Posted By:
Adam J. BaxterHello all,
The other day I responded to a thread on this forum regarding ebay powersellers. As I stated then and I will now, not all powersellers on Ebay are bad folks and in fact some of them are absoultely wonderful to buy from and sell to. There has been a great deal of concern from ebay members about the way ebay deals with powersellers, particularly when there is a dispute. Many members feel that ebay does not enforce policies fairly when a powerseller is involved. So in short, the problem, if any, lies not with the powersellers or other members, but mostly with ebay and their enforcement (or lack of enforcement) of their own policies.
An example of a bad powerseller could be this one:
While looking at the items for sale by ebay member THEOLDJUDGE (and most of you should know this person! 
) I noticed that he had one negative feedback among his 500+ positives. Knowing that this person is one of the best guys in the hobby and seeing all the great things he often puts up for auction, I was a bit astonished. It turns out that he received a negative feedback from a powerseller, KSGOLFHACK, who THEOLDJUDGE had won an item from and apparently paid. The powerseller, KSGOLFHACK, never sent the item and according to the feedback, when THEOLDJUDGE inquired about his item, the powerseller called him an obscenity. Now I'm sure that since THEOLDJUDGE is human and can make mistakes like anyone else, I figured that maybe, just maybe, the powerseller could be right. Even though he had given a negative to a nice guy, I had at that point no more reason to doubt his take on the transaction.....Until, I read his feedback profile and discovered that this clown had 18 NEGATIVES AND 16 NEUTRALS! Now I know that 18 may not seem like the worst ever, but consider that aside from the few negatives that he had regarding items being damaged or not as described, 12 negatives where on his profile for receiving payment and not sending the item. Folks who are new to ebay should know that if you send your money to a seller and they fail to send the item and they keep your money, that they are committing mail fraud and fraud is a crime, which means the seller is committing a crime. So one can easily see how one bad powerseller can make it look bad for all the others. One can also understand why a an ebay member may view ebay's policies as unfair when they only protect buyers from fraud if the buyer has spent a certain amount of money.
Related advice for new ebay buyers:
I actually was a victim of this very thing last year. Now this seller was not a powerseller, but the situation was similar. I purchased two books in seperate auctions from the same seller. After sending the payments and not recieving the items, I tried e-mails, many, many times to no avail. I then tried to involve ebay, who informed me that since the items in question were under 25.00 a piece then they basically could'nt help me. Ebay will only protect you from fraud if the end price exceeds 25.00. I then tried the attorney general's office in the seller's state, but that didn't prove to be any quicker or easier. Then I filed a report with the U.S. Postal Inspection office for mail fraud. The USPS takes fraud seriously even it's over a transaction that worth pocket change. After 3 weeks or so I received a package from the seller with one of the books I won and a refund for the other, case closed. I'm sure that if someone uses paypal or a credit card that they may get some better degree of fraud protection, but for those who send payment by mail like I do and experience problems like the ones I've mentioned, then consider contacting the USPS. Those folks are like pirhanas when it comes to mail fraud. Some time ago I worked for them during the holidays and during our orientation they were telling us how they'll prosecute someone for stealing a 50 cent postcard. Now that's strict!
Anyhow, I thought that this post might be interesting and maybe even helpful. You can't be too careful when your buying things on ebay. In my opinion, there's no reason to just let things go if someone rips you off. It's your money and you work hard for it. This post is just my opinion and I'm sure others on the forum may have a different viewpoint on the whole issue. If anyone has any thoughts or opinions on this I'd love to hear them.
Thanks all!
Please excuse the excessive use of commas, it's like 4:00 a.m. and I'm about ready to collapse!
05-20-2003, 02:05 AM
A manifesto about Ebay Powersellers and fraud
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