ebay: high seller rating in spite of fake products?

Another issue is, the little ebay do care about is only the process of selling the item, not the item in question, which makes any of the feedback pretty useless anyhow.

e.g.

When you record feedback itā€™s along the lines of:

How accurate was the item description?
How satisfied were you with the sellerā€™s communication?
How quickly did the seller dispatch the item?
How reasonable were the P&P charges?

Ok description is a little vague. As a re-seller only lists what is claimed from whoever they bought the item from (maker/wholesaler, etc.)

But nowhere does ebay feedback ever ask you if the item was any good. Or about the specific item you actually bought.

that is awesome :bigsmile:

hehe genuinely fake runners :slight_smile:

I just got a full refund for the samsung batteries, after stating that I have no plans of ever using them and Iā€™d gladly send a video of their destruction.

The TP4065 guy is asking how much money do I want back, I said all of it, even though itā€™s less than 4$ā€¦ I feel a bit sorry for them because Iā€™m arguing about such a low amount.

so will they say that this product genuine FAKE?
:smiley:

fake fake, counterfeit fake, knockoff fake, you got me

not to mention what you see when you ā€™oogle counterfeit trustfire - Google Search
or similar searches.

I guess once everything is digital, ā€œrealityā€ becomes meaningless.

Well, i ordered 14500 LiFePO4 batteries from *bay labeled 1200 mAh and on arrival they measured ~600 mAh, so i complained of false advertising, opened a paypal dispute and got 50% of the cost back. If everyone would do this consequently, this fraud business would dry outā€¦

yep, we should all file disputes about false advertised and fake products, they are counting on us not doing it. Even though my wife just told me ā€œleave the poor b*s alone, that money might be worth more to them than it is to youā€

You have to remember, Ebay donā€™t care, why would they, and they only pay lip service to stopping fake or counterfeit items.
Fake or real they still get a $$ cut, so why should they care.
Plus few companies are willing to really take them on.

I remember talking to the owner of a medium size company in Germany, about people selling fakes of their products on ebay and why didnā€™t he try and stop it, he simply said ā€œebay have bigger lawyerā€™s than we doā€

Also often when you buy something genuine and it turns out fake, the seller offers a full refund as soon as you question it, on the condition you leave good feedback, what do most buyers do, waste a lot of time dealing with it and risk losing a paypal dispute?, or just leave good feedback take the refund and move on?, most take the latter

I have mixed feelings about this.

I avoided ebay for years, but over the past six months or so, Iā€™ve bought a lot of stuff from EBay.

I shop ebay looking for deals. I expect that any given item/transaction could be crap, and that over time, Iā€™m going to have some bad experiences. I manage that risk by keeping my orders small and the items cheap. With the exception of a lot of untested (and very crappy dell batteries) I donā€™t think Iā€™ve spent more than $30 or so in any one order, and I donā€™t think Iā€™ve spent more than $25 on a single item. As a further mitigation, I expected that when I do get crap, some percentage of the time it will be redressed by the seller, or by paypal/ebay.

So far though, Iā€™m actually doing better than expected. There were two USB bike lights that I won bids for that never arrived. Ebay quickly found in my favor. Iā€™ve probably spend $5 on boards I thought would have a TP4056, but instead had a knockoff. A few items werenā€™t quite as described, and I quickly worked out a partial refund from the sellers. I also got a USB meter that didnā€™t work right. The seller sent me a new one right away. I just got an order of test leads that had apparently been confused with someone elseā€™s. The seller told me to keep them and got me a tracking number on the replacement less than 12-hours from when I reported the problem.

So, as an informed consumer, I might buy something with inflated specs because I think I know what Iā€™ll actually get, and find that is still a good deal. Having done that, it would be crappy for me to turn around and give the seller poor feedback.

On the other hand, I really wish EBay did provide a mechanism that would allow me to share my perspective with other buyers who might be interested in the same item from the same seller. Ebay would be more useful to me if I could better trust the listings, and the ratings.

I see lots of sellers go with ā€œmanufactured ratedā€ that way ā€œtheyā€ are not misleading you. While we all know that in stock form lumens are a bit like gas milage, ā€œyour lumens may varyā€.

Remimber most sellers are acting as independent distributors not manufactures, ā€œtheyā€ did not build the light and as long as what then sent you matches the photo. On the other hand ebay as a policy sides with the buyers, (I noticed the aliexpress is not buyer centric) I have had buyers open a case not even bother to explaine what happend (totally bank) and still win a dispute.

There are two sides, If you dont know, Sellers can no longer leave negtive feedback for buyers on ebay. when this change went through it back open season on ripping seller off on ebay. (feedback used to be a mutually assured destruction) kind of thing. once the seller lost ā€œnegitive feedback every buyer had 100% feedback even if they were professional scammers. So ebay came up with feedback extortion so if a seller makes refunding money contingent on positive feedback, bingo they have breaced policy (the same goes for buyers).

Shre shill bidding happens they buy each others stuff and say how good it is (and loose the transaction cost).

Also they set up account and get x numer of good deals and then try t cash in and blow out some too good to be true deals that never ship. I have no idea if ebay gets there money back on thoes but at least the buyer does (after 45 days).

I know that was the feedback origional intent. ebay is not perfect but trust me it is better to be a buyer then a seller with them.

DO NOT USE eBay buyer "protection",unless you want to loose your money! Open dispute on paypal directly!

Here is my case,I bought this item cca 45 days ago:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/160958163920?_trksid=p2059210.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

from UK seller betteries2udirect.

Since he is in UK I expected 10-15max. delivery time(5-7days is usual delivery time from UK seller to me),but I got package after almost a month(and I really needed those batteries).I opened package and seller sent me 2x4 AA digimax NiMh batteries,instead of 2x9V NiMh,well just great.I opened a case,Seller told me that I need to return wrong batteries back to him,he will pay return shipping cost and ship correct ones to me.So I returned wrong batteries and paid ~15$ for tracked shipping,sent a note to seller about that,but interestingly,seller was quiet from that point and just ignored my questions about refund for shipping.About 10 days later he responded that he sent correct batteries,but still no word about 15$ refund for shipping.

But problems doesn't stop there;eBay sent me a notice that if I want,I must escalate this case before 06 Feb,or else it will be automatically closed.Ok,I click "escalate" button,but "Oops,we had a technical hiccup. Please try later..." message pops out.I tried several hours later,same message.Next day,same thing,several times.Next few days-same thing.Strange? Then I googled that same message and found that it's not a techical hiccup,it's a stupid eBay scam,because everything works fine,except that "escalate case" button.Next logical thing was to contact eBay and tell them about that problem.

But when you click "Contact us" on ebay page,select "buying",contact options-zero,not a freaking customer support mail for multi-zillion dollar webpage. Found "chat with us" under seller option on ebay.uk page,and after several "please,I will switch this chat to my colleague,this is his area",they promised me they'll resolve that problem and escalate case for me.After two days they did that,and they quickly closed the case in seller's favor,of course!I didn't even have a chance to defend my case.

In the meantime correct batteries arrived,but seller still didn't refund me 15$ for shipping,and of course he never will.

So,after seller cheated me,I leaved negative feedback with explanation,but after few seconds ebay automatically erased it,with explanation that you basically can't leave a feedback after the case is closed! But this is ok to eBay-less negative feedback-more buyers-more to eBay.

And if you look seller's negative feedback profile,you'll see exactly the same thing for one buyer,no refund for return shipping,who knows how many people seller cheated,but eBay removed their feedback also.

So,the point is,if you have problems with eBay purchases,DO NOT USE eBay buyer "protection",open dispute directly on paypal.

Ebay has become so bloated with millions of scammers and fake sellers they just canā€™t keep up with it, and ebay has become an open window for the millions of fake and crap sellers an opportunity to take advantage of the unwary and vulnerable general consumer & online shopper. Its their way of doing business, and ebay has so many bad loop holes to allow it.

damn, thanks for sharing this oneā€¦ my ebay buying has increased a lot, sooner or later I will run into similar issue.

i thought they changed rule, so seller can not leave negative feedback for buyer,

Personally under 99% for me is bad. After selling thousands of products, all these ratings get an average and in reality rarely you find someone with under 97%. I stick with 99 and something if i can find the product. I read plenty of feedbacks. Also a TOP rated seller is a plus. If you think about it, most sellers sell hundreds of DIFFERENT products. For example they sell good shirts and 1000 people buy these shirts and leave positive feedback. They also sell flashlights (which are clones and bad ones) but just a few people bought that ones and left a bad rating. If you make an average from that, in the end it will be pretty high :wink:

Doesnā€™t Ebay own Paypal? I heard it is kinda the same. Before the 45 days i always contact the seller. Even if the product is defective. The problem with their policy is that if they send you a bad/defective product, you HAVE to mail it back to the owner if you want a refund. This is bullshit! I had a bad experience over a product and i opened a dispute and they told me to send it back in order to get the money back, which would cost me the same as the product does, so i didnā€™t send it back. Now this annoys because it protects bad sellers. As far from all them, they could just send you a piece of rock in the box and later what can you do?
I know it sounds bad, but if the product is really defective and you have to throw it away, you should report it as ā€œnot deliveredā€. That way you will get your money back.

well said, this is exactly why i donā€™t use it anymore, most everything is a chinese knockoff, i assume everything is, and the odd genuine item is too rare for me to throw away money hoping to get.
If i were into vintage items i would consider it, things that have been out of production a long time, rare but not valuable, but i am still skeptical enough to usually not go after these items.