posted on October 27, 2000 08:45:22 PM new
I have been all over the site. Do they have a fraud division like eBay's Safeharbor? Does anyone know a telephone number for Yahoo? Can you request contact info from Yahoo on a seller? Any help anyone could give me would be greatly appreciated.
I am gathering info for a friend who has been scammed.
He bid on a coin and was assured by the seller (before he placed his 1st bid) the coin he was bidding on WAS THE ONE HE WOULD GET. Several bidders, lots of action and very HIGH closing price. Coin did arrive, not the same coin. In fact the coin received has no real value. The auction page said the seller was from CA, the plain white envelope with 55cent postage, no insurance and NO RETURN ADDRESS showed a postmark of MI???? Can't even file a complaint of postal fraud because their is no address. He paid with PP but they don't give out addresses either!
edited 'cause the original was too long!
[ edited by sulyn1950 on Oct 27, 2000 09:46 PM ]
posted on October 27, 2000 09:04:26 PM new
Unless Yahoo!'s policy has changed in the last year, you will have ZERO luck getting any personal information from Yahoo! about this seller. Only via warrants, from law enforcement agencies, have they released this type of information in the past.
This is the last contact info I have. Be prepared to go through an automated system and leave a message with the proper department. However, they usually will call you back reasonably soon.
Yahoo! Inc.
3420 Central Expressway, 2nd Floor
Santa Clara, CA 95051
Phone
posted on October 27, 2000 09:25:31 PM new
Thanks George! At least that's a starting point. I really feel bad for him. He was so excited about finally finding the coin he had been after so long. The fact he was sent a really cheap coin was like adding insult to injury. The guy had assured him the coin on auction was the coin he would get so their really was no "accidental" misrepresentation here. It was intentional.
posted on October 27, 2000 11:35:46 PM new
If he paid through PayPal, it should fall under their "buyer's guarantee" policy, unless he's not verified or the seller wasn't verified. I'd report it to both Yahoo and PayPal. There are other fraud agencies to contact, but I don't have the list. Look through the past Ebay Outlook threads here on AW where they've been posted.
posted on October 28, 2000 10:05:17 AM new
Granee-Yes the buyer is verified and the seller used HIS wife's account which was verified. The seller's account wasn't verified yet, because he had just started selling independent of his wife (or so his story goes).
I have looked all over the PP site and although it explains you are PROTECTED, it doesn't tell you what steps you need to take or who/how to contact them if you have a problem.
He has sent an email to PP customer service, but not had a response yet. He will try calling them sometime today.
I was kinda hoping PP had a department SPECIFICALLY dedicated to handling complaints of possible fraudulant activity with their own email and telephone number. It sure would expedite matters.
posted on October 28, 2000 10:26:34 AM new
Unfortunately, PayPal's buyer guarantee only covers you if the seller doesn't ship anything. It doesn't cover you if the item is not as described. When did the auction close? If it was after October 12, you should be covered under Yahoo's Buyer Protection.
Also, because he mailed the item to you, that does fall under mail fraud. I understand you don't have the buyers address, but if you can get the PO interested enough, they can obtain the warrants, etc. that are necessary to obtain contact information from PayPal and Yahoo. Also, if you have the sellers name and the city and state (from the postmark), you can try a search on infospace.com, anywho.com, or other similar sites and try to come up with contact info that way.
posted on October 28, 2000 10:31:44 AM new
Yahoo Auction itself, doesn't do much for you if you feel you are the victim of fraud or a bad buyer/seller. Basically they leave it up to you to work things out. I found this out after contacting them several times due to a bad seller I had encountered.
All they sent me was a list of web sites I can post a complaint to...not much help.
posted on October 28, 2000 10:38:05 AM new
Auctionee-Well, the PP account had a LAST name, and an email address, BUT the auction shows this seller as being located in CA, but the postmark on the envelope was from clear across the country! You know, the buyer was wondering WHY the seller sent a coin AT ALL. He though it was kinda a "cruel joke"! The seller's way of driving home the point he had been had! Maybe he was doing it to cover himself with PP??????
Yes, you have protection with Yahoo IF the transaction was through PayDirect!!!! The buyer wanted to use PD, but the seller wasn't registered so they went with PP.
posted on October 28, 2000 10:52:37 AM new
Chainletter-That is exactly WHY I don't buy on Yahoo! anymore!!!!
Same thing happened to me, I contacted Yahoo and eventually did receive a response telling me to leave "appropriate FB"! I decided then and there to avoid buying on Y! since I really would have no recourse if burned! At least on that OTHER site I can contact SH and they will at least "look into the matter" and from my understanding they have ACTUALLY NARU'd users due to their conduct! You might not get your money back, but at least you have the satisfaction of knowing a bad apple has been removed from the barrel (at least until he creates a new ID).
posted on October 28, 2000 11:32:43 AM new
"Yes, you have protection with Yahoo IF the transaction was through PayDirect!!!!"
If you use PayDirect, the maximum coverage is increased to $3000, but EVERY auction on Yahoo that closes for over $25 is covered for $250 regardless of how you pay for it.
posted on October 28, 2000 07:41:40 PM new
If the seller shipped it in a plain envelope with no tracking or insurance, he has no proof that he shipped anything. This means that PP should allow the charge back. If PP doesnt, then charge it back through his credit card directly (which is the route I would take, since it has become obvious from posts here that PP doesnt give a darn and won't act until there is a charge back).
However, if he does charge it back, he had better be prepared to close his PP account immediately and if he ever had a PP deposit made to his bank, he should contact his bank and make sure they dont allow PP to withdraw any funds. http://www.ygoodman.com [email protected]
posted on October 29, 2000 08:00:16 AM new
Hmmm. The PP chargeback try might not work since the buyer has acknowledged receiving an item and besides, would have to lie to PP to deny it? This fraudulent seller sounds like they might be a "pro," having thought out various ways to cover their tracks. If so, the fact of a coin, albeit a worthless one, being sent, sounds like a deliberate ploy to establish deniability; if tracked down they can say, "Gee it was just a mistake, I picked up the wrong coin. Email complaining? I didn't get no steeenkin' email!"
However, the more aspects of deniability and confusions there are in the situation, the LESS likely it is for enforcement agencies to consider the case worth pursuing. People like postal inspectors have to prioritize their time so the situations that look likely to become dead ends have to be ignored.
I wish I could say I've heard of this strategy being followed with any success, but I can't.... but IF angry enough to want to chomp into a situation like a bulldog and try to get action I'd go about it like this:
1) Follow the procedures to document the complaint to Yahoo, PP, postal authorities, and possibly the local cops in the mailing postmark jurisdiction. Include screen saves of the initial auction listing, scans of the coin actually sent, screen saves of Yahoo feedback complaint left on the seller's record, any responses from Yahoo, PP, a scan of the envelope with its postmark, anything and everything. Send this stuff as .jpg attachments to well-organized emails as well as printing it out as hard copies.
2) See if there's any feedback trail in Yahoo on this ID left by others... even though Yahoo doesn't make email info available like eBay does, IF this ID has even trivial successful auctions and feedback listed (might have inflated his FB as a buyer of a series of 50c items as legit transactions, for example) you might be able to track down some extra info. How? Look in the listings for any ID's the sleaze has done "real" business with. Look in their "About Me" listings. Then go to people THEY've done legit biz with... it's not a certainty but you might get lucky and find sellers especially who do list their emails or web sites that have email addresses. If so, email THEM, explain what happened (maybe even give them the URL to this thread for reference), and try to get them to pass info back to you.
Give any of these people the case number for the complaint from local cops, postal inspector, whomever, to legitimize your need to be asking, then include any of this info back to the cops.
3) Watch for similar listings (similar style, mis-spellings, HTML formatting, similar collectibles, same high price range, etc) that might be the same scam artist using a different ID. Document and research them if you spot them and use the same techniques to try to track a real email for any high bidders. (I've not seen any "auction interference" language from Yahoo but of course you have to be VERY careful in looking for info like this and not slander anyone, etc.)
4) And if you're *really* ready to make a serious effort, try going to your federal Congressman or Senator. If I were doing this, I'd take my stack of documents down to an office in person, maybe after calling and asking for an appointment with a suitable staff person. Even if whomever you talked to first couldn't help, they might be able to refer you to a staffer in the D.C. office who has an interest in internet issues, consumer fraud, something directly relevant. These staffers are sometimes "mini-Naders," looking for interesting things to investigate and turn into "causes" for the officeholder. AND, there's nothing like an inquiry letter from a Senator to, say, the postal inspectors or FBI to get that particular case moved to the top of the pile. (This is no joke; in the far distant past Sen Sam Ervin of NC wrote a letter to the US Army Corps of Engineers after I personally complained (by letter, not even in person) about being stonewalled in requests for info I was trying to make under the then-new Freedom of Information Act. The response was stunning; a bunch of hippie troublemakers wound up with a recorded hearing with a dozen Corps employees and their Chicken Colonel called on the carpet and publicly grilled over their info.)
Even Yahoo and Pay Pal would sit up and take notice if somebody who might introduce legislation impacting their business model sent in official inquiries, well-informed of details of a particular incident of fraud. Probably what you really want, though, is a postal inspector getting motivated to issue subpoenas to Yahoo, Pay Pal, and the fraud's ISP to start tracking them down for real. Unfortunately, if this is a "pro" here, they may have closed PO Boxes, closed bank accounts, switched to a different alias, and moved to another town. The issue then becomes designing safeguards to stop this sort of BS theft in the future.
posted on October 29, 2000 01:55:44 PM new
Have you traced the e-mail headers to see what ISP this person is using and where it is located?
If you know the ISP, there is always a fraud division of the ISP that you can complain to since you have the headers, last name, zip code from where the coin was sent, etc.
Tracking them down from there should not be too difficult.
Then call the Police and report this person as well as the Post Office and file a report with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center at:
posted on October 30, 2000 03:04:31 PM new
the Yahoobots are very versital and I'm sure they will answer any complaint you address. Of course the answer will most likely have nothing to do with the complaint you addressed.
I gave them a shot recently, just to see if it was status quo. It was. I had a wacko buyer who right off the bat started threatening me with bad feedback and sure enough, after much bellyaching, I cancelled his bid and blacklisted him and gave him neutral feedback. He retaliated with BAD feedback for me and claimed he would contact all my current bidders and warn then about what a bad seller I was.
Well, he must have been from ePay, where you can do that with ease, but on Yahoo I don't know how he was going to do that. Anyways, I sent the threatening email to the yahoobots and asked them to look into it claiming his threat was a violation of TOS called, "intereffering with an ongoing auction."
The reply i got from the yahoobots was a form letter I've seen before about Yahoo not getting involved in disputed between buyers and sellers.
BTW, on ePay, he would have been suspended immediately without notice. I know. It happened to me once. That's how I made the switch to Yahoo. I got shipped a broken greasy computer that was truly dumpster dung and was described as having no defects. After getting shined on by the seller, I emailed all his current bidders the exact auction description along with links to half a dozen pix I took of that computer, and some of his replys defending what he did. I got dozens of thank yous from those buyers,but as soon as he complained to ePay, without warning i was suspended and all my oun auctions closed without so much as a warning.
So it worked out ok. I now do well selling here and the crook is long gone from ePay, at least under that name. And I got my account back at ePay after about a year. They had a silly policy that whoever suspended me was the only person who could reinstate me. That person didn't answer my emails, but after a year they were gone (probably to a big home in Mountain View by selling their stock options) and whoever I contacted seemed sympathetic to me (after I told them about my 1800 listings on Yahoo.
posted on October 31, 2000 06:52:00 AM new
You might also ask for help at "the seller zone" a YAHOO club and see if there are any clubs listed for coin collectors where you could ask for help.
The seller zone has long time users that are often helpful and sometimes they have personal contacts with YAHOO employees or at least know which email address gets the best results.
I would also bring it to the attention of PayPalDamon thru the PayPal forum here at AW.
If you want the money refunded you might bring this thread to the attention of the seller and suggest that if they don't refund you will follow thru on the suggestions provided.
If you want to stop the seller from this type of activity then you might accept the process as a "hobby" and just follow up on the different approaches and see how far each one will have any effectiveness.
Did the EOA email have a mailing address for sending payment? Even if that was deleted, a winning bid on another auction by this seller might produce the address again.
Some fraud sellers, online and in RL, count on unhappy buyers just getting tired of the whole process and giving up. Unfortunatly they are often correct and I've just moved on rather than go thru the work of doing the follow up on a number of occasions.
I hope your able to bring this to a resolution that meets your needs.
posted on October 31, 2000 07:21:10 AM new
The SELLER ZONE is a knitting circle, run by a dictator, and is NOT the "Official" anything as it claims. Don't waste your time there.
posted on October 31, 2000 07:23:09 AM new
I dont know why someone would blast the SZ. Yes, once in a while some clown will come along and whine but evenutally they just go away. Overall, I found a lot of smart people giving helpful advice. http://www.ygoodman.com [email protected]
posted on October 31, 2000 07:34:05 AM new
This whiner got banned for one reason. It seems any criticism of the Dictator there gets dealt with by the Guillotine.
I don't miss it either. Yisgood, you were the only poster there who has any sense. A typical message there was something like this, "Hi Suzy, i just finished listing a BUNCH of auctions, and now me and Herb are driving to Vermont for a long weekend. I sure need to get away from this computer. See you Monday."
Like I said, it's mostly a knitting circle, and should be a chat club, not a serious message board.
And there is another technical reason: the Yahoo Message boards are set up so you have to click on and load each message in a thread or otherwise, one at a time. It's not that easy to scroll through the garbage like it is here on Auction Watch where the whole thread is loaded at one time.
posted on October 31, 2000 07:37:54 AM new
I agree that it is more difficult to read the threads and you have to wade through some garbage. I have found some of the same garbage here. And the name calling and personal attacks here are even worse. But I have learned quite a few useful things. Recently I learned how bad the charge back problem is with Paydirect and stopped accepting it before I became a victim. When I post a question, (as I did just yesterday) I get a good answer. The only genuine waste of time I have found, is attempting to get an answer from Yahoo itself. http://www.ygoodman.com [email protected]
posted on October 31, 2000 07:48:40 AM new
So what did you learn about the chargebacks? Is it a slam dunk for the fraudelent buyer?
I know you sell rather expensive items. Almost all my stuff is under $50, so I figure the chances of me being a victum of CC fraud are slim.
In fact, for my stuff, all that "protection" like Delivery Confirmation is just a waste of money and time. I tell the buyer to buy insurance or assume the risk. The PO hasn't lost or smashed one yet out of thousands of shipments. If somebody charged back $20, I would have to eat it I guess, and move on with my life.
posted on October 31, 2000 07:51:31 AM new
Read my post in the thread on Paydirect charge backs. If you want the details, go to the SZ.
By the way, it doesnt make a difference how much the item sells for. Since Paydirect does a charge back without even contacting the seller, I predict that soon all the scammers will be using Paydirect to buy stuff and then charging it all back. Even if your average item is $20, can you afford to eat 1 in 4? http://www.ygoodman.com [email protected]
posted on October 31, 2000 08:23:21 AM new
Since I am banned from the Seller Zone I had to 'sign out' of Yahoo and then I could read the messages. What great security that is.
Anyway, it's very difficult to follow a thread there but I read your posts. I'm a bit confused but I think the bottom line is that all these electronic services are screwed up.
I will continue to use them until I get screwed. As for Paypal, I simply tell the buyer in my ads that they must pay me the Paypal fees. They can use it if they pay for it. it's still a better deal than buying a MO for them.
I can't imagine even the Yahoobots would let a crook automatically charge back payment after payment. Or can I? Maybe I can. I heard the Cyborgs got all the humans fired and charged back their paychecks.
When did the auction close? If it was after October 12, you should be covered under Yahoo's Buyer Protection.
), you can try a search on infospace.com, anywho.com, or other similar sites and try to come up with contact info that way.