Chuck in illinois and i are in the same boat. I bought a vehicle on ebay for $8650.00 from ebay motors - ebay says they are not responsible and told me it is non negiotable... The listing was on ebay on sept 24 originally - it had 23 bids on it - i did not bid on this vehicle -instead i asked the seller a question about the vehicle directly off ebay's site from the sellers auction listing - where you click ask the seller a question. I did not hear back from the seller - and according to ebay the listing ended because the reserve was not met.
I received an email from the seller a few days later saying she had just relisted the vehicle because the vehicle did not meet the reserve (according to the ended listing on ebay that was the truth) i went to ebays web page immediatly (10/3/07) and did the buy it now on the vehicle. It was supposed to be a supervised bank (by ebay) transfer from my personal checking to her personal checking. (meanwhile - my computer had received a new trojan virus that was dropped into my email from the seller - so that my host files would all be rerouted and i would only see the things the seller wanted me to... More on that later) bank to bank wire transfers are recommended by ebay for large purchases because they can be traced - all vehicles purchased on ebay are supposed to be protected by ebay's 20,000 vehicle protection purchase.
I was given the seller's bank account information - account number, address and phone number in order to complete the wire transfer that i thought was by a legitimate seller on ebay - and protected under ebays plan and also completing it with an approved method of payment. I had no reason to suspect fraud - nor did ebay put any kind of warning on the previous listing that had 23 bidders only that it ended because the reserve was not met. I transferred the money and waited for the vehicle.
I got nervous after not receiving a email confirming shipping arrangements as the seller promised. I immediatly contacted ebay and waited days for a response. The live chat was useless - as they said i had an invalid listing number - and that i must not have done this on ebay - meanwhile the listing is on my computer under my i won section.
With no help from ebay i went and reported everything to law enforcement and to my bank requesting a return of the funds. Ebay finally emailed me to say sorry you are a victim but basically this is not our problem!!! Funds are gone by the way-
I started posting questions to other ebay users on ebays forum to find out what is going on... Only to find out the vehicle i purchased had been listed multiple times during the month of september - and they used a vin number from a vehicle in virginia and actually faked the car fax report. I also found out i am one of many who have been scammed in the past few weeks.
A few hours after posting these questions i suddenly get a call from ebay asking basically what the problem is wanting to resolve this. The technican says to me " we removed that listing because it had malicious software, i apologize but it must have slipped through the cracks" i immediatly say well then you are responsible - all of a sudden he starts back peddling saying sometimes bad things in life just happen and you just have to take it. I demanded to speak to someone else - only to have someone from security call me back telling me they are going to make this right by me.
Days go by and then ebay calls me and i know i am on speaker phone. I asked why and they responded to that with they have multiple people in the room to "help" with the phone call. I said it kind of sounds like you are calling to bullying me.instead of having sympathy for my situation they responded with don't do such risky business and this wouldn't happen - i should have screened their seller better - now mind you i think i am on ebay and that the sellers have been screened and that i am protected my ebay...
As i said before i did everything as i would a normal ebay transaction - and they are telling me not to be risky. I told them if they are not going to protect the customers - they need to have a large warning on the entrance to the website saying bid at your own risk, anyone can sell here - and they might rip you off - we are not responsible. They responded with anyone can sell and that they cannot be responsible for what people are selling... What a comfort to us - so what is this then - a marketplace only - no protection what??? Then they wanted all my information so that they could prevent this from happening to others... Well what about me and the other victims in the past couple weeks? No real response on that.
The worst part is ebay didn't even remove the listing i originally asked the seller about until 6 days after i actually purchased the vehicle from the new listing and only after i reported it. Shouldn't they be marking this listing as fraud - not as reserve not met - how are buyers supposed to know listings are fraud when they leave them on their site and then do nothing but mark them reserve not met - no warning on it at all.
According to the research i have done - the same seller listed this vehicle 3 times prior to my purchase - all under the same user name??? How is ebay getting away with this? I have kept everything from this transaction - and want to get my money back and make ebay either advertise themselves as a purchase at your own risk company or start protecting the customers as they advertise - you cannot have both. They are advertising all over the website, tv - etc. Shop ebay - be protected - make great purchases and here we are hardworking people losing 8,650 in my case and chuck above 17,000- that might not seem like much to ebay - but to most of us that is a lot of money to lose.
On top of the money i lost - the seller managed to put a still unknown trojan virus into my computer which helped to pull of the scan - rerouting websites and changing things to confirm the information in the listings. They provided fake carfax, autocheck, ebay payment pages, etc. This virus and scam is crazy and ebay is doing nothing to protect their users - they haven't even posted anything warning users - how many more are going to fall victim..
CHECK OUT MORE AND PLEASE CONTACT SOMEONE IF THIS HAPPENED TO YOU
theregister.com/10/19/return_of_trojan_bayrob/
Http://forums. Ebay.com/db2/thread. Jspa? ThreadID=1000578265&start=0
Ohioout
Ohio, Ohio
U.S.A.
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