About E-Bay: Stolen Accounts and Fake Auctions

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing this e-mail to get attraction to my problem and ask you to give me some directions about my situation. My wife, visiting scholar at Queen Mary University Law School, handled me your contact information. She has already met with you in Online Dispute Resolution Conference last week. We could not find an optimum resolution for our problem. We would be extremely glad if you would give us any further advice.

I bought a Brand New Vespa from an auction by E-Bay on behalf of E-Bay seller njfptd. Before making a bid, I checked E-Bay customer services to find out that whether this seller is genuine or not. They told me that seller has 10-year-old active account and nothing to worry about. I have also checked previous customer feedback. Seller has been sold 306 items with 100% positive feedbacks and also seller’s latest transactions show that he/she sold 7 other Vespa’s and delivered safely. I also contacted with seller both by e-mail and on the phone (01535358578). They told me that they were releasing last years’ stocks that are why they were making these auctions. With this given information, I made a bid to following item.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221433269044

I won the auction on May 8, 2014 and contact to seller again about sending price. Seller told me that they prefer bank transfer in order to complete transaction and £164 for shipment. They also offered me to make registration free of charge.
I sent money via bank transfer to following account.

Mr S. Vasiliauskas
BARCLAYS BANK PLC
Sort code: 203460
Account Number:83630072
Total to pay: £2214

They confirmed that they got my transfer and they were starting registration shortly. Last message I took from seller is on May 13, in message, they were still working on paperwork and item would be shipped shortly.

After that day, I lost contact. I wait for a while, and then I saw some negative feedbacks about this seller, that is how I understand that I was scammed. Currently, there were 15(Item Numbers at ebay.co.uk:
221435380736, 221422572254, 221419518079, 221421639730, 221433268450, 221421644165, 221433269044, 221431866091, 221430993055, 221417718114, 221424549158, 221430646125, 221426951738, 221430996870) other people like me who were scammed by this seller lost over £32000 plus shipping expenses (approximately £2500). We have reported this incident to police and opened several cases (National Crime ReferenceNumbers:NFRC140500636831, NFRC140500637307, NFRC140500636102, NFRC140500636141, NFRC140500636871, NFRC140500634444, NFRC140500636283, NFRC140500636033)

We also setup a web forum to communicate each other about what we can do to resolve this problem all together. http://scooter.freeforums.org/test-forum-1-f2.html

E-Bay does not guarantee money back on some items (vehicle, house, etc.) even if transactions are made through PayPal. Our main concern is that it is the E-bay who hosts these fraudsters and helped these guys to arrange 7 other fake auctions to gain our trust. I am struggling to understand that how 10-year-old seller with hundreds of successful transactions turn out to be a fraud and how other highly reputable customer profiles hacked (I call hacked because I can not reach those customers who made successful Vespa purchases from this seller) and bided in fake auctions.

I have also opened a case through E-Bay Customer Services. However, E-Bay keeps ignoring us. Currently E-Bay is struggling many problems about losing some crucial customer data.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27539799
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-27503290

We trusted E-bay because E-bay provides feedback mechanism and communication between sellers and buyers. People uses E-Bay platform as their showcase and E-bay made money from these fraud auctions that costs thousands of pound.

On E-bay Web Page: “Why does eBay have this policy?
Feedback is open and honest way for members to share their experiences with each other, and it helps eBay members decide with whom they want to do business. However, there are certain things we don’t allow, like abusive language and Feedback that isn’t relevant to a specific sale. We also don’t allow buyers to use Feedback in a way that would impact seller performance ratings when sellers have objectively met satisfactory performance levels. In cases where we think the Feedback violates our policies, we remove it.”
According to E-Bay web page: under the title “Making Your Profile Public”: E bay says: “Your Feedback Profile is a valuable asset that helps you earn the trust of other eBay members”
In the User Agreement it says:
• take any action that may undermine the Feedback or ratings systems (please see our rules about Feedback);
• transfer your eBay account (including Feedback) and user ID to another party without our consent;
Reference: http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/seller-protection-faq.html

Definitely, E-Bay violates promises that make to his customers. They use feedback mechanism and fake auctions to win our trust to user. E-bay is just unmindful to fraudsters to use this giant e-showcase as a fraud tool.

I recently got an MC139 and an MC999 report from eBay.
The user has been removed and the account reverted to it’s old name njf60.

E-Bay has now removed all njfptd’s listings together with the feedback information. This is great for eBay, now no one can see what happened. The fraud has vanished leaving eBay looking squeaky clean. We have no one to talk to about this, listing ID’s have gone so we cannot contact support.

I am working as a Software Engineer in Amazon. We have some very strict rules about our sellers. We always guarantee to give money back, If order is not delivered to someone, we send a second one with ultra fast shipment. We never keep waiting our customers. We have a customer obsession. Because the essence of e-commerce is based on establishing trust between platforms and customers. Platforms have responsibility to find ways to keep fraudster away from their environment. That is why, no record of massive information loss or stolen accounts can be found in Amazon.

Thank you for reading through, I would be extremely appreciated any help or directions to resolve my problem.

Best Regards,

Ismet Yalabik
E-Mail: ismetyalabik@gmail.com