1. I am very concerned about the dramatic increase in the number of fraudulent auctions we are seeing on the boards. We report them to Safe Harbour, but all too often the auctions finish before anything is done about them and many people are cheated out of their money. I have read similar concerns on the US, UK and German boards. What is being done about this?
2. It is horrible to sit helplessly watching people be defrauded, sometimes of thousands of dollars. We are not permitted to warn the bidders on these auctions, since to do so would be auction interference for which we can be "sanctioned". Yet I know of people, who shall remain nameless, who sometimes warn the bidders even though they know the risk to themselves. I haven’t done this myself, but I have sure been tempted. Could not something be done, such as have employees in Safe Harbour specifically assigned to promptly read the reports (often only a couple of hours are left in the auctions by the time we find them), give a quick initial assessment, and if the auctions aren’t pulled before finishing, contact all the bidders to tell them that “something is of concern” and not to pay until Safe Harbour gets back to them? All this fraud is really tarnishing eBay's reputation.
3. We need a link to send our fraud concerns about members in China. We’ve been told e-mail the webform of the member’s country. I did try guessing at the Chinese webform but the reply I got back in English obviously did not comprehend the problem. Where is the best place to send reports on fraudulent auctions concerning Chinese members (which are half the reports I send) so that they will be dealt with as quickly as possible?
4. Some of us on the Canadian help boards would like to have a thread pinned to the top of the help boards, or at least the New to eBay board, that advises people what to look for in a listing to help them avoid frauds. One of the members has a thread called Pandora’s Box which deals with this topic, and if it or something similar could be pinned, I think it would be a useful resource for many members.
5. Far too few members are aware of the help boards. Many people have mentioned this once they’ve found us, and how they wish they’d known about us for previous problems. Perhaps you could do something to make these boards more prominently known to members, so they would know where to come for help.
6. Speaking of which, there needs to be a VAST improvement in the information found under the Help button. It is not user-friendly. Often a search offers me 200 resulting topics, most of which have nothing to do with my question, and if the first few don’t give me my answer, I’m not going to read the rest of the 200 to see if maybe they do. And many times, no matter how I word the question, the precise answer is never found. The Site Map is sometimes more useful when looking for general information, but not when looking for information about problems in a transaction. One possible solution would be to have a FAQ page dealing with such things, which would give a one-sentence answer with a link to more detailed information (and this could perhaps contain a link to the help boards).
7. I would like to see pinned at the top of the help boards an easy-to-understand thread on How to Post Questions. It should be short and to-the-point so that most people will read it. For example:
1. Start your own thread. If you just tack your question on to the end of someone else’s, it won’t be seen by many of those who could help.
2. Never post User ID’s, actual names, or contact information such as e-mail address. [Most people have not read the detailed rules about posting, and several times a week I have to explain this to people and tell them how to self-report their posts to avoid being sanctioned.]
3. If you have a question about a specific auction, mention the auction number in the body of the post, but not in the title of your thread. [I don’t know how many times people ask us about auctions that are over a month old--which we cannot access--or else seem to want us to play guess-the-auction with coy hints about it.]
4. If your problem concerns a purchase, explain how you paid for it (credit card through Paypal, money order, etc.) [People often don’t realize that this can be pertinent information, and often our first responding post will be “What is the auction number and how did you pay?”].
I’m done now. Thanks for your time. You may now resume regular programming, lol.
