A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say. This linked “Business Insider” article contains a graph of eBay revenues since 2003. It shows, quite starkly, how eBay’s Marketplace revenue has stagnated since 2008, about the time that the headless turkey from Bain & Co, John Donahoe, got hold of the tiller and started his “destructive renovations”, and eBay’s share price has moved little in the same period; ergo the eBay Marketplace has effectively been in decline since 2008.
It should be obvious, even to the simplest of analysts, that as time passes, the Amazon River flows ever more strongly, whereas the eBay Marketplace now consists of little more than a chain of stagnant ponds covered in slimy green algae—and isn’t that a couple of rusting Chinese-made shopping trolleys that I can see dumped therein?
The graph also shows the eBay-underpinning increases in revenue eBay has received from PreyPal during the same period, that is, from roughly when the “eBafia Don” effectively mandated PreyPal’s use on the eBay Marketplace. Some analysts therefore think then that eBay’s future lays in PreyPal.
Well, if anyone thinks that the retail banks are going to let such a clunky, parasitic, flea-sized, upstart, middleman, “merchant of sorts” such as PreyPal—who after all does no more than ride precariously on the back of those banks’ own payments processing systems—continue to nibble away at one of the banks’ principal areas of business for any length of time, all I can say is, dream on …
PreyPal is little more than a clumsy, fraud-enabling middleman that also nullifies the statutory protections that, in many countries, would otherwise be available to users paying directly with a real bank’s credit card.
Then there is PreyPal’s current testing of “mobile payments” at POS in Home Depot stores. Are people actually leaving their funds “on deposit” with this clunky, unlicensed, prudentially unregulated, PayPal “non-bank” that is itself not even licensed to provide credit? Otherwise, how are the funds for such mobile payments being sourced by PreyPal from the payer’s real banking account in a way that the merchant can be sure of ultimately getting paid by PreyPal? Not with the standard non-guarantee of payment that PreyPal serves up to its online merchants, I hope.
And, unfortunately for eBay’s chief headless turkey, Visa’s professional online offering “V.me”, when it is up and running later this year, will undoubtedly put paid to whatever success that the clunky PreyPal has had with professional online merchants outside of its mandated use on the eBay Marketplace—and soon thereafter both these unscrupulous and clunky entities should commence/continue their long-deserved journeys down the gurgler.
Scott Thompson saw the writing on the wall; John Donahoe remains delusional, that fact confirmed by the many reported sightings of him waving his mobile phone about and mumbling about UFO sightings over San Jose.
I do hope that the shyster was not stupid enough to have taken the case on a "no win no fee" basis.
But, how could any one, even this idiot lawyer, think that it was lawful/ethical for the auctioneer to disclose the maximum bid of an "absentee/proxy" bidder?
Well, as most of us already know, if the seller is smart enough, the eBay system will disclose the maximum proxy bid. This dill apparently has not yet figured that out.
I do hope that the shyster was not stupid enough to have taken the case on a "no win no fee" basis.
But, how could any one, even this idiot lawyer, think that it was lawful/ethical for the auctioneer to disclose the maximum bid of an "absentee/proxy" bidder?
Well, as most of us already know, if the seller is smart enough, the eBay system will disclose the maximum proxy bid. This dill apparently has not yet figured that out.
I do hope that the shyster was not stupid enough to have taken the case on a "no win no fee" basis.
But, how could any one, even this idiot lawyer, think that it was lawful/ethical for the auctioneer to disclose the maximum bid of an "absentee/proxy" bidder?
Well, as most of us already know, if the seller is smart enough, the eBay system will disclose the maximum proxy bid. This dill apparently has not yet figured that out.
And is that not the whole problem? eBay is spending (only) $20 million annually to rid the site of “fraud, including buyer protection programs and employees whose sole job is to monitor infringement issues”.
On his way to bringing the eBay marketplace to its knees, one person, the eBafia Don himself, was effectively taking home $20 million annually …
For those with a longer attention span, an evening’s entertainment of detail and facts on eBay’s deliberate facilitating of wire fraud on its consumers world wide and a list of links to a number of PayPal horror stories is contained in my post at: http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6502877
Do you think there is a problem with fraud on eBay? Do you think that eBay is doing anything to protect you from such fraud? Do you think that only sellers have problems with eBay? Well, actually, in what will undoubtedly be a counterproductive attempt to improve their "bottom line", greedy eBay is now knowingly "aiding and abetting" shill-bidding fraudsters to prey on everyone buying on eBay.
For full details start at:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6499794#6499794
In Australia, the UK, Ireland and the Philippines, eBay has obscured auction bidding to the point that genuine bidders have got absolutely no chance of detecting and thereby protecting themselves from "shill" bidding (a criminal offence in most civilised countries) by unethical vendors. Notwithstanding eBay's statements to the contrary, this application of absolute anonymity (ie, Bidder 1, Bidder 2, etc) by eBay on these sites serves absolutely no purpose other than to deceive consumers by making even any otherwise obvious shill bidding undetectable; and the same criticism has always been applicable to eBay's other shill bidders' facility, "User ID kept private". Again, notwithstanding eBay's various pronouncements about shill bidding being banned on eBay, eBay is now effectively (and knowingly) "aiding and abetting" such shill bidders on these sites, at the expense of consumers.
I apologise in advance for the length of the above-linked "rant". If you are an unethical shill-bidding seller or a buyer who is not concerned that on the above-mentioned national sites eBay is effectively "aiding and abetting" such shill-bidding sellers to cheat you, read no further.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Philip Cohen.
The eBay Criminal Complex ...
eBay is demonstrably the greatest calculated facilitator of auction fraud on consumers that the world is ever likely to know ... http://bit.ly/11F2eas
And the ugly reality for consumers, particularly smaller payees, dealing with the clunky, unscrupulous PayPal ... http://bit.ly/UVXx53
Regardless, hello "MasterPass", goodbye clunky PreyPal—it has not been nice knowing you ...
Fraud on eBay
Now, if you want to see real eBay calculated and knowingly facilitated fraud in action ...
“Shill Bidding Fraud on eBay: Case Study #5”
http://www.ecommercebytes.com/forums/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=167554
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking
http://www.businessinsider.com/ebays-transformation-when-do-we-start-calling-ebay-a-payments-compa ny-2012-1
A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say. This linked “Business Insider” article contains a graph of eBay revenues since 2003. It shows, quite starkly, how eBay’s Marketplace revenue has stagnated since 2008, about the time that the headless turkey from Bain & Co, John Donahoe, got hold of the tiller and started his “destructive renovations”, and eBay’s share price has moved little in the same period; ergo the eBay Marketplace has effectively been in decline since 2008.
It should be obvious, even to the simplest of analysts, that as time passes, the Amazon River flows ever more strongly, whereas the eBay Marketplace now consists of little more than a chain of stagnant ponds covered in slimy green algae—and isn’t that a couple of rusting Chinese-made shopping trolleys that I can see dumped therein?
The graph also shows the eBay-underpinning increases in revenue eBay has received from PreyPal during the same period, that is, from roughly when the “eBafia Don” effectively mandated PreyPal’s use on the eBay Marketplace. Some analysts therefore think then that eBay’s future lays in PreyPal.
Well, if anyone thinks that the retail banks are going to let such a clunky, parasitic, flea-sized, upstart, middleman, “merchant of sorts” such as PreyPal—who after all does no more than ride precariously on the back of those banks’ own payments processing systems—continue to nibble away at one of the banks’ principal areas of business for any length of time, all I can say is, dream on …
PreyPal is little more than a clumsy, fraud-enabling middleman that also nullifies the statutory protections that, in many countries, would otherwise be available to users paying directly with a real bank’s credit card.
Then there is PreyPal’s current testing of “mobile payments” at POS in Home Depot stores. Are people actually leaving their funds “on deposit” with this clunky, unlicensed, prudentially unregulated, PayPal “non-bank” that is itself not even licensed to provide credit? Otherwise, how are the funds for such mobile payments being sourced by PreyPal from the payer’s real banking account in a way that the merchant can be sure of ultimately getting paid by PreyPal? Not with the standard non-guarantee of payment that PreyPal serves up to its online merchants, I hope.
And, unfortunately for eBay’s chief headless turkey, Visa’s professional online offering “V.me”, when it is up and running later this year, will undoubtedly put paid to whatever success that the clunky PreyPal has had with professional online merchants outside of its mandated use on the eBay Marketplace—and soon thereafter both these unscrupulous and clunky entities should commence/continue their long-deserved journeys down the gurgler.
Scott Thompson saw the writing on the wall; John Donahoe remains delusional, that fact confirmed by the many reported sightings of him waving his mobile phone about and mumbling about UFO sightings over San Jose.
“How secure is PayPal for sellers?”—UK “Guardian”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/jan/27/is-paypal-safe-protection?commentpage=last#e nd-of-comments
And an interesting follow up to this UK "Guardian" article at:
http://www.hadess.net/2012/01/getting-conned-ebaypaypal-fun.html
“Vendor Claims eBay Plays Dirty” (Who could have believed it?)
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/02/01/43529.htm
Scott Thompson abandons the struggling eBay for the struggling Yahoo
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=166803#post166803
PayPal claims PayPal not a debit card or payment network!
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24148
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking
(untitled comment)
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking
(untitled comment)
Well, if you really want to open the unscrupulous eBay's "can of worms":
A tale of two unscrupulous and clunky commercial entities: eBay and PayPal
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24533
eBay-Facilitated Shill Bidding Fraud on eBay Auctions: Case Study #1
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=22659
eBay-Facilitated Shill Bidding Fraud on eBay Auctions: Case Study #2
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=22904
eBay-Facilitated Shill Bidding Fraud on eBay Auctions: Case Study #3
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=22986
eBay-Facilitated Shill Bidding Fraud on eBay Auctions: Case Study #4
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=23540
PayPal claims PayPal Is Not a Payments Processor!
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24148
Amazon and eBay on the collection of state sales taxes
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24517
And from along the way a compilation of (mostly inane) quotes from eBay executives:
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24159
Where do these nutters spring from?
But, how could any one, even this idiot lawyer, think that it was lawful/ethical for the auctioneer to disclose the maximum bid of an "absentee/proxy" bidder?
Well, as most of us already know, if the seller is smart enough, the eBay system will disclose the maximum proxy bid. This dill apparently has not yet figured that out.
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking.
Where do these nutters spring from?
But, how could any one, even this idiot lawyer, think that it was lawful/ethical for the auctioneer to disclose the maximum bid of an "absentee/proxy" bidder?
Well, as most of us already know, if the seller is smart enough, the eBay system will disclose the maximum proxy bid. This dill apparently has not yet figured that out.
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking.
Where do these nutters spring from?
But, how could any one, even this idiot lawyer, think that it was lawful/ethical for the auctioneer to disclose the maximum bid of an "absentee/proxy" bidder?
Well, as most of us already know, if the seller is smart enough, the eBay system will disclose the maximum proxy bid. This dill apparently has not yet figured that out.
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking.
eBay/PayPal: Dead Men Walking
http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/media/tiffany--ebay-continue-battle- infringement/
And is that not the whole problem? eBay is spending (only) $20 million annually to rid the site of “fraud, including buyer protection programs and employees whose sole job is to monitor infringement issues”.
On his way to bringing the eBay marketplace to its knees, one person, the eBafia Don himself, was effectively taking home $20 million annually …
For those with a longer attention span, an evening’s entertainment of detail and facts on eBay’s deliberate facilitating of wire fraud on its consumers world wide and a list of links to a number of PayPal horror stories is contained in my post at:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6502877
Shill Bidding on eBay: A Case Study
Shill bidding on eBay
eBay is knowingly "aiding and abetting" fraudsters! (as PhilipCohen)
eBay introduces absolute anonymity for (shill) bidders (as PhilipCohen)
A lengthy critical analysis of this matter appears at:
http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=6498345#6498345
I apologise in advance for the length of the above-linked "rant". If you are an unethical shill-bidding seller or a buyer who is not concerned that on the above-mentioned national sites eBay is effectively "aiding and abetting" such shill-bidding sellers to cheat you, read no further.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Philip Cohen.
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