eBay's New Fraud Prevention Initiative ... it is Clearly Not Working

On Monday, April 9, 2007, Rob Chesnut, Senior Vice President of eBay's Global Trust & Safety announced a new fraud prevention initiative to curtail the massive number of fraudulent listings created by thieves on eBay. The specifics of this announcement can be found on this blog in an entry dated April 10, 2007.

It has been almost a week since Rob Chesnut made this announcement, however, we see absolutely no reduction in the number of fraudulent listings found each day when we are reviewing listings on eBay. Mr. Chesnut announced that the specific criteria would be kept secret so that the fraudsters would not be alerted to it. As far as we can tell, the specific criteria that eBay has established to curtail the number of fraudulent listings appearing on eBay's platforms is also being kept secret from eBay. There has not been one iota of improvement since the announcement was made.

By now, we should have seen fraud prevention filters in place so that listings with common scammer language (see blog entry below dated April 11, 2006) would be caught automatically. The eBay members that voluntarily police eBay every moment of the day would not have to continuously report the hijacked accounts that have listings with these common phrases. Instead eBay members are reporting that there is more fraud.

If fraud prevention filters were in place, eBay would be catching the fraudulent listings created through Turbo Lister and other third-party programs, yet the listings are immediately being indexed and appearing instantaneously, which is contrary to Mr. Chesnut's announcement that there would be a substantial delay for listings appearing on eBay.

If fraud prevention filters were in place, eBay would be catching the fraudulent listings that had known scammer email addresses in them. Thousands of these email addresses are documented on this blog. The same would hold true for the well-known items that the scammers list. eBay would be catching the bulk of the fraudulent listings automatically.

What could eBay's and specifically Rob Chesnut's excuse possibly be? The truth is that the fraud prevention initiative that Rob Chesnut announced has either not been implemented or it is so flawed that it is not working effectively. In actuality, we believe that Rob Chesnut's announcement is a monumental lie. A new fraud prevention initiative does not exist, and the announcement was made to make the eBay community believe that eBay is safer and proactive towards fraud.

Mr. Chesnut, are you so brainwashed by the eBay machinery, that you believe the lies that you make publicly? Do you sleep at night with a clear conscience? Do you go to confession and tell your priest that you lie?

Rob Chesnut has ZERO credibility amongst those that participate on eBay's Trust & Safety community board. On April 30th, eBay is hosting a Town Hall Meeting and the topic is trust and safety. Rob Chesnut is one of the panelists. What could he possibly say to regain the community's trust?

eBay is allowing thieves to upload fraudulent listings on its servers. eBay is only taking these listings down and securing the affected accounts when members bring the accounts to eBay's attention. eBay is doing nothing on its own to make its platforms safer. By doing nothing, eBay continues to aid and abet criminals, and continuously allows criminals to defraud its members.

eBay should be ashamed of itself.

We urge all members to take a stance. If you are a seller, find other avenues to sell your items on. If you are a buyer, do not shop on eBay. Boycott eBay; it is not safe.