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Author Topic: Ebay oddness 7/2020  (Read 402 times)

J.Jackson

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Ebay oddness 7/2020
« on: July 01, 2020, 12:26:51 pm »
I hope this does not come off as another ebay bitchin’ rant.
I recently PPal purchased a small electronic ($5) part on ebay. It was supposed to be from a USA seller and shipped from the USA. Specifically the seller was allegedly located in New Jersey and the shipping warehouse was allegedly to be in the same location. The item even had an American flag icon on the ebay pics.  :D Seller had thousands of feedbacks. Oddly I get a rapid ebay message from the seller saying that the item was “recalled due to quality problem” and offering a refund.  The message was suspiciously worded. The message was very flowery and the wording was missing something. As an example the seller stated “What you think?” instead of what do you think. The message sounded too much like it was trying to be American English. It sure didn’t sound like it came from a New Jersey guy.
I sent a sparse reply : “refund ?”
I instantly get a message stating that I (as buyer) have cancelled the transaction, PayPal quickly refunded all payment BUT I can leave no feedback and there is NO purchase history in my ebay account for that transaction. The seller appears to have gotten my contact information (name , address etc) and whatever Paypal info is sent to them.

My ebay account is over 20 years old and I feel there is a trend here that something isn't quite right. Specific to this steam forum, I am noticing a large amount of new steam, stirling, and toy motor items on ebay lately that show USA flag icons and proudly saying they ship from USA , but is the seller located in the USA? Is there a weird data harvesting going on now?
I have NOT seen this suspicious trend yet in the auction or BIN on older vintage and antique steam related ebay items.

Scorpion2nz

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Re: Ebay oddness 7/2020
« Reply #1 on: July 01, 2020, 01:34:16 pm »
Sounds oh to familiar.
For better or worse i purchased from a china ebay seller 
A gas burner
 Immediate reply sorry item damaged and refunded .
So i brought from another seller , sorry out of stock And refund .
Different sellers but email came from Same company .
I also tried to get something else and same bullshit .
All cancelled by seller  so i can no leave feedback .
But what really pisses me of is PP refund money to my debit card but on all 3 charge me fees
As under $NZ 150.00 fee free limit For PP to bank acc
All purchases were around the $20.00mark

I did make a $NZ 250.00 purchase of a 6 jaw chuck from china and it arrived 7 days later

Nick

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Re: Ebay oddness 7/2020
« Reply #2 on: July 01, 2020, 01:40:45 pm »
I bought a pair of bowling shoes from a seller in Pennsylvania, over a week went by and I get a refund telling me that they are not available. I'm assuming the seller was dropshipping them and after a week went by of the manufacturer being out of stock they refunded my money. Being I received a refund, I was not able to leave feedback.

I also purchased one of the Chinese hit/miss engines, same thing, a few weeks went by and received a refund with no option of leaving negative feedback. Later, in my purchase history, the hit/miss engine had changed to a listing for a set of golf clubs.
Nick

St Paul Steam

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Re: Ebay oddness 7/2020
« Reply #3 on: July 01, 2020, 08:19:02 pm »
I have been sure for quite awhile that All of my keystrokes have been monitored, I assume no less when it comes to EBay and my perusing or purchases, if it's new & looks like it could have been made in China...it probably is, & the seller is probably a Chinese dealer as well.
Bruce, St. Paul Indiana, USA
"Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind."
  Nikola Tesla

Scorpion2nz

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Re: Ebay oddness 7/2020
« Reply #4 on: July 02, 2020, 10:27:32 pm »
@ Jasper

I found a what appears to be a loop hole in eBay
In my buy nows that the seller cancelled . They disappeared of my purchase list . Which means no,feed back can be left . But i just went to do feedback for some thing else and after I did it up came a list of other feedback i needed to do,and the 3 cancelled sales were there so 3 negatives left

Cheers
Dennis

J.Jackson

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Re: Ebay oddness 7/2020
« Reply #5 on: July 04, 2020, 12:32:56 pm »
@ Jasper I found a what appears to be a loop hole in eBay
In my buy nows that the seller cancelled . They disappeared of my purchase list . Which means no,feed back can be left . But i just went to do feedback for some thing else and after I did it up came a list of other feedback i needed to do,and the 3 cancelled sales were there so 3 negatives left
CheersDennis
Dennis, you are correct ! The method you found for leaving other feedback worked, but it said I needed to wait 7 days.
This whole mysterious “cancelling” of sales looks suspicious. It has the net effect of surreptitiously getting private information about a buyer while the seller suffers no easy negative effects from offering items that they do not have.

Something big is happening at ebay that is triggering them to offer a “data report” deep at the bottom of a persons’ account summary.
If you go to your Account Settings —> My Ebay-Personal Information —> Your eBay Data at the bottom of the page —- last entry , there is a link to get a zip file data report on info eBay is keeping on file about you . It takes a few days for them to send this report’ and it expires quickly.  Some massive privacy issue must have prodded eBay to offer this.