RE: [MV] Mildoc Paypal and Ebay string

From: Glenn Shaw (mpmutt@mtaofnj.us)
Date: Wed Jul 21 2004 - 09:09:50 PDT


Hi Steve
How can you tell FOR SURE if a bid is a shill? I think that may have
happened to me before. I wondered why the seller just didn't put a
higher starting price in the first place. I was guessing it was but
did not have any PROOF to give Ebay.

Tnx
Glenn

-----Original Message-----
From: Steve Grammont [mailto:islander@midmaine.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 11:10 AM
To: Military Vehicles Mailing List
Subject: Re: [MV] Mildoc Paypal and Ebay string

I thank Jon for mentioning his problems with PayPal to the group because
it is something many of us use to make MV related purchases. Sounds
like there are some extenuating circumstances that got Jon into his mess
that would not affect the general user like myself. Not that it makes
eBay/ PayPal right to do what they did to him, just noting that it might
not be something of DIRECT concern for the run of the mill user. Jon, I
hope you get it stuck them for what they did! I process credit cards
from around the world too, for 6 years, and never had this sort of BS
happen to me either.

Joe, on the other hand, brings up something that is far more relevant to
the average eBay user. And that is the fraud policies of eBay are a
JOKE! Joe's experience is not unique. I have seen other examples of
eBay saying one thing and then doing another when the situation comes
up. For example, they claim they take shilling seriously. That wasn't
my experience. A seller had some military uniforms for sale using Dutch
Auction. When the auction was winding down and he hadn't got what he
wanted out of it, a shill came along and outbid me 2 days before it
ended. To their credit eBay disallowed that bid, putting me back in the
running. But then 5 minutes before the auction ended, the bastard did
it again. It was so obvious and followed the same exact pattern as the
first shill bid. I notified eBay, documented the whole thing (pointing
out eBay themselves found a shill already once) and demanded they remove
that bid. That would have left me as the winner (not that the bastard
would have sent the thing to me). Ebay never responded, never removed
the fraud bid, and did not kick out the seller for gross violations of
the rules.

In short... eBay's so called "guarantees" are worth as much as used
toilet paper.

Steve



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