<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by vasantn:
This thread piqued my curiosity so I went on eBay to check on VIPOWs. Interestingly, all the sellers are brand-new or ones who have changed their handles and have no history under their new handles. The one exception (a seller WITH history) has closed the auction prematurely despite 4 days remaining on the original timeframe. There definitely seems to be a crackdown afoot!
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Good.
As an aside, there seems to be a
ton of fraudulent activity on eBay lately. Just this week, two auctions I was bidding on, for an extremely high-end espresso machine, were terminated early by eBay security. In each case, I had contacted the seller (two different sellers who I'm pretty sure were the same person-- selling very similar units) and the seller(s) responded, very unprofessionally and imploring me to use Western Union (which you should
never do with an unknown party) to immediately pay them and they would end the auction early. One seller provided an address in Manhattan which doesn't exist the other was so spooky and evasive that I e-mailed eBay about them-- and eBay e-mailed my simultaneously (our e-mails "crossed in the mail".)
In one case the person was new, with no feedback (which is why I contacted them.) In the other the person had a nice amount of positive feedback-- but all as a buyer, all for postcards and the like at about $3- $5 a piece. Building up a little "credit" as it were. This was his first sale and the item would go for close to $1500 or so.
I personally have never had a bad eBay experience but lately I hear some real horror stories.