategy that excludes people who don't have cards and internet. Well, sorry to sound snobbish, but people who don't have a credit card and internet access are such a lowly demographic that they aren't the buyers with money anyway. More to the point, if someone doesn't have internet and e-mail, how will I provide technical support? Write them a letter and mail it from the post office? Drive to see them? Spend all day making long distance calls? Sellers like myself at $200-300/month in fees are really providing the income to eBay and shouldn't have to constantly put up with this. Thank you. John Hill synhouse