[Scammy] How Defraud eBay Users – Courtesy Of Paypal

I have been meaning to discuss this one for a while, but it only just popped back into memory recently whilst I was looking through some old emails.

I’m writing this to warn you of the systematic failure of Paypal customer service and how this creates potential for easy, undetected scamming and profiteering opportunities for eBay power-sellers by abusing low-usage eBay users.

Last year I gave up eBay for good. I gave it up after I received 1 negative feedback having achieved in 2 years over 50 positive. The negative feedback was not warranted – it was retaliatory, from an eBay power-seller going by the trader name of notebookspares, offline company name: Rolta Limited, email address: hanspals@hotmail.com. I found a bunch of linked websites too, from googling their phone number: 0208 561 3960 – I wonder how many scams they are running?

I put up this power seller’s details as a warning to other potential buyers – particularly to buyers who do not do hundreds of trades a day and have a large feedback cache. I have copies of all correspondence and other details regarding this transaction, if requested.

Last year I received retaliatory feedback for posting negative feedback after not receiving an item from notebookspares (Rolta Limited). I posted the negative feedback after I’d exhausted all possibilities with Paypal resolutions.

You see, one day early in 2008 I had ordered an item from notebookspares, but on failing to receive it or any communication within 2 weeks I tried eBay’s contact form, then I tried emailing direct and finally a phone call leaving a message – all to no avail.

Since it was now outside of the time limit for escalating no item/no response, I went through eBay to get to Paypals “Item Not Recieved Dispute Resolution Centre”. Despite the power-seller, notebookspares , not being arsed to return my messages or calls, a day later he responded to confirm that the item had been posted and signed as recieved. News to me.

So I took the Proof Of Delivery he provided, plugged it into Royal Mail website and found that it referred to a delivery to a completely different name and address. No other details were provided unfortunately. Sounds like an honest mistake right, either notebookspares had provided the wrong POD, or they posted to a wrong address. Anyone would be able to detect this and make amends – Paypal however didn’t check the POD provided and now wanted to close the dispute.

Therefore, I escalated it, I complained that notebookspares had not bothered with any correspondence and had now provided an incorrect POD. It took 3 weeks for Paypal to respond, in that time, they still had not checked the POD with Royal Mail online, instead informing me that since the power-seller, notebookspares, had provided a POD, the resolution was now closed. I was livid.

Note: The POWER-SELLER had provided POD, so there was NO DISPUTE! It doesn’t matter that the POD was to a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NAME AND ADDRESS, the POD had been provided, so PAYPAL concluded there was NO DISPUTE.

Despite escalating this again, stating the facts of the matter again (POD was wrong name/address, power-seller notebookspares, had not responded to any hails), 4 weeks later Paypal concluded once again there was NO DISPUTE – they didn’t even bother to gather facts from the interested parties.

I should mention at this point, I did contact Royal Mail, and attempt to find out where the parcel got delivered and obtain a refund this way, but Royal Mail requested more details about the delivery than I had to give. Which left me with the same problem, notebookspares would not respond to messages or requests for information which Royal Mail needed, and Paypal would do sweet FA about it.

The only thing I had left was the power of democracy, which, like real democracy, is weak. I left a negative feedback on notebookspares. 1 negative feedback against 1000’s of positives, which affected his feedback score NIL. Not satisfied with being an asshat, notebookspares immediately left retaliatory feedback that wasn’t even anything to do with the service or item, which of course brought me down to about 95% positive. I complained to eBay directly – but guess what – they couldn’t give a shit.

Finally, receiving no further correspondence or recourse from Paypal, notebookspares or eBay, I refused to settle my eBay fees which were around the £10 mark- which got my account suspended. The item itself was worth £25, so I made a loss of £15. eBay tried to recover the fees by threatening court action, but I dealt with them like I dealt with my gym recently (for another post, another day) and they chickened out.

Since it was such a small amount, I didn’t bother reporting the fraud to the police (apart from reporting it to the press, what else would they do?), but I did write to eBay and threaten to call in the police. I got no reply from eBay so why bother reply to their emails asking for their fees?

So, hopefully you can now see the potential pitfall?

Here’s how the scam works – Paypal practically endorses it by design!

If you are a power seller, like notebookspares (Rolta Limited) was, and you have built up a large number of positive feedbacks, here is your chance to make a bit of extra profit on the side!

Every now and then, take an order from a low-level user (50 feedbacks or less) for a small item (£50 or less), when you have recieved payment through Paypal, deliver the item to another address you use and get you POD from Royal Mail.

When the buyer inevitably complains using Paypals resolutions, provide the POD – it doesn’t matter what NAME, ADDRESS or SIGNATURE is on the POD, as long as a POD exists, Paypal will close the case and you have made yourself a tidy little profit on the side.

When the little buyer leaves negative feedback, you can devastate his score by RETALIATORY FEEDBACK. eBay will do nothing about retaliatory feedback so you are SAFE!

Paypal and eBay will turn a blind eye to this as long as you are generating a big revenue for them, so this is not for the little guy – power sellers only.

Just make sure that you don’t do this too often as it will eventually effect your feedback score, but if you do it once or twice for every 100 buyers you have yourself a nice little racket!

Technorati Tags:
paypal, ebay, scams, rolta limited, power sellers, notebookspares, retaliation, fraud, royal mail, feedback, complaints, consumer, proof of delivery

[Intriguing] Blunkett’s Guidedog?

That’s my first guess at what has caused his near U-turn on ID cards:

David Blunkett, who as Home Secretary led the government’s push for compulsory ID cards, will tomorrow call for the scheme to be curtailed, according to a report.

Instead he will propose that only foreigners be made to hold an ID card. UK nationals should only be required to hold a passport, Blunkett will argue.

For those not in the know, whilst Blunkett was in public office, flogging ID Cards and all manner of Orwellian devices to use on us, the British public, he received a nice directorship with Entrust, the company who created Spains ID card system and lobbied for the contract for the British one.

I’m sure there was no link between Blunketts cushty new job and his policy towards ID cards at the time.

A glance at the news show Entrust doing reasonably well profits wise during the recession, so what has caused Blunkett to shift his stance?

Worth watching this one, lack of sight has caused Blunketts nose to develop a keen sense of smell for money and influence.

david blunkett, id cards, government, entrust, security, recession, freedom, civil liberties, u-turns, foreign policy, immigration

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[Copyleft] Obama And The Copyright Act

From Wired:

In a few weeks, we’ll likely know the Obama administration’s position on whether it supports hefty monetary awards in file sharing litigation brought by the Recording Industry Association of America.

The Bush administration’s position was clear. It supported the Copyright Act‘s penalties of up to $150,000 per infringed song.

“Congress acted reasonably in crafting the current incarnation by ensuring that it serves both a compensatory and deterrent purpose. Congress established a damages range that provides compensation for copyright owners in a regime in which actual damages are hard to quantify,” the Bush administration wrote in 2007.

Now it’s President Barack Obama’s turn, and we’ll see how tight he is with Hollywood.

One thing I’ve thought about that I don’t see mentioned anywhere by bloggers and media, is a challenge to how the MAFIAA justify their 9-to-1 ratio cost of a single music track.

No, I don’t mean how constitutional or fair it is, I mean challenging it on the basis of lost profits. Surely, after winning* their lawsuit against Jammie Thomas, all lawsuits should have stopped right there. You see they didn’t just sue Jammie Thomas for the tracks that she had downloaded or owned (worth approximately $1 a piece) they sued her for all the other people who otherwise would have bought the shared track too**.

Therefore if the MAFIAA recovered all that lost profit from Jammie Thomas (and someone can’t own one downloaded file twice over), then the score is even and there are no further profit losses i.e. no further lawsuits needed!

Am I just stating the obvious that no-one has thought up yet, or am I missing something?

*I say ‘won’, but it’s been public knowledge for a while now that the original judge has dismissed the original trial as a mistrial and it will be heard again.
**I’m obviously ignoring the fact that ( a ) many filesharers will buy an album anyway and ( b ) many other fileshares would not even buy if it was not available for download – so no profit to be had in the first place.

mafiaa, filesharing, pirates, jammie thomas, copyright act, obama, music, downloading, freedom, wired

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[Misadventure Capitalism] – The Fat Cats That Got The Cream

Royal Bank of Scotland – 68% nationalised
Lawrence Fish, non-executive chairman – paid £6.6m in 2006, receiving a £1m pension from April.
Fred Goodwin, former chief exec. – paid £4.2m in 2007, due for a pension of £8.37m

HBOS – 40% nationalised
Peter Cummings, former head of corporate lending – paid £2.6m in 2007
Michael Geoghegan, chief exec. – paid £2.955m in 2007

Bearing in mind that their companies are now owned by the taxpayers, one would have thought that they could show some restraint in pouring out bonuses. Nonetheless, RBS alone seems to think it’s a good idea to pay out a billion pounds of money to their fat cats as reward for nearly killing the economy.

I hold these points to be self evident:
1.Wages are a reward for the individual’s input of the factors of production.
2.Banking is a service industry, hence the factors offered by the executives are labour and entrepreneurship.
3.Most executives seem to do very little work. Hence, their input of labour is little.
4.Good entrepreneurship does not result in almost going bust. Hence, their input of entrepreneurship is very little.
5.Hence, they are due little compensation for their efforts.
6.Bonuses are a reward for extraordinary success.
7.Ending up mostly owned by the government is not an extraordinary success. Hence, they are due no bonuses.

Anything there sound ridiculous? To be honest, they ought to pay back all their bonuses for the years of unwise lending that got us in this state in the first place. Now the government has bailed out the bankers and decided to nationalise them, they ought to take a stand to stop such ludicrous profiteering, rather than trying to ‘coax’ them into playing ball. If America, France and Germany can do it perfectly easily…

[Fools And Their Money] Property Investor Mentality

Bet this guy feels like a right tit now.

“The place is full with slightly mad people, to say the least. Not a dangerous kind of mad, just weird kind of mad. The fact that a crash might not occur is simply beyond their comprehension. It’s pretty odd how people can be so ignorant towards possibilities. I don’t think there will be a crash per’se, but I wouldn’t laugh or disrespect anyone who thinks there is going to be one.“

How magnanimous of you. Heh. Here he is whinging about one of his tennants, something he is prone to do every now and then if you read through the archives.

Which reminds me, I just refused to pay rent rise to my landlord for the second time in 6 months. Ho hum, I guess we’ll be looking at a bigger place for the same amount of money anyway come summertime. The lettings agent is practically begging now (they’ve bolloxed all the paperwork, something tells me they stand to lose a large amount of money soon).

Technorati Tags: tennancy, property investment, money, landlords, house price crash

[Economic Meltdown] Flash… Aah Aah He’ll Screw Everyone Of Us

Overheard at a desk in a major investment bank today:

“This MP basically said that they’re creating an inflationary environment… 15% interest rates, not this year, but over the next 3 years”

Make of it what you will, personally it tells me that everyone in the know is aware of what is coming next and what is needed, but for some reason Flash Gordon and Alistair Darling are out of the loop or didn’t get the memo. It’s also becoming clear that Flash is intending to pull a Zimbabwe and start printing money (he calls this “quantitative easing” – which is another fancy financial bullshit term for printing money).

You see there is only two ways out of a recession, inflation or raising interest rates. You should know what happens when the government uses inflation, it’s been done before by the Weimar Republic and more recently Zanu-PF.

But what about the other tool, interest rates? Well, you see, this would cause millions of feckless, leveraged, mewing borrowers to realise the difference between debt and wealth – can’t have that, or can we?

The fact is we’re dangerously close to the edge of falling into hyperinflation and while its difficult to predict how disastrous this would be we do know that fixed loans would be eroded away, but so would the value of GBP, the value of any savings and investments too (you know, the things used to fund borrowing) – basically our ecomony would become worthless and most likely we’d all end up informally adopting the Euro.

So why does Flash want to print money? There can only be one of three conclusions, either he…

• Has lost all sense of reality, delusional, thinking he is the saviour of the world
• Is incompetent. He has no clue what he is doing, no clue how to manage an economy and has sat on top of the biggest economic bubble in the history of the world, taking credit for something he had no part in. Or…
• Has engineered this, in part, on purpose. The most far reaching conclusion however I can’t help but wonder if he was hoping for a bust sooner, so that it would damage Bliar (and oust him out of office), or even, guessing (or feeling) he will lose an election soon, hoping to pass the bubble on to the Tories just before it burst (securing a short term for them, allowing him to be elected back into power at the next election). Far reaching but not inconceivable – considering all the warnings he has ignored over the 10 years he was Chancellor.

Whatever the reasons for his contempt of savers, the UK economy and the poor, all his actions are delaying the inevitable (and making it worse)… depression and potentially more civil unrest.

[Educashun] Real-life Monopoly Game Mod

A recent post by Stef has gotten me seriously thinking about the game of Monopoly and how it relates to our current, completely unforeseen, crunchy, global, it-was-all-Americas-fault, financial crisis.

Monopoly has always been one of my favourite games but ever since I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad back in 2002 (yeah I know people say it’s too anecdotal), I’ve wondered about how to make it more real life.. I mean it’s a potential teaching tool since all the basics are there but when you really think about it, getting money is just too easy.. I mean the bank is just giving it away and it doesn’t ask for it back, and if you’re playing alternative rules, the city doesn’t charge you for parking, instead it gives you a tax windfall.

So I’ve thought of a bunch of ‘real-life’ mods to introduce to a game of Monopoly:

• All players start with £20, the banker starts with £10,000 which is used to provide mortgages.
• “Go” symbolises a payday, but you get a wage relative to the price of streets – £20 therefore..
• In order to buy a street, you need to take out a mortgage. An interest rate is agreed with the bank each time eg. 5%. (players can also take a mortgage to purchase from each other).
• A mortgage term is agreed over the number of times you pass “Go”, eg. You take out a mortgage on a Train Station for £199.50 (£10 deposit, £190 + 5% interest) over 5 “Go’s”, your mortgage payment will be £39.90 per passing of “Go”.
• The banker is a player himself but does not take turns to throw the dice and cannot own property. Instead the objective of the banker is to make the most profit out of the game – this means making more money than the last man standing.
• The banker does not have a wage but is funded by the central bank/government. The banker instead keeps money made from interest on mortgages and other transactions.
• The banker keeps a seperate account for himself and one for the central bank/government/fund or whatever that wages are paid from.
• The banker negotiates all mortgages and rates. On taking out a mortgage it is up to the banker to determine whether you are able to afford the payments (by whatever means). The risk for the borrower is losing the the property, the risk for the banker is losing money to a bankruptcy.
• If an borrower cannot afford to pay the mortgage on thier turn, the banker can decide to repossess at any time until payments are caught up.
• If the banker forces a repossession, the property must immediately go up for auction, and the banker keeps any money generated from the auction. If a mortgage is needed then this is negotiated as per usual with the bank.
• In the event of a bankruptcy, the bank recovers all property for auction (and keeps the profits generated), liquid assets are devided between the creditors.
• There is no such thing as free parking, if you land on the square marked “free parking” then you must pay £6 within 12 squares (by the time you get to Oxford Street), if you don’t pay then the fine rises to £24, if you then don’t pay by the time you pass “Go”, the fine becomes £48 and the banker may optionally increase your interest rates on your mortgage (the fine remains outstanding during this time and must still be paid off) or throw you in jail and cancel the fine.
• All the train stations and utility companies are privatised and therefore when a player lands on a privatised train station or utility company, the owner also gets a matching payout from the government/central fund. Train station and utiltity company owners are allowed to raise their rates in line with interest rate set by the banker.
• Rent and sale prices are set individually by property owners.
• If a player cannot afford to pay rent, they can choose to forfeit a turn of the dice and the banker may also increase the interest rate on their mortgage.
• The banker must keep the interest rate on any mortgage for the life of the mortgage unless the borrower falls into debt. The banker can only increase the interest rate in the following circumstances: The borrower fails to pay rent, the borrower fails to pay a fine, tax, train station or utility company. The banker keeps the money from the increase.
• Creditors can optionally wipe out any debt owed (depriving the banker of an interest rate increase).

I have no idea if these rules would work practically, however they would certainly change the game in favour of the banker, the station and utility company owners, thus better reflecting real life. Of course if you wanted to make it more realistic, you could allow the banker to repackage debt and sell it as financial products to other players. You could sell the properties for full price but call it “shared ownership” and allow the government to charge half rent everytime the owner lands on it. The banker could act as Estate Agent and issue ‘valuations’ on each property when a player comes to sell and taking a cut of each sale as well as issuing the mortgages. Finally, if the banker ever runs out of money then the central fund could be used to ‘bail-out’ the banker.

I realise that contrary to the usual game mods, mine could actually make the game of Monopoly more boring, and would be very difficult to introduce to people not so interested in the details of how supply and demand works.. which just goes to show how screwed we really are as a human race. I mean, if.. IF our current former-Chancellor turned Great Leader Gordon Brown could not see the “credit crunch” coming, then just what was he doing for the past 11 years as head of the UK’s economy? Perhaps he really meant “No. More boom and Bust!”

monopoly, game mods, monopoly alternative rules, finance, economy, credit crunch, education, property

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[Housing Market] Don’t Get Fooled Again…

So far I’ve resisted the urge to do an “I told you so…” post when it comes to the property market but I still get the distinct feeling that the general populace still hasn’t ‘got it’ when it comes to booms and busts – despite the fact there is now more information in the public domain than ever before – so much so that we should never be screwed over by an estate agent or indeed any salesman ever again!

I know that the past has always shown a trend of cycles, booms and busts, whatever you want to call them, it’s called the market – some win (those that do their research) some lose (everyone else). What the future holds, I don’t know. If enough people get hold of the information which is free and out there, I know it can change significantly, if enough people would only accept reasonably prices for housing, for example, there would be no booms. Imagine if people simply logged onto HPC or Property Snake, whilst having a gander at Our Property and the land registry prices for a street before bidding on a house… then maybe we could have a real truthful stable economy.. or at least stable housing market. Might even get fairer council taxes too…

For those of you that like a bit of schadenfreude (since no-one can get a mortgage or in their right mind would be buying now) I found a new tool the other day, Property Bee, which works as an extension to Firefox. What Property Bee does is collect data from users browsing a number of different property sites (eg. Rightmove) then inject it into the webpage as you surf to show you changes to the advertised details including prices. It also works for rentals.

What Property Bee does well is expose the dodgy underhand practices, reduction in asking prices and length of time a property has lay stagnant on the market. Property Bee gives power to the buyer and if enough people adopt this tool then it could really make difference for the future.

Check out this advertisement for example. £99,975 shared ownership, £199,950 original price… really? Install Property Bee and check out the history.

The tools are there, for free, when property passes the despair/blow off stage and begins to climb (and we have a few years yet) the there will ben no reasons left to fall for an estate agents claptrap again, ever.

property, housing market crash, crash, estate agents, property bee, house prices, houses, firefox, rightmove, land registry, economy, boom and bust, economic cycles, property snake, housepricecrash.co.uk, mortgages

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[High Noon] Bwankers vs Sheriff of Chicago

From the Consumerist:

“Chicago’s sheriff has placed a moratorium on evictions for mortgage foreclosures, angering bankers who say he’s breaking the law.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said he understood he was flouting the
law in refusing to have deputies carry out the rising number of
eviction requests, but mortgage holders must be accountable.”

Could this be a good reason to introduce Sheriffs back into the UK, Sheriffs who live in the community they work, have jurisdiction and character?

If only British bobbies and the very few (if any) honest bailiffs would step up to the plate here in the UK… unfortunately here in the UK we suffer from a disease of predatory systems and tick-box culture.

Let me explain.. the powerful (now nationalised) elite design the system, which is predatory and designed to be as inefficient and unhelpful as possible, utilizing holding actions against those they serve. They then train a portion of the monkeys that the predatory system is designed for, to abandon rational thought and follow a strict protocol of rules and tick boxes.

holding action, sheriff, chicago, debt, renters, bankers, predatory systems, mortgages, stock market crash, house price crash, police, tick-box

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[Paradigms] Profits… Follow Up to the Last Post

This is a follow up to my last post (Hearts and Minds).

“But how will anyone make a profit if intellectual property is made free?” I hear you cry.

Simple.

Outside of the BBC, advertising seems to suit most TV and radio networks, even as they move more of their media onto the internet, there is still room for product placements and advertising between shows/performances. Merchandising and hard-copy materials work well too. After all, where do radio stations get all their songs from? Do you think the record industry makes them purchase every single song individually*? No they get free samplers sent to them – would you believe it – to promote the artist?

The MAFIAA missed a trick with P2P, it could have been a huge profit making machine, instead they reacted like Luddites confronted with a mobile phone – they tried to smash it. The problem is they didn’t realise that what they were dealing with was effectively an Uber-Hydra – each time the MAFIAA close down a p2p outfit – they spawn so many more new ones.

The recent release of Heroes Season 3: Villains has broken records on BitTorrent downloads (yup, I have seen it 😀 ) – 92% downloaded from outside the US. The reason for this is obviously the delayed release of most good things that come out of the US.

But is there any need for the delay? I suspect, without researching, it has something to do with other countries networks gaging reception of a show in the States before deciding to bid and purchase it for their network – but is there any reason to do this for tried and tested shows like Heroes? Is there any need for it in the digital age where the rest of the world can access US websites and sneak peek info before it’s even released in the States?

It’s a tired old cliche but it must be said again and again until The Power(less) That Be sit up and take notice. The media industry is still trying to make an old business model fit into a new mould that just wont take it – like putting old wine into new wineskins, a square peg into a round hole.

I noticed the BBC is advertising Heroes Season 3 now. Bravo! Was it that Season 2 was so short, or is it fear of losing the market to filesharers? After all, if the show is available over BitTorrent, ad free and released just a few hours after it airs in the States, what is the point of even running the series on TV anymore?

As the world increasingly turns to the net, and as filesharing gains more followers and more social acceptance, media companies based not-in-the States are going to find it harder and harder to drive a profit. And sod it if I’m going to purchase Sky just so I can watch Lost.

So what can media companies do? Well, the BBC is OK for now, no-one should give a rats-ass about the BBC because they basically tax the British public and will suffer no loss from advertising revenue. For every other network on the planet, here’s a few ideas:

• Release US shows as soon as possible, don’t wait for scheduling, get them on air
• Embrace the web. Enable people to log on and catch up or download online (that means us Freetards too)! Link to US network counterparts and create more content.
• Stop releasing Season Box Sets as Part 1 (12 episodes) and Part 2 (12 episodes). The British public are not that gullible (are they?)!
• Embrace P2P. There is a reason leaked pilots find their way onto BitTorrent.

Ask yourself this. What if your network was to sell advertising on their own BitTorrent tracker? What if TV networks were to ‘leak’ the episodes about to air on BitTorrent, wrapped in and advertisement bundle? One ad at the beginning of the recording, one in the middle, one at the end? Sure people might repackage it without the ads, but if you get that episode onto a BitTorrent tracker first, it will already have the largest download and seeding! Most people are not going to bother repackaging it, or trying to find one that doesn’t have advertising, since all they want to do is watch the show- they would put up with one or two ads.

Selling advertising content on TV Shows released through BitTorrent would be simple, effective and easy to track. Simply calculate revenues by the number of downloads and you have your profit, as well as subsidising revenues lost from the traditional TV presentation.

I can’t actually believe that no mainstream content provider has actually worked this out yet! When they do, the MAFIAA will be all but dead in the water, and the friendship between media companies and consumers will once again be restored.

As it happens I use BitTorrent but when a show is a good as Lost or Heroes I buy the box sets, especially for the extras. It’s nice to own a hardcopy of something, and I like to get my monies worth. So here’s to the creators of these fine TV shows, let’s hope they see the light and a way to make both money and friends through filesharing!

*I’m well aware that radio stations need to purchase a license to play but this is something rather different to individual copyright enforcement.

mafiaa, riaa, media, heroes, lost, tv shows, profit, copyright, intellectual property, advetising, business models, bittorrent, torrentfreak, filesharing, p2p

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