Hello,
I'm jerry-va and I've put up this Website to help a bunch of us
who were defrauded by the same eBay seller. Customer
service or support from eBay seems unlikely. But
we can work more effectively if we work together. ACTION: If
you are a buyer recently defrauded on eBay, please send your contact
information to me,
jerry-va at speakeasy removethistext dot net
We were hit in mid-June 2006. The negative
feedback for fraudulent seller
auction_price_for_you appeared suddenly
after he had our money, killed his phone and left.
Check out the negative feedback so far.
When he was ready to spring the trap, tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise was
offered for sale, some of it in "BUY-IT-NOW" auctions that each
offered multiples of the same item for sale at once.
Please write to other probable victims on the
list of fraudulent sales
and forward their emails to me. Write to the other people on your sale
or who bought the same thing you did (divides up the work;
avoids duplicate effort).
I will create a community for us via a mailing list or
forum. Here's the problem:
We all have to pitch in contacting each other because eBay stops
everyone of us from writing to more than ten other eBay members.
So we have to get off their messaging system and onto real email addresses.
DOCUMENTING YOUR LOSS
Send a letter requesting your money back, certified mail, return
receipt requested. This will cost you $4.64, but you must prove
to eBay that you tried to
get your money back and failed, not just that you paid but goods were
never delivered. Second, copies of this letter and the
check/money order you used to pay can be filed with the Los Angeles
police once we have a case number. Act now, keep copies.
Letter to:
Imaging Art Inc.
5429 Russell Ave #29
Hollywood, CA 90027
818/536-4602 (dead -- phone rings thru to voice mailbox that is full)
eBay auction_price_for_you
If you have filed reports with eBay, tell me what you think other victims should do so I can share it.
Try to
call eBay, but read this first. If
you call eBay, please share your experiences with me.
The rest of us want
to hear what happened, what hoops we are supposed to jump
through, what
you think we should do.
1-408-376-7425
1 800 717 3229
Understand what we are up against with eBay -- the Web is full of horror stories
from both buyers and sellers. A trip to any news site to search on "ebay fraud" yields many headlines:
MSNBC "EBay’s tough talk on fraud doesn’t withstand scrutiny " , 979 others
CNN.com " Man arrested in huge
eBay fraud.
Buyers criticize auction site's seller verification service "
and over 34 more page of headlines
Use alternatives, give up on eBay.
Many victims I found on the Internet gave up in frustration
trying to deal with eBay and just urged readers to vote with their
feet. Their comments and more suggestions for eBay alternatives
are
here. These are the best ones:
ASYMMETRIC WARFARE -- eBAY vs YOU & ME, THE VICTIMS
Ebay's magic is that they permit individuals in homes across the
country to get together and sell things to one another as if they lived
on the same block. Most of the customers are small. eBay
has $4,500,000,000 in annual sales. Profits in 2005 were
$1,082,000,000
We were defrauded because their system is far from perfect. May
we have a list of everyone defrauded by eBay seller
"auction_price_for_you"? Can we speak to a human customer
care representative? Can we get an email that is not
machine-generated by Customer Relationship Management software
from SiebelSystems or Kana? Why did you persuade
buyers to withdraw their negative feedback instead of
investigating the fraudulent seller and shutting him down? Did
you really think think the perpetrator "auction_price_for_you" had
suddenly obtained a warehouse and trailor loads of consumer gear when
you let him spring his trap and list a ton of items at once?
eBay had the choice as a multi-billion dollar corporation with mostly
small customers to be a good corporate citizen, or
take advantage of their customers -- the people who gave
them their success. We will have to judge for ourselves how they have chosen.
--jerry-va, your Webmaster