quote:Originally posted by Peach:
Agghhhh I hate buyers like that. I've just finished with a particularly nasty episode myself in which a buyer got pissed off and had a friend bid on my auctions and leave negs! Luckily Powerseller Support helped me out because I was able to provide evidence.
Yep...eBay will deal with this. Thanks to IP addresses they can easily figure this out. What happened to me was over an almost 10 week span and was a horrible experience.
Thanks to Sellathon too as they were a HUGE factor in me getting the information to eBay faster. Even though eBay had the information..I could keep track of the information on my end and see IP addresses/cities/states and more that were viewing my auctions.
Anyway...long story short...
I ticked off a bidder last year in China by filing NPB. He became NARU'd. He then decided to open another eBay account (same IP/computer address) and bid on tons of my stuff and leave immediate negative feedback. (one of the great things about the new policy for newbies bidding & leaving negs is the delay of ability to leave feedback immediately) EBAY traced the user by the IP addresses...zapped their account. This happened again. Same dance. He then began signing up on other computers (thus the IP numbers were close but didn't match) I blocked all bids from Asia.
You think that wasn't bad enough? On my emails back during the summer I had in my sig...all of my eBay ID links. Sweet...he could ruin all of them in one fell swoop! Needless to say I don't have links to all of my IDs anywhere on any email signature.
I digress....
Customer then signed up on various countries eBay sites...france, switzerland, netherlands, australia, united kingdom, etc etc and began buying like crazy and leaving negative again. Once again, I could see the IP/countries/etc from Sellathon reports and forward them over to eBay. Block, Block, Block country.
Then he hit the United States eBay registration. This was six weeks since the NPB had been filed. He then began recruiting others via a message board that was worldwide to bid on my items and leave negatives just like he had done.
We're eight weeks since the first NPB notice. I'm a basket case as my little "hobby" with eBay as some have referred to it as, is needed income for this household and enables me to be home with my daughter and have the lifestyle where I can volunteer and such.
I digress again...
Same thing over and over again in the US false bidding. I'm a daily caller to eBay and eBay stores and they're used to me calling. Their only advice was to close my stores, tuck tail and open a new ID. I'm a very strong woman but more than one morning ebay heard heard my tearful pleas to please help me and to allow me the seller to begin blocking IP addresses on my own.
I was given a solution by a fellow seller that finally worked....I changed all of my auctions to immediate payment required, less than 20 positive feedback and no duplicate bids were allowed on any of my auctions plus they had to be US sales only. This finally stopped them but at a such loss a loss of income on my part, stress and well, admit it fella's would you have wanted to be living with me? <smile>
I lost so much money from sales. eBay took their time sweet time refunding fee's and reversing negs and so much more..plus I had to go through the npb, fvf and more filing for each and every item. I said..you know in my case their bogus, just do them all for me...please? Nope..they didn't.
Is this the end? Nope! Just remember this is the short version..not the long version.
I can't even begin to tell you, this ticked the off buyer majorly off! We're into the 10th week since the first NPB. Originally I pulled this persons contact information and tried to call him in China. So when you pull contact info, they receive yours, too...Can you imagine what came next? That's right...phone calls.
Constant phone calls..during the night, during the day...and with much laughter with dialect I couldn't understand. Thank goodness for caller ID and a buddy down at the police station. The calls eventually stopped but it was nerve-wracking to say the least!
Had I not had the information readily available to me from Sellathon it would have been so much worse. EBAY has this information available to them and I didn't feel it was my job to get them the information from subscription to Sellathon and hand it over to them to speed up the process of blocking. But I did and glad I had the information, too.
What happened to you happens often, it really does. There are horror reports just like yours reported all the time. I wish they made it easier for just regular folks to get help when this happens. Luckily being powersellers this helped both you and I to have more immediate access to phone numbers and such..but can you imagine the frustration of a small fish in the big ocean of eBay?
I still wish we as sellers could block IP numbers..I send that suggestion in monthly to eBay. One day they'll get tired of me or invite me for a seller symposium, ya think?
My Best and I'm so glad you caught that creep!
Donna