Ebay & Fraud & The Bottom Line.

Ebay tolerates fraud in its venue. On three separate occasions when bidding for an item on Ebay, a bidder with no transactions to his credit, outbids me. The next day, the item is up for sale again with the seller saying something about the non-paying bidder.

This is done in order to determine what the maximum price was that bidders were willing to pay. Let me explain. Let's say I stipulate a maximum bid of $150. However, the bidding in the last minutes of the auction only goes up to $80. The seller, would like to sell for the highest price he can get but he doesn't know my maximum amount--what is he to do? All he has to do is set up a bogus account and bid an outrageous amount. Let's say he bids $500. When he does that he wins the auction but most importantly, he now knows exactly how much I was willing to pay for the item because the winning bid will be slightly more than my maximum. The seller's bogus account holder (himself or a friend) now defaults on payment and the seller is now ready to relist the item offering it as a "buy it now" or engaging in another bogus bidding but, this time, bidding just under the maximum that I previously set and which he, by virtue of Ebay's complicity, is now privy to.

Yes, Ebay is complicit in this because there are any number of safeguards against this that the company could implement if its CEO was not like all the other unscrupulous CEO's that are slaves to Wall St. It allows this fraud, of course, because the higher an item sells, the more Ebay gets.

Simple measures could be implemented to avoid this fraud. For example, a bidder with zero transactions to his name could be prevented from bidding on an item in the last few minutes of an auction unless he puts his money in escrow. Too much trouble? There are other ways but I'll not invest any more of my time knowing that Ebay's CEO is more interested in his company's bottom line than he is in maintaining a truly legitimate venue.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New Jersey's Department of Personnel

I'm 57 years old. That alone makes it very hard to penetrate the job market. However, NJDOP has a website where you can browse available jobs and submit an application along with $15. I did that and I waited and waited for the process to reach the stage where the actual hiring agency would give out interviews for the position. 2 months into that last stage (the DOP said that the hiring agency had 90 days in which to interview candidates), I got anxious and decided to call the municipality. They were supposed to pick from the top 3 candidates but they told me in no uncertain terms that they were going to give it to "the person who was already doing the job." When I questioned the ethics and legality of their decision, I was told that they really hadn't finalized things. This person was hoping that I would go away but, sadly, NJ is a state where ageism and/or crony-ism is condoned. Stay tuned, I'm waiting to see if I get an interview and if I don't get the job,...
Read more

Size and other Characteristics Matter in Trumpville

Why was Comey fired? He towered over Trump, that's why. It's a no-no. That other dude that knew his job well was tall, and I suspect the administration knew all the time of his spousal abuse history but it only became a problem for him when his height got on the president's nerve, OUT. This height obsession is a conflation of the President's own tallness and NY real estate where the bigger the edifice, the bigger your status. Look at whom he holds on to--Sessions, plenty of reason to fire him but he's all so diminutive that Mr. Trump feels he might be charged with child abuse if he were to act against him; besides, Sesssions takes it on the chin and will forever hold the distinct "honor" of being the first mainstream Republican to embrace the President's candidacy. This represents two pluses. The short and tough-looking General Mattis stays while the bigger and better looking Tillerson goes. Mustaches: if you have one, you're out but a whit...
Read more

I Doubt My Mother-in-Law will ever get Covid Even at 90+

You see, she has never been a germaphobe and that means her immune system is tip top. When you're not a germaphobe, you subject yourself to all manner of germs that immunize you against similar organisms. My German mother-in-law cleans her home meticulously but she has no compunction with sticking her hands into the sewer and unclogging it by hand. "But Midge, I have a snake for that. Ah, what's the big deal, she says to me." Never argue with your mother-in-law. When your mother tells you to wash your hands before supper, is she doing you a disfavor? I think so. In countries with many parasites or in our present pandemic, you want to wash them off your hands but, if not, you want lots and lots of germs to keep your immune system on guard. This brings me to the factoid that Women are less likely to get or die from Covid. Duh, obviously, who subject themselves to more germs as a parent? The one who plays in the parlor with the kids or the one who cleans their diaper...
Read more