There can be few more sickening feelings than that of realising you have been scammed on eBay. As a user with almost 300 positive feedbacks, I class myself as being honest, upright and trustworthy. But, of course, I know the sort of person I am.
And, of course, there are many thousands of eBay users who are just like me. Their communications and spot on, their delivery times are ideal and their goods are top notch. And then you meet the criminals.
Ebay criminals come in various guises. There are those that will not stop at anything until they have taken you for all they can get. These people (for some reason often living in Russia, Romania or Nigeria) try to sell you something that they don't even own or try to buy your goods with non-existent funds. They are all scum.
But, at the other end of the spectrum are the users that will try and steal a single buck from you - and the experience can be just as distasteful.
I am not talking about honest mistakes - we all make those. Goods arrive in the wrong color or size, or are sent to the wrong address or in inadequate packaging. These are learning experiences and, as buyers or sellers, I would hope we would all like to try to eliminate these errors.
I'm talking about people like the scammers who try to sell you something and make out it is genuine when in reality it is a fake. DVDs and CDs are good examples. Their auctions are splattered with fine words and images. The illustrations look real and true.
It is only when you get the product in your hands that you realise that the item is counterfeit - and even then it can be hard to tell. It is up to the buyer, then, to examine the goods, try to identify a possible fake and then take the steps necessary to rectify the situation.
This has happened twice to me recently - two fake DVDs from different sellers. In both cases I rang up the sellers and was given a refund. But why should I phone them - they are the criminals after all. They were the ones that broke the law - the only people I should be phoning is law enforcement.
Luckily, eBay are already taking further steps to try and combat, or at least reduce, some of this online auction crime for the good of us all.
