Originally Posted by
francophile
I'm glad to see this, I was going to post about it today after spending my 5th day in a row reporting this nonsense. It's been going on for months but has become much more aggressive with 24-hour auctions here lately and now they're bouncing around from account to account as eBay shuts each account down.
The M.O. is this:
- Seller w/high feedback and 1,000s of sales, mostly cheap electronics
- Free Shipping from USA or sometimes UK
- That picture above is in the Description
- Sub-$20 starting price
Couple of examples attached.
Is Ebay shutting down the accounts?
I have to wonder if the base accounts are legitimate, but someone has hacked the passwords to post the bike ads.
Or, perhaps it is a large company with several employees and several E-Bay accounts, and one employee decided to sneak one past their boss. Snag some buyers, then cancel the ads before they are noticed among the thousands of legit electronic ads.
Odd that all the links appear to be the same, so all the bikes get offered for the same BIN price no matter whether they are a $1000 bike, $2000 bike, or a $5000 bike.
Also a unique selection of bikes is showing up. Mostly vintage. I did see a birdie.
The other thing. E-Bay's own "similar ads" function is able to pick these ads out quite easily, so it would seem like the company should be able to fight them pretty easily. Of course, also scanning for those links and fake Buy-it-now photos.
Or, perhaps do it like credit card companies. Track the kids of sales an E-Bay seller is making, and those that don't fit the pattern get flagged. Just like if I suddenly purchased a half dozen $100 meals out of state on my credit card, I'd hope they'd be shut down quickly.