eBay Members, We Urge You to Boycott eBay until Further Notice

"21 Charged In International eBay Fraud Scheme". This is the headline from a December 12, 2006 news article on the CBS2Chicago web site. According to this article, 21 people are facing charges in an alleged international scheme to con people into buying items on eBay that were never sent. This fraud, which occurred between November 2003 and August 2006, conned 2,000 victims out of approximately $5 million. While police caught up with this particular group, fraud is more prevalent on eBay than ever before.

Because fraud has spun out of control on eBay in the past week, The Nekkid Truth and Team Whack a Hack are asking all eBay members to cease bidding on and buying all cell phones, consumer electronics, cameras and photography equipment, appliances, baby carriages, designer goods, heavy equipment, musical instruments, motorized vehicles, bicycles, jewelry, event tickets, and DVDs until further notice.

eBay seems to ignore the problem of fraud unless it is reported via webform or to Live Help by eBay members. eBay wants its members to police eBay's website. eBay members are just that, members and volunteers, they are eBay's unpaid workforce.

It is time to make eBay accountable. eBay has the tools to find the hijacked accounts and bogus listings and has the ability to secure the hijacked accounts within 2 hours of the first report it receives. How do we know this? Because Team Whack a Hack has developed a set of automated tools to find the hijacked accounts and bogus listings. If Team Whack a Hack and other volunteers can find the hijacked accounts, accounts created with the intent to defraud, clone fraud accounts, and bogus listings with little effort, then eBay with its state of the art software and IT Department can do the same.

eBay members, if you choose to disregard our request, you do so at your own risk.

While we know that eBay is not at fault for its members buying mistakes, eBay still needs to be held accountable for its poor reaction time to webform reports from its volunteer police force and for it not curtailing fraud on its site. eBay's 'I know nothing' attitude is not a viable excuse anymore.

There are numerous safeguards that eBay can implement, including temporarily suspending any member account that has been inactive for more than 30 days. In January, it was announced that PayPal will be offering its members an increased security option through an electronic key fob that has received positive praise on eBay message boards. Why is eBay not offering this electronic key on its own website?

Team Whack a Hack will continue to report on this blog all of the email addresses and fake domains of hijackers it finds on eBay, along with reporting all email addresses and fake domains of accounts created with the intent to defraud. Team Whack a Hack will continue to report hijacked accounts and accounts created with the intent to defraud directly to eBay. But, we are getting tired of trying to plug a hole in the dam. The dam has burst, and that was more than evident last night when we found accounts that we reported earlier during the day that had hundreds of listings on them, only to later see that thousands of bogus listings uploaded on eBay's site. eBay could have secured these accounts immediately, but instead it allowed these listings to upload and contaminate its website.

We are tired of eBay's excuses, empty promises and attempts at using band aids. Fix the problems once and for all.

Although we are very upset with eBay for allowing fraud to continue on its website, we would particularly like to thank eBay's Live Help Team. Without the help and dedication of these marvelous agents, who we have reported thousands of hijacked accounts to, thousands of fraudulent listings would remain on eBay's website daily. Unfortunately, although we admire the dedication of the Live Help agents, they are just employees, who only follow eBay's marching orders.

Buyers, we are asking you to speak up by NOT spending any money on eBay in the categories set forth above. If you DO NOT spend your money on eBay, eBay will be forced to take notice, because its profits are going to plummet. Stockholders are going to ask questions. If there aren't any buyers, sellers will be forced to stop listing and take a stance and tell eBay that it will not continue to accept eBay's blindness towards fraud. If sellers want the buyers to come back, then the sellers need to speak up to eBay.

Buyers, do not condone eBay's lazy behavior. Do not put yourself at risk any longer. Take your money and shop elsewhere. Shop on websites that you know are safe, where you know that you aren't going to get ripped off. Take a stance and boycott doing any business on eBay in the high fraud categories until eBay has implemented the appropriate safeguards to make your buying experiences safe.