eBay
Auction Shilling and Other Misconduct Under Investigation by The Wall Street Edge News
(Internet, no known Address) February 2010
TWSEN is not the first to investigate fraud and malfeasance on the Internet auction site
eBay. From the Justice Department to on-line organizations committed to stopping fraud on
the Internet, TWSEN is now joining in this effort to warn Buyers of possible signs of
misconduct at eBay. While by far the vast majority of Sellers and Buyers at eBay are part
of a great, honest community and the website itself is vigilant in keeping it that way,
nevertheless, problems do occur there. This month we are conducting some test bidding
at eBay in order to find patterns in the use of "auction shills" and other
unethical selling practices at the on-line auction site.
"Auction Shilling" takes place when a third party bidder, who appears
totally unrelated to the Seller by either their eBay profile (a much lower eBay star
rating for example) or by their geographic location, suddenly enters into the bidding for
an item in order to drive up the auction price and thereby the Sellers profit from its
sale. The shill's account is either directly controlled by the Seller as a covert account
set up by him or her, or is controlled by a cohort of the Seller who acts in concert with
the Seller during the auction to drive up the price of the item.
One indicator of a shill is when an item attracts no interest for 6 or 7 days with
little or no bids, but once your bid is placed, suddenly a fierce opponent enters into the
auction and begins outbidding you. The suddenness of an appearance of this last minute
bidder after you placed your first offer is because the shill or the Seller or both are
notified by an eBay alert triggered from your initial bid, so it will strike a Buyer as
strange that an auction that attracted no interest for so many days mysteriously heats up
within minutes from the placement of your first bid.
The use of auction shills by eBay Sellers is inarguably unethical, and worse, because
the delivery of some of the items in these transactions uses the US Postal Service, it is
possibly illegal and is punishable for the Seller by harsh penalties because the moment a
stamp is applied to the delivery it could become a case of mail fraud. According to
our confidential source at eBay the most auction scams on eBay involve foreign
transactions, many from Africa or Asia, but most commonly from break away republics in the
Balkans and from now independent Russian countries that were formerly members of the USSR.
Here's how it works and what to be on the look out for:
A.) An auction of 5 to 7 days in duration for an item has no bidders for almost the
full length of time of the auction, but suddenly has higher counter bids that arrive
shortly after your initial bid as the auction nears its end. Another
indicator, though not definite, is the use of Second Chance Offers after you lose an
auction that fits the above pattern. Why offer it to you now? Is it because
the shill accidentally outbid you and the Seller wants to make the actual sale?
B.) Beware of Sellers who do not offer Returns to Buyers who are not satisfied with
the product that they receive, especially since eBay policies state that a Buyer has to
pay for Return Shipping. This does not burden the Seller with shipping fees to have
a Buyer send back an unwanted product for a refund of only the auction price; the loss
would be to the Buyer, who would have to pay the postage fees. There is not much risk to a
Seller to offer this guarantee but should put a Buyer on guard if it is not offered. This
is a common place and reasonable arrangement that is widely used by reputable eBay
Sellers, mail order catalog companies, and late night infomercials to assure customer
satisfaction.
C.) An item, seemingly very unique, is relisted for sale at eBay, with the exact same
description shortly after you seemingly have bought it. We have seen items with unique
flaws or identifiable damage listed immediately for sale after they had already been
sold. This "recycling" is a sign that the Seller may be taking money from
Buyers over and over again for the same product. The product that is sold and resold
over and over again may not actually exist, or it is only shipped to winning Bidders who
complain to the Seller or seek help from Ebay mediators. So as a precaution, a Buyer
should search for the item that they won on eBay a day or two after winning it. If the exact
item is listed again quickly, it could be an indicator of a Seller who is relisting the
same item again and again.
D.) The total cost of an item that you won does not even equal or exceed the listing
fees to eBay for the Seller, the value of the item you won, and the shipping costs to the
Seller. It will have that hint of too good to be true in the back of your mind.
E.) Be wary of of what you want to bid on. If the
category of items that a Buyer shops and bids for in involves high-end electronics
equipment, silver, gold, coins, or currency proceed with caution, stay objective, and
don't bid purely based on emotion, which is what often drives auctions as opposed to
simply purchasing items on-line from a retailer. Despite up to two or more separate
eBay warnings concerning fraudulent listings that are displayed to a Seller when they are
listing an expensive item in one of these categories on eBay, we found that selling items
in these categories deserves that many warnings to Sellers because these are the items
that are rife with Seller's abuses.
F.) Do not blindly trust that a "high star" rating of a Seller is a
guarantee that you will receive a certain highly priced product as it is described in the
auction, or receive it all. Thousands of transactions by a Seller does not provide a
certainty that you will get what you've paid for. However, eBay's star rating is really
all we have to judge the legitimacy of a Buyer or Seller's reputation and for the most
part, it has been designed well and works in millions of fair transactions every day. Just
remember the Seller's rating, high or low, is only an indicator of their past
transactions, not a guarantee on the completion of yours.
G.) The Seller does not pledge to send the item, especially something as expensive as
coins and currency, using USPS Priority Mail with either Signature Confirmation or at
least Delivery Confirmation. We have sold currencies and precious metals and coins
on eBay and for our own protection at minimum we make sure that we have Postal proof that
something of such value was sent on a particular day and can be traced at the USPS and
Ebay websites all the way to the Buyer. A Seller who disregards such a safeguard
could be a red flag that you may never get your item, as the claim is often "we ship
by First Class Mail" which offers no way of finding out if that was true, or if your
roommate stole your mail, or the Post Office delivered it to your neighbor, or that they
lost it in transit, or....that the Seller can use all those reasons as an excuse why your
product never arrives. Seriously, when selling expensive electronics, coins, or money
do you think a Seller would really send such an item anonymously through the mail just
using stamps? For their own protection at least, probably not.
H.) The Seller makes attempts to arrange contact with the Buyer for communications or
payments outside the structure of the eBay website. This is the most blatant
indicator that the transaction is not going to an honest one. Such a
Seller in this scam may appeal to a Buyer with promises such as avoiding fees, taxes, will
offer additional discounts, etc. to lure the Buyer into making a payment for an item they
most certainly will never deliver or more importantly, to gain direct access to a Buyer's
credit card number, which will then receive huge unauthorized charges. Truthfully, we are
even wary of the so called Second Chance Offers, which we feel has not had all of it's
terms fully worked out yet. For the best transaction, just stick to the regular auction
process at eBay and only communicate with Sellers through eBay messaging and preferably
only pay Sellers using a Pay Pal account to avoid revealing your credit card number.
In our January/February
study and investigation at eBay we focused on the category of coins and paper currency. We
placed bids for exotic money from around the world. We placed winning Bids on coins
and paper currency 23 separate times. The results in most auctions lived up to
eBay's standards and our expectations; we received fast deliveries, items that matched the
auction descriptions, and even extra coins or currency from grateful Sellers!
The downside of the 23 coin and currency Winning Auctions, is that fully two weeks
after all of these winning auctions ended, almost 1/3 of the items in our test had not yet
arrived. We met our obligation, by paying each time through Pay Pal within minutes
of winning every bid. In these coin and currency auctions, as with most auctions on eBay
almost all of the Sellers list a shipping date of around 3 days or so, yet 15 days later,
we had to contact 7 sellers to ask where our purchases were. We asked what day they
shipped it on. We asked what city and state, or country in a few cases, they had shipped
the item from.
The responses to our questions was met with mixed results. 3 of the Sellers that
we contacted had still not replied within four days of us asking where our missing items
were. 4 Sellers though provided us with remedies that we found were very satisfactory and
the result of believable and acceptable mix-ups or delays. Just the fact that they
responded showed that those Sellers wanted to straighten out their Buyer's issues quickly
and struck us as being sincere, honest Sellers.
Eventually, 2 of the unresponsive Sellers that we contacted finally sent our items,
but nearly a full month after the winning auctions that promised shipping in 2 to 4
days! 1 item never arrived and the nature of the item nor the Seller did
not surprise us in the least. Out of the 23 eBay
auctions that we won for foreign currencies and coins, we never received our winning bid
for a batch of Russian Rubles. While this is old advice from the
market places in ancient Rome, it still holds true today for our modern day Internet
purchases, Caveat Emptor.
 --BW
Schulz, Editor in Chief
Broward County FL Deputies Advance Civil Rights Violations
(West Park, FL,
USA) September 2009
There's a television commercial promoting a "reality" show on the cable channel
TLC. The promotion for the show in its reoccurring advertisements feature Florida
female police officers, some of them attractive, relatively speaking, slamming people to
the ground, harassing citizens and bragging about the use of excessive force.
One
Broward County Deputy, our unnamed attorney general source in Florida reports, said that
in her Sheriff Department's approved sound-bite for the television commercials that
repeatedly air on the TLC and Discovery channels, that the Sheriff's Deputy, Andrea, says
"There's always a good time to use a Taser."
So throw negotiation aside, forget about trying to calm a
yet to be proven guilty suspect, take them down, just electrocute them because it's
always a good time to use a Taser.
I have been hit by 300,000 volts of electricity and its
something indescribable. In most contexts, Tasers are an outright example of police
brutality and a clear case of excessive force when they are afraid of the repercussions of
firing a pistol into your chest.
The voltage, which always has a good time to use, is
extremely painful. But the Broward County Deputy Andrea is poised and ready to send
hundred of thousands of volts through a barely resistant suspect, boasting that it is
always a good time to use a Taser. What is next in her chain of force? A Rodney King style
beating with batons?
The TWSE sent an email to the Broward County Sheriff, Al
Lamberti, to Ask_the_sheriff@sheriff.org about his Police Departments official policy on
the use of excessive force, but with no answer. I think our email message ended up
in the Sheriff's Junk mail folder or Recycle bin because The Wall Street Edge has yet to
receive a response on Taser usage by police forces in Broward County, Florida
What disguises as entertainment is actually SS jack-boot
brutality policies. The audience thinks its funny and engaging, but what really is
happening is another case of the erosion of our Civil Rights, this time on TLC by Florida
Gestapo officers.
It's not funny, nor amusing, it symbolizes the Police
mentality of the Us versus Them. They aren't here to protect and serve anymore; the people
who staff these positions are military flunk outs, or too scared to enlist in the armed
forces for combat, so they become state sanctioned bullies and sadists. I'm guessing
that the police women of Broward County, within twenty years will have failed marriages,
substance abuse problems, or that one or more of these hot-heads are injured in automobile
accidents.
 --The
Dan Ryan, News Correspondent
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Gunman Takes Hostages at Discovery Channel Building -
Update - Gunman is Now Missing a "Large Portion" of His Head After Police
Standoff Ends
(Silver Spring, Maryland) September 2010
Initial reports indicate that a man, previously
arrested in 2008 over protests about the Discovery Channel's broadcast content, has
entered the Discovery Channel's headquarters building in Silver Spring, Maryland armed
with at least one handgun and unreliable sources for the TWSEN reported, a device,
possibly a bomb, strapped to his chest.
Montgomery County Police, tactical assault units, and the FBI have surrounded the building
where the man has taken an unknown number of hostages. Whether anyone has been harmed or
not is unknown. Whether the device strapped to his chest is in fact a working explosive is
unknown.
For The Dan Ryan, I am barricaded in my office at The Wall Street Edge News headquarters
building with a high-powered rifle and seeing no visitors. I'm not taking any
chances... Wait... Who is it? Who is there? Don't go near the
door or ceiling or I will blow your ***ing heads off, I swear to God I'll do it! Oh,
sorry.. take a message please, tell her I'll call her back later tonight..
So If James Jay Lee, the alleged gunman, is getting upset over the Discovery Channel, what
if he has been reading my columns at The Wall Street Edge News? What if he dislikes my
content? What if he is logged onto the Internet right now, reading this story as I
type! Seriously, this guy has got THREE names! James - Jay - Lee! That
never ends well.
Loading up another 30 round ammunition clip, I wonder what kind of deranged person takes
hostages and threatens innocent people with a bomb and and a gun over the Discovery
Channel's content? Besides some sort of mental illness, it appears he also has basic
cable. But I'm sorry I don't understand it, really, what was the last straw...did he miss
some answers on "Cash Cab"?
The Dan Ryan consulted TWSEN War Correspondent Cpl. Von Bock for his input on how to
safely end this potentially volatile situation. Von Bock replied that he considers the
bomb inert (a Flight 93 bluff), he would order the entry unit to flashbang James Jay Lee
while the assault team fires round after round into his head or upper neck (just in case
the device on his chest is active or he's wearing body armor.)
Update: Our Sources report that TWSEN War Correspondent Cpl. Von Bock called it correct:
The bombs were duds or near-duds and the gunman was shot by SWAT and is missing a
"large portion of his head", while TWSEN correspondent, The Dan Ryan stands down
from his office-bunker on reports the gunman is presumed dead...
TWSEN reporter Von Bock provides a unique perspective on how to conclude the situation,
but we are hoping that the FBI can talk James Jay Lee out of the building, especially
without any harm to the hostages. One has to note though, it is surreal that this
television franchise of channels that has promoted so much reality TV now finds itself in
the grips of it's most awful side...
The Dan
Ryan - Crime & Law Correspondent
Texas Taxpayer Crashes
Plane Into IRS Offices - Posts Anti-IRS Manifesto - Read it at TWSEN
(Austin, Texas, USA) February 2010
A Texas man apparently upset over the Federal tax system took his own life and possibly
the lives of others when he flew his private plane into the building that houses an
Internal Revenue Service office in downtown Austin. Motivated in a MacVeigh-like way
to strike at the building of his alleged oppressors, Joe Stack changed his company website
into his own personal anti-government manifesto/ suicide note.
The website, which was quickly taken down by the FBI, was captured in time by the nerds on
the TWSEN IT staff. The nerd team examined the code and told me that Joe Stack,
apparently the crashed pilot, wrote the content yesterday around 7:30 PM CST and then
posted it on-line about twelve hours later, the morning of his plane crash into the office
building.
That probably was one long night for Joe Stack. For our readers though, we allow you
to decide. Below is a screen shot of the totally featureless website before the FBI
took it offline. For a software engineer, Stack sure didn't put much flare into his
last HTML code. He was likely preoccupied when he wrote it.
The image is linked to an Adobe PDF file that contains both Joe Stack's
anti-government letter, unaltered, typos and all, and then after those pages the computer
code that was used to serve his final words on this planet. Seriously, blokes, next time
use Turbo Tax, not a Turbo Prop to settle up with the Feds.
--The Dan
Ryan, News Correspondent
No Probable Cause For Traffic
Stops by Police Officers
Wisconsin Seat Belt Laws
(Madison, WI, USA) -
August 2009
I often say people can not remember back more than twenty years worth of history. In the
US, as is our practice to ignore and isolate our elders in retirement homes, the lack of
recall of history extends even further as knowledge from previous generations is not
readily passed along. A case in point is the war in Iraq. To be sure everyone
who has died fighting there, some of them my friends, is tragic.
But the casualty figures when compared
to previous conflicts is very, very low. Every loss of American life in conflicts is
a deep pain to the families of these service men and women. But compare the total
war deaths in Iraq to say World war II. During WW II, 1000 soldiers were killed a
week. A week. That would be equal to what, 4 weeks in WW II equals the deaths
in Iraq over 5 plus years. I will leave war casualties and opinions to our war
correspondent though. The point is, how easily we forget.
In 1988, a political debate was fought
with opposition around 1988 about mandatory seat belt laws in many states, including the
mid-western state, Wisconsin. Proponents of the bill said it would save lives.
Opponents said it would be a tool for a police state to pull over innocent drivers.
The backers of the bill promised that not wearing a seatbelt would not be used as a reason
to stop a motor vehicle by our jack-booted police forces.
But now, 21 years later, after the law
passed, and memories forgotten of the original fears of the seat belt bill being abused by
police, Wisconsin has now empowered its Gestapo police forces to pull over motorists who
the police think they saw driving without a seatbelt.
So now, with no probable cause, the SS
can stop your vehicle and say you didn't have your belt on. Often, to the SS police
officers glee, they can escalate the traffic stop to more serious charges. What is
disturbing though, is what an ambiguous reason to pull over motorists has been handed to
our fascist police forces. What about older cars, vintage vehicles with
lapbelts? Should we pull them all over and search them for drugs and run the driver
and passengers for warrants?
This I can't see your seat belt pull
over law is the very definition of lack of probable cause in traffic stops.
Couple it with racial profiling and the fascists have a powerful tool in their
hands. Here's the 411, as they say, the public hates the police more and more
everyday. They refuse to cooperate, they laugh when they hear on the news that one
has been shot; they think they deserve what they are dishing out.
If we keep allowing our rights to be
eroded, I'm afraid more and more elements of society are going to become isolated from the
ever growing, imposing police state government. I can't wait to see what happens
when hundreds of thousands of unemployed soldiers pulled out of Iraq enter this Depression
#2 job market. Sieg Heil Wisconsin, I hope the seat belt law saves more lives than
it ruins. SS Police, you'd better wear your BPV's on every shift. More and more moderate
middle class citizens despise you everyday.
--The
Dan Ryan, News Correspondent
President Obama Urges The Out
of Control Drug Enforcement Administration To Concentrate Less on Soft Drug Targets
(Oakland, CA) December 2009
In a bold move to reign in para-military DEA attack squads operating in some 14 states
that allow for the medical use of marijuana, The President expressed his commitment for
agents to stop battering down the doors of advanced HIV and cancer patient's homes and
refocus these budget and time wasting efforts on more severe drug threats from cocaine,
heroin, and methamphetamine dealers.
This Oval Office directive reinforces the first year in office President's desire to stop
body armor covered agents from swarming upon Americans who are battling potentially
life-threatening diseases has been received well by the national public, advocates of
states rights, and medical officials.
A source in the DEA, who wishes her name not be used, said that agents will have to
receive some retraining in order to tackle hardened criminal drug traffickers as most had
become accustomed to plowing over frail, ill patients while they were armed with
sub-machine guns, throwing stun grenades and dressed head to foot in ballistic-resistant
military-grade gear. "Knocking an assault rifle out of someone's hands is not
as easy as a walking cane is.." the DEA source said. Adding that "..it will
take some changes in our approach from smashing into elderly cancer patient's homes to
raiding potentially explosive, biohazardous methamphetamine labs that I heard might have
mean people inside them."
 --M.Moops,
Esq. Senior White House Correspondent
The Anniversary of the Repeal of Liquor
Prohibition is on December 5th: Salud e Gratzi for 13 good years of Solid Cash Flow
(Baltimore,
Maryland, USA)
Of all the ridiculous promotions and Hallmark holidays that
are drummed up for consumer shopping like Black Friday, sounds fun; cyber Monday, every
work day is browsing/shopping day?; Green Friday, thats a stretch.
How about naming today Whiskey
Wednesday? And better yet, send consumers to use Cheap US dollars to buy Canadian liquor
imported into the US before the holidays and preceding the inversion of our two moneys
value, so it entered American store inventories at higher Loon costs. Crown Royal
Holiday Gift Sets (from the Canadian Seagram's Distillery) that have crystal tumblers in
them would be an example of this kind of last minute, hidden currency exchange gains on
consumer imports.
Get it soon, because foreign liquor and
wine imports are going to get their prices jacked soon because our dollar is knocking the
Euro, Loon, and Sterling dead. Why do you think the British Commonwealth just lowered
their...
---Full C2H5OH Prohibition on PDF---
Follow Up to that one News Article at
TWSEN Last Week
(San Diego, CA,
USA)
I totally forgot my assignment and I didn't make my deadline. So I guess they'll be More
to Follow.
-Steffi Panzer, News Correspondent
|
TWSE News - Crimes & The Law
