@Shannon: eBay is not a retail store, and if you're using it and expecting every transaction to be as simple as a retail store (which is often not very simple at all...) then you're going to be very frustrated. don't get me wrong, I have a pretty intense dislike of eBay, but it's often the only place to go to get something you need (I buy a lot of vintage car and motorcycle parts there). Most of my issues with eBay, however, are with the company itself and not the sellers.

@nataku83: Its the pron sex sells. LOL

Common scam. The seller has some new items and some used items. The seller lists the item as new and sends the used item. If the buyer complains, then they will allow a return and send the new item. Alot of people will just keep the used item.

If you want a good deal on a phone, go to Amazon. Verizon, Sprint, & T-Mobile all sell their phones on Amazon super-cheap (I got my BlackBerry for a penny!) with the usual two-year contract. It is a better deal than you can get in a Verizon store or other retail outlet.

Do your homework first, though. Consumer Reports.org and other product review sites will help a lot. Ask friends about their phones and what kind of deal they got. Make sure you know what you want and compare deals across different vendors.

Other reputable sites for good deals: J&R music, MacMall, & Microcenter.

I think a better lesson is to attach your credit card to PayPal and fund any important purchase with it since you'll receive much more support from their chargeback department than you will from some lackey at PayPal.

eBay eliminated money orders because they own PayPal, not because of fraud. Even before the change, nobody HAD to take money orders or cashier's check - it was up to the seller.

As a seller, I accepted them - very few of my buyers (<5%) paid with them, but if taking them gets someone to bid who otherwise wouldn't, I'm all for it. And I never had a problem with fraud.

@Corporate-Shill: But an adult signature wasn't required, just a signature. Does your comment still apply?

Anyway, the FedEx guy left the package directly in front of my door, so it could clearly be seen from the street. The USPS letter carrier has left me padded envelopes, but a little off to the side, on the porch, where they weren't obvious to people on the sidewalk.

This is my day for Consumerist to make me pee myself laughing.

@Ichiro51: You used to be able to see the feedback and fb% of buyers. I haven't sold anything since October, just bought, so I'm not sure if that changed. If anyone with zero or low (under 20) feedback would bid I'd send them a message just re-stating the selling terms in a friendly way and ask if they had questions.

And you're right--eBay is rife for scam as a seller. Anyone who is a powerseller has established some trustworthiness. Anyone who isn't gets the shaft. Buyer wins in both instances.

Also, how can you possibly screen buyers with the new feedback changes in place? If there has been any nefarious activity on their part, you can only see it if it happened prior to that change being implemented. My friend just tried leaving negative remarks with her positive feedback, but eBay prohibited that practice and can be asked to remove such remarks. But other than looking at ancient feedback, I'm not sure how one can effectively screen buyers.

@Ichiro51: I;d also like to add payPal no longer releases any funds until the buyer has received an item--either by receiving it through a payPal tracking number or reporting as received in ebay.

The lesson: complain early, so you've established your gripe. Better leaving negative feedback for a vendor who eventually winds up working for you than winding up with crappy (or no) merchandise.

@Ichiro51: the thing is though, sleling dolla ritems for enough time to get thousands of positive feedback would lose you money and time. eBay fees for listings that sell rance from 35 cents to over a dollar. Paypal will eat an 80 cent transaction fee very time. You'd bleed money for months in the hopes you hooked a few rubes, and since you have all your info with eBay and payPal, they can prove you as a seller did not deliver and take the money back or bring up a suit for it. PayPal sides heavily with the buyer, to the point where I as a seller spend a decent amount of time screening buyers. More time than it takes to check for a valid seller.

I've been using eBay successfully since 2001 with zero incident, buying or selling. There's a reason his proposed scam doesn't happen. It's THAT impractical.

I look for a real photo of the item, yes I understand that its a pain to take the picture, but if you want good money for the item you really should be doing that. I also try to avoid the huge wholesalers, unless its something like a 10$ video game. I have bought 10$ video games from wholesalers and did just fine. I also look at where the seller is from and feedback. A wholesaler getting 500 feedbacks a day will care less than a person who is only selling a couple items to make ends meat. I try to buy from the people who have good feedback but obviously aren't running a business. Despite what I have heard on here I still find plenty of private sellers on ebay. I almost never buy from a seller who is listed outside the USA, because that just screams trouble in every way. If I need china made stuff dealextreme has me covered.

As a seller I take a real photo of the item, give a real description and if possible I try to show the item is in the condition I state it is in.

However, Corporate-Shill's situation is no less plausible because of this. If someone's going to make a run at a scam attempt that would possibly yield, a plan that takes over three months to develop would be far from impractical. Again, after waiting the 90 days for the last of the cheap-o items to clear, potential buyers would not have a clue what was sold before.

Though it wouldn't take a genius to see that a seller that has had no feedback in the last three months and is now offering high-dollar electronics items should raise red flags, it only takes a handful of idiots to not be as circumspect for the scammer to be successful. And there are more than enough idiots on eBay to go around.

It's more likely a new way for Paypal to play the float. While they hang on to all that cash, they are making interest from it, the longer the better.

That it can be spun into saying it has a measure of security if they have to do a chargeback is secondary.

@When'sUranusDay?_GitEmSteveDave: Not necessarily. Each manufacturer is different. For example, I have an LG Shine, and my water damage sticker isn't just plain, ol' white. It's actually a white background with little purple X's across it. supposedly if it gets wet, x's run and bleed. And that's typical of ALL LG phones.

Motorola, Nokia, Pantech, Samsung, they all use the plain white dot that turns pink or red. I think blackberry and HTC are the same, but I'm not 100% sure.

Yeah because we all know you can't perpetrate fraud with Paypal!

Pfffft!

as of so far, i've filed an paypal claim where i return the item for a full refund and paypal currently are not directly involved.

i'm not too hot and bothered by this because its not a brick in the box, but why should i pay the price of a new phone for a used one? i totally relied on 99% as a factor to judge on and i guess that's something for other and me to learn from that 99%+ feedback isn't always all that great.

and for those who were wondering about the shocker sites, it was misquoted (they deleted a space), i was being sarcastic. probably should have had it in italics or something.

Somewhere that got twisted. In your case, rdm the system worked as intended. The seller was a douche and blew you off instead of honoring the terms of the agreement. He got negative feedback for his lack of follow-through. Well deserved at that.

If he had made it right when you contacted him, would you have still left negative feedback? Probably not.

Just because something went wrong doesn't mean you have to give negative feedback.

It's perfectly possible to say that with the short line provided.

"Received wrong item, seller made it right after contact."

And be honest now, if the seller is on the level, it's NOT a huge pain in the ass.

Sending an e-mail takes a few minutes at most. You know that if there are any problems it will delay your order, but that's part of any online buying experience.

If it takes more than a couple e-mails to get an answer or you don't get the resolution you want, give negative feedback to warn other buyers.

If you need it NOW, go local. This isn't rocket science, I'm not the brightest bulb in the box but I still manage to get what I paid for.

It's just not possible to make that statement with any authority when the original ebay auction listing wasn't posted with the article.

Also, the feedback blackmail you speak of can't happen anymore. Sellers are no longer able to leave negative feedback.

It's the same with a store like Best Buy or Wal-Mart. Are they REALLY going to sell you a new item, or will it be a box of tiles?

@Ichiro51: Again, it's not practical. You still have the 90 days to see feedback. If they're all cheap trinket items, then suddenly the user lists thousands of high-end electronic items, it doesn't take a genius to question that.

There are dozens of Electronics sellers with 99.5% feedback or higher who have more than 10,000 feedback one lectronics items. Those are valid sellers and some idiot attempting to scam people doesn't change that fact.

However, I do think that feedback still has value the vast majority of time.

I can see you've never had much contact with the typical ebay riff-raff.

When I used to sell on ebay full time we would get negative feedback constantly with no idea there was even a problem with an item.

If the seller isn't aware of a problem, they sure can't fix it for you. We'd e-mail a return UPS label, or send UPS out to your home to pick it up, whichever was more convenient.

Our terms were pretty simple: If it wasn't as described, we'd give a full refund, plus return shipping.

A lot of the ebay sellers out there now won't cover return shipping, and won't refund the initial shipping either.

I'm sure a whole lot of desperate people are selling things on Ebay right now just to pay the bills, only to find they have to wait out a hold.

I just sold a $600 camera. It took my buyer 6 days to pay, now I'm in a 21 day hold for those funds, then I will have to wait 4-5 business days for the funds to move to my checking account. Thankfully, the money isn't breaking my back but Ebay is just not worth the hassle anymore. Between Ebay fees and shipping the camera, I've paid $60 out of pocket while waiting for the funds to clear.

However, I do think that feedback still has value the vast majority of time.

I've been buying electronics on ebay for over 10 years. Just today I received 3 WIC-2T's that I won last week and are going into the three Cisco routers I bought on eBay.

I've had deals from Singapore, Hong Kong, mainland China, Canada, and nearly every continental US state.

So far I've only had one deal that almost went bad with a purchase in Canada, and that was when I was 18 and completely ignorant of ebay scams.

I've had some items arrive not-as-described, and in every case the seller either made it right immediately, or eventually made a refund through the resolution process.

In that same 10 years I've had more problems with brick and mortar stores wanting to give me the shaft over defective merchandise.

Shocker porn? For us to validate that claim, we're going to have to ask you to post those links here. We'll need to determine if those are indeed categorized as 'shocker.'

I'm also willing to bet this seller didn't already leave feedback for the buyer, in an attempt to punish them for revealing the truth in feedback.

They sneak into asian factories and sprinkle girl-on-girl-on-goat and midget wrestling dust all over the flash drives of cell phones, then kiss them with a smattering of dodgy links on their way out of the factory.

The phone was obviously used with 100s of hours of calls logged in the internal timer as well as nicks, scratches, pictures, and other personal data still on the phone.

I contacted the seller and he was quick to resolve the issue with a full refund, including shipping. He claimed that he sold a couple of hundred phones a month, new and used, and they accidentally shipped me a used version of the model I wanted.

@Hyman Decent:

Fedex failing to require a signature is the fault of the seller.

Residential deliveries, unless adult signature required, can be left at the door solely at the discretion of the delivery driver.

When the shipper, for legal and/or other reasons, requires an adult signature and pays the appropriate fee to FedEx for obtaining said signature, FedEx is required by Federal and/or State law to obtain said signature.

Because obtaining an adult signature is a pain in the arse, shipping companies only do so when directed by the shipper.

Legal reasons for obtaining an adult signature include the sale of fire arms, ammunition, chemicals including some household cleaning products as well as adult products such as alcohol, tobacco and some printed, photographic or video material. Additionally, adult signature required can be used to show delivery of legal documents, such as business contracts or warranties.

Because of the extra charges involved with adult signature required, many vendors (especially low quality and scamming vendors) will ignore the adult signature section of the shipping document and hope the shipping company collects an adult signature as part of the normal delivery. Except,as already noted, adult signature is driver discretionary for residential deliveries.

Next time, please do not blame FedEx for errors of the shipper.

PS: I do not ship via FedEx, I am a UPS shipper. My comments above also apply to UPS.

@Corporate-Shill: You can look at the seller history to see what items were sold. And with eBay listing fees and paypal, making 1,000 $1 listings to rip one person out of $1,000 would be a total waste of time.

Ratings are NOT worthless you're even semi-competent on the site.

@Marc Melton: That is exactly why I will no longer buy anything on Ebay. Selling on Ebay isn't even an issue for me.

I hate PayPal and I refuse to use it. All they are doing is trying to create more PayPal customers out of what's left of the Ebay customers. Gr-r-r-r-r!

eBay = Scammer's Headquarters.

Those highly rated reputations are bogus at best. I could garner a 99.9% rating selling $1 Pokemon cards and then switch to selling $1000 cameras and nobody would ever be the wiser. By time I have scammed a couple thousand buyers out of their $1000 per fake camera I will be a Millionaire and leaving the country before eBay has even started their fraud investigation.

Also, in my above posts, I wasn't even advocating that she just give a blanket positive feedback, I was suggesting that she actually try talking to the seller BEFORE SHE FILES A FREAKING EBAY CLAIM!!! (or even contacting 'the media', for that matter). If you've ever gone through the claims process, they tell you to try to work it out with the seller first. Also, getting eBay involved is probably a lot more likely to turn this into a story that deserves to be on consumerist.

Yes, exactly. I was promised priority shipping if I bought two items, and only got first class shipping. I contacted the seller to offer them a chance to explain/make it right and got the blow off. Only after I left negative feedback did they really respond (and then only to tell me I was blowing it out of proportion). But how many people do they do this to that do not leave negative feedback? I bought it from that seller specifically for the free priority shipping.

I've seen the white sticker inside the battery compartment turn a color when exposed to liquid- I would contact LG and confirm what the color of the sticker was initially, if you can. My phone also has a sticker on the battery... worth checking the color of that if it has one.

@Melt: I agree completely. There has to be a system of checks/balances for both buyers and sellers.

I think you all are missing the lead of the story. Why return a phone she is happy with? That's a losing proposition for Lillian. She is in a great position as a customer. The seller will probably offer a discount to remedy her dissatisfaction.

Winner: Lillian.

Even big companies are pretty bad about not clearly marking returned items.

In my experience, if a listing begs you to contact the seller before providing negative feedback, you should just look away. That is the sign of a seller anticipating a problem and hoping to get away with something. On the other hand, the multitude of positive reviews the sellers has is probably evidence that he/she will cave quickly if you approach them for compensation.

Yeah, this one puzzled me as well. I guess all it takes is an electronics purchase with some kind of porno on it to warrant a headline.

i hate to be the hater here, but i will be.

i'd like to see a screen shot of the listing before the seller gets drawn and quartered.

that being said, as stated above, the seller usually works with you so you can get what you are lookig for, if not, they are usually willing to issue any refunds as necessary if they are a power seller.

i've bought many things on ebay and find that most of the reputable sellers are good people.

side note: i am a big fan of the best offer feature. i once got a pair of $80 dress pants for $17 shipped. i also got a new era 5950 which retailed for $40 for $20 shipped.

eBay has gone downhill. You can't leave negative feedback any longer for buyer's who don't actually pay. The get a "strike" against them that is not easy to view. There are so many little things they have done to ruin the overall experience...Back to the basics, eBay!!

Also, I'm a little amazed that "buyer not satisfied with eBay purchase" really deserves to be a story - she didn't have a problem with eBay itself, or LG, or any major retailer - this sort of thing is basically just how eBay works, and why they even have a transaction system in the first place.

If the seller convinces a buyer who was deceived, but then given an exchange, to leave positive feedback, it's harder for future bidders to see that the seller was deceptive.

Doesn't the lack of red lines mean that it HASN'T been exposed to water? In all of the stickers I have seen, they change to a color, and it's usually the whole sticker.

I honestly can't believe people would buy electronics on eBay. I use the site for many things, clothes, patterns, household items, etc. Never for important purchases.