Monday 25 April When Allison sent proof of delivery the buyer said he had received the parcel after all, but instead of a phone it contained an unlikely cargo: I called eBay and asked if I needed to do anything.

How to make money online scams exposed!

It said I would be contacted. What had happened is an experience grimly familiar to many eBay sellers. Not only did the buyer receive a full refund, but the seller has been left with no phone.

After The Observer intervened, eBay agreed to refund Allison, although it insists there was no evidence of fraud. He asked the buyer to send photographs so he could check whether they had come to grief while in transit.

'I scam the scammers': confessions of an eBay vigilante

The buyer since deleted his account. Ebay claims its 1,strong resolution team has tools to monitor and flag up suspect behaviour. It has now refunded Barr.

There is a small group who abuse a system built on honesty … it does need to become more intuitive. Ebay has always been candid about the fact that its apparent bias towards buyers is to keep them spending. Finally, it seems, eBay realises the balance is skewed.

It does need to become more intuitive. In January the company launched a pilot programme: This tardy innovation comes too late for Colin Smart of Montacute, Somerset, whose photographs of a damaged iMac returned by a buyer were ignored by eBay.

The fact the Apple store in question had no record of quoting for an iMac with that serial number, and that the buyer turned out to be a computer repair company, seemed of no interest to eBay. When the iMac was returned Smart said it had been stripped of its parts. He got the money back after the Observer took up his cause, but his experience and that of so many other sellers begs the question: Please choose your username under which you would like all your comments to show up.

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International edition switch to the UK edition switch to the US edition switch to the Australia edition. The Guardian - Back to home. We have been telling eBay that it has a serious problem for years. Now it is going to do something about it. There is a small group who abuse a system built on honesty … it does need to become more intuitive Ebay's response Ebay has always been candid about the fact that its apparent bias towards buyers is to keep them spending.

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Please keep comments respectful and abide by the community guidelines. One year-old was duped by a rogue buyer on the fast-growing mobile platform. PayPal refused to listen when eBay buyer returned item in pieces.

Ebay accused of failing its sellers as fraudulent buyers manipulate the system. A website built on the premise that most people are honest is struggling.

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