An RCMP officer says that eBay is trying to hide a "hijacking" problem that has victimized about one thousand Canadians since 2000.
Update: eBay has responded, arguing it is an "Internet" problem, not an eBay problem.
RCMP Says Ebay Not Cooperating With Investigation
One Comment
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Manager, Public Relations eBay
Hi Michael,
In reference to your blog post “RCMP Says Ebay Not Cooperating With Investigation”, please allow me to clarify and provide the correct facts of the situation. In particular, that this was not an eBay transaction. It was done through personal email. The alleged fraud occurred outside of eBay.
1. The listing in question was clearly fraudulent and was removed by eBay within hours of it being posted
2. There was no winning bidder, as the listing was removed before the auction closed. When a suspicious listing is removed, all bidders are notified that eBay believes the listing to be fraudulent, and are warned not to complete the transaction off eBay. Regrettably, in some cases (as in this one), buyers continue to deal directly with sellers “off eBay” via personal email to complete a transaction.
3. eBay continually cautions its buyers not to pursue items – particularly expensive ones – that appear too good to be true. We also advise buyers against wire transfers. In fact, instant cash transfer services are banned on eBay because they are unsafe.
4. eBay has a global Fraud Investigations Team (FIT) who collaborates with law enforcement to assist in their investigations to take action against buyers and sellers committing any illegal activity on our site. Furthermore, the RCMP officer referenced in your article is a member of PhoneBusters, which eBay is also a member of. Had we received any correspondence from the RCMP regarding this issue, we certainly would have responded.
Again, let me say that we are sorry to hear about Mr. Duraj’s difficulties.
Regards,
Erin Sufrin
eBay Canada