eBay has the FAILzor

Been scammed on eBay? More than once?

Me too.

Well, I’ve never let it get so far that I’ve actually been scammed, because I’m able to read quickly when it’s happening. That is because I’m so familiar with it. Which means, for me at least, that it happens too much.

I hold eBay responsible for this.

In this post I’m going to list a few things I think they can do, and try to explain why it’s their fault.

The most recent scam was on this item (220367080109, 220362598452), and, if I remember correctly, this was one of those attempts when the successful bidder (if you can call them that) paid well over the odds (alarm bell no. 1), even paying me more of a shipping fee than I requested (alarm bell no. 2).

They then messaged me through eBay to tell me that actually they wanted the item delivered to a different address (alarm bell no. 3), and that the money was in escrow at PayPal (alarm bell no. 4) and that the money would be released when I emailed them a shipping number (alarm bell no. 5).

Now in a normal eBay transaction there should be no alarm bells at all. Well maybe no.1 is acceptable as a nice surprise or a bidder that was feeling generous (which would be silly, wouldn’t it.).

I responded very frankly saying something like, “fuck off” or “I hate you”, and then attempted to inform eBay of what had happened to try to prevent getting charged the fees for this sale.

(Now I do understand that they’re under no obligation to not charge me for this. They, after all, are not the ones who tried to scam me.)

The process of informing them of an attempted scam is not simple. In fact, there is no option in the process to identify a scam as the reason for an issue. Only options like, “no payment” or “user is no-longer a member of eBay”.

This is already getting complicated, isn’t it.

It’s complicated more if you re-list that item on eBay, because that actually means the item hasn’t been sold yet, and therefore I can’t have been scammed on it now could I!?! Thus the process isn’t available. If I’ve got that wrong, I’m sorry, but that’s because it’s so damn complicated.

A complicated system can be an advantage to people who are willing to invest the time to work out where it can be gamed. There’s a saying in law that comes to mind: the difference between the letter of the law, and the intent of the law. Which basically means, just because something isn’t technically illegal, that doesn’t mean it’s not, or that it wasn’t intended to be covered by a law.

I believe that eBay uses this to their advantage. They appear to have a system in place to account for bad behaviour, but actually that system is so complex that bad behaviour still happens because it’s such hard work for a user who’s been taken advantage of, to do anything about it. At the most that means a user has unwittingly sent an item that they’ll never see the money for.. and at the least that means eBay will make it’s fees regardless, because users can’t work out how to make sure they’re not charged.

To me, that appears to be by design. eBay, that is not a good way to run a business. Profiteering through obscurity may have worked in the past, even recently, but it won’t stand for long.

Here’s some things eBay should do:

Community
There isn’t one currently, and actually, the idea that there should be one isn’t correct. There should be many. I should have community in Ebay. This would encourage peer based review and accountability.

Less anonymity
I have no idea who people are, what they’ve done, where they are, who are their friends, or what they’re like. A simple profile page would make a step in the right direction. Let’s add some personality to eBay!

Better rating and historic analysis
This one is tough, largely because of the of demographic of typical eBay users. I’m not saying they’re identical to YouTube commenters, but they’re in the same league.

Look to services like GetSatisfaction and it’s mood smileys:

or Facebook “like” links on everything:

..or lastFM for tuning ones musical interests.. all provide ambient methods of conveying an emotion about and action or object. This small granular data will all add up and provide some user information that can be visualised and contextualised.

Create a beneficial reason to not keep creating new accounts
Give value back for a long active history, like lower fees, more visibility, or some other bribe. This would have many benefits, the main one being that it would then be easier to identify users who have been around a while, who’ve built up a history and reputation. Users would spot noobs or spammers easier.

Better templating for the selling of items
Create some familiarity for users that help them to see quickly the important parts of an item’s auction page, and thus make judgments easier. There’s a lot of noise on eBay, making items easier to scan visually will speed up browsing and highlight points of note better. This is actually done pretty well by third party services, such as iPhone clients.

Sometimes (in fact I would argue, most times) limiting what a user can do can actually make the experience better, it allows a user to focus on what’s important to them. Most users don’t want to be fussed with writing html for their item page, and in fact, the ability to do that is one of the tools scammers use to sell items such as the packaging of a macbook for as much as the macbook itself. eBay is almost encouraging this to happen currently.

Longer auctions
This would reduce the number of auctions that have a flurry of bids in the last few minutes, helping a seller to manage the sale and research the bidders. It would also stabilise pricing and allow for trends to be analysed realistically.

Item alerts / saved seaches
Let eBay do the browsing for me, and allow me to tune what I’m interested in. eBay will also learn more about a user based on this. Yes this can be gamed too, but it might encourage more competition as well.

Restrictions on who can bid
This is almost already in place, but what about limiting who can bid to two degrees of separation away based on your friends network. Again, social accountability.

Allow me to communicate with eBay
Put a phone number on the website, and make it easy to find. Seriously. There is still nothing like actually being able to talk, with sounds coming out of your mouth, to convey an issue, and to resolve a problem.

Take some ownership
Good customer service is about helping a customer. When I finally got a response to my communications about the problems I was having, I was basically told to click on a link and fill out a form. The person who wrote that email, if it was actually a person, is in a position to fix my problem right there and then. But instead they moved the responsibility on to me. Frankly, my time is worth more than the fees I’ll recover, thus eBay profits, and I will be less inclined to use eBay again.

In conclusion…

eBay doesn’t make me comfortable. It doesn’t make me want to give them money, rather, I resent it. Currently I advise caution to people that ask me about eBay.. but every user should be an ambassador, expressing their amazing experiences and smooth interactions.

The reality of what eBay sells on TV is prying on the ignorance of the masses. But it should be accounting for that, and helping them to get something good out of it, rather than coming away feeling confused, abused, and alienated.