eBay Adventures

Try to sell your furniture when you are physically in another country! I had to sell, in October and November, the heaviest stuff I left in France. Most of it went smoothly. Except once. This time someone tried to lower the price of the oven in a way I didn't expect. Let's enumerate the steps (the initial price of the oven on eBay is 100 Euros via the "Buy Now" option and the auction starts at 90 Euros for 10 days):

1. A member (member-1) contacts me via email when the auction starts and proposes 60 Euros. He says that many buyers don't show up after a transaction. He also says that he can even come to take the oven that very day. My answer is 'No' (the oven is almost brand-new, we bought it 300 Euros... Also, I sold many things on eBay without any problems).
2. Another member (let's call him member-2) buys the oven with the "Buy Now" option (i.e. 100 Euros), almost simultaneously.
3. Member-2 desists a day later via email.
4. Member-1 emails me again (simultaneously still), and proposes 70 Euros in case my oven was not sold. I say no again. I tell him that I'm going to put the oven on sale for a second time. He can get it via eBay (maybe even for less than 100 Euros if he waits until the end of the auction and no one else is interested). I start to have some suspicions.
5. As soon as I put the oven again, another member (member-3) buys it and never shows up.
6. Member-1 proposes via email 80 Euros if my oven is still to be sold... Here I became sure that something was wrong. I told him the oven was definitely sold and I decided not to sell it via eBay (and stop this stupidity once and for all). Fortunately, someone who bought later the fridge was interested and took the oven for 100 Euros ;-)
   

Here are the arguments that make this a plausible fraud:

• The simultaneity of the emails coming from member-1 and the transactions made by (or emails from) member-2 and member-3.
• Both member-2 and member-3 have phony addresses and phone numbers (the latter differ only by the last 2 digits/10...).
• All 3 members have very recent accounts (member-2 and member-3 subscribed the same day of the transaction).
• Member-2 and member-3 vanished even though I tried to contact them via email.
  

Here are the arguments against the fraud:

• I wasn't able to find a match between the IP addresses. Unless the guy was very careful.
• I wasn't bothered by this guy again. Unless he had other people to bother or is only interested in reselling ovens ;-)

I finally got back most of, but not all, the related fees. I also had another benign problem with another sale (sofa) and decided to never use the "Buy Now" option again, although this solution is not a panacea. Later, I reported this to the consumer service, especially since this kind of fraud does not seem to be documented anywhere and their interface lacks the proper way to avoid it in the future, which gives anyone with enough "spare-time" the ability to spoil any sale. The replies I got (3 exchanges in total) was utterly poor: a simple copy-n-paste of the online help, go figure why there's a need for a consumer service in this case. Now I keep getting reminders every three days or so to pay my bill (or my account gets suspended), even though I sent them a check around two weeks ago!

Anyway, I'm so glad this is over. I just hope I won't have to do it again anytime in the future (soon or not).