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How Not to Sell Bitcoin on eBay for 300% Profit

whatilearnedtoday.jameslarisch.com

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Re: How Not to Sell Bitcoin on eBay for 300% Profit

#81

Post by unclebucknasty »

I run an online business and the level of fraud we have seen out of China is insane. We are constantly changing tactics and the fraudsters follow suit. They are dogged, determined, and will persist until they put you out of business if you let them.

Of course, we don't purposely do business with anyone from China, but they go to great lengths to cover their origin, even employing Mechanical Turk workers to do some of their dirty work. The guy who purposely sold BTC to someone out of China was literally begging for what he got.

And these guys are virtually untouchable. We are a small business and we see a ton of this stuff, so I can imagine what larger businesses must experience. eBay alone must be the conduit for tens or hundreds of millions in fraud from China.

Amidst all of the talk about stolen IP, military secrets, etc. emanating from China, the likely billions of dollars in fraud targeted at American consumers and businesses is the great untold story.

Re: How Not to Sell Bitcoin on eBay for 300% Profit

#82

Post by AJ007 »

noonespecial wrote: post #2

Ebay absolutely lacks the seller protection to ever make this kind of transaction. If I purposely tried to design a market that supported this kind of fraud, (even encouraged it, in a nurturing "please do this" sort of way). I couldn't do better.

The only feedback the seller mentioned was in the buyers leaving it for him.

If the seller required a good account history, and stuck to the US, he may have not had these problems. Arguably those buyers could have screwed him on anything (remember the story about the rare violin destroyed at Paypal's request.)

There are things worth a lot more than $90 bought and sold on eBay every day. I would argue that buyer to seller reputation and thus integrity is more important than the reputation of the marketplace or medium of exchange.

Re: How Not to Sell Bitcoin on eBay for 300% Profit

#83

Post by driverdan »

phoboslab wrote: post #61
nullc wrote: post #56

It's pretty sad, considering that if the buyer sent the bitcoin address to send to through paypal you can prove to paypal cryptographically beyond any and all doubt that you really sent the coins. Even when someone isn't claiming their account was hacked (which would be a problem no amount of cryptographic proof would solve) paypal simply doesn't care. I guess that really sums up paypal: Paypal doesn't care.

I guess it's a bit more specific: PayPal doesn't care about sellers. I sell a JavaScript Game Engine[1] and have made the exact same experience over and over again. Someone buys it, I send out the license email and the download link and 2 days later I see a chargeback. I can show PayPal screengrabs of the license email and database records, showing that my software really has been downloaded from the account in quest…

There's an easy solution. STOP USING PAYPAL! When will people learn that PayPal is shit?

Re: How Not to Sell Bitcoin on eBay for 300% Profit

#84

Post by parliament32 »

phoboslab wrote: post #61
nullc wrote: post #56

It's pretty sad, considering that if the buyer sent the bitcoin address to send to through paypal you can prove to paypal cryptographically beyond any and all doubt that you really sent the coins. Even when someone isn't claiming their account was hacked (which would be a problem no amount of cryptographic proof would solve) paypal simply doesn't care. I guess that really sums up paypal: Paypal doesn't care.

I guess it's a bit more specific: PayPal doesn't care about sellers. I sell a JavaScript Game Engine[1] and have made the exact same experience over and over again. Someone buys it, I send out the license email and the download link and 2 days later I see a chargeback. I can show PayPal screengrabs of the license email and database records, showing that my software really has been downloaded from the account in quest…

I've never sold anything via PayPal, but how does "proof of shipment" prove anything? If I sold you, say, a violin for a thousand bucks, then shipped you a box with a couple bricks inside it, would PayPal side with me? Yes, I have a tracking number that says I shipped a 5 lb package to him...

If yes, then couldn't I inversely buy an expensive item, then take it out of the box, replace it with bricks, and send PayPal pictures of me getting "scammed"? Would I get my money refunded?

"Proof of shipment" shouldn't mean anything.

Re: How Not to Sell Bitcoin on eBay for 300% Profit

#85

Post by jellicle »

jasonlotito wrote: post #80
phoboslab wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's a bit more specific: PayPal doesn't care about sellers. I sell a JavaScript Game Engine[1] and have made the exact same experience over and over again. Someone buys it, I send out the license email and the download link and 2 days later I see a chargeback. I can show PayPal screengrabs of the license email and database records, showing that my software really has been downloaded from the account in quest…

> PayPal doesn't care about sellers. Credit card companies. And it's not that they don't care about sellers. It's that they care more about the card holders. Consider the protection they afford card holders for card-not-present purchases. 100% protection. PayPal doesn't have some immunity to that protection. Open your own merchant account, and you'll have the same issues. > I see it as simple piracy When it's the car…

Credit card companies have that policy because it's the law. Before it was the law, they didn't have that policy.

Debit cards are not covered by the same law. Some banks insulate debit card holders from losses, some do not.

Re: How Not to Sell Bitcoin on eBay for 300% Profit

#86

Post by unclebucknasty »

misterjangles wrote: post #47
noonespecial wrote: post #2

Ebay absolutely lacks the seller protection to ever make this kind of transaction. If I purposely tried to design a market that supported this kind of fraud, (even encouraged it, in a nurturing "please do this" sort of way). I couldn't do better.

eBay at one time was dealing with a lot of seller fraud with sellers that didn't ship, shipped you a rock instead of a laptop, etc. over the years they started adding more and more buyer protection to keep shoppers from being scared away. Unfortunately they tipped the scales so greatly that now, as a seller, you can very easily be scammed. The scammers have simply moved to the other side now and commit their scams as…

Yeah, this is the problem with fighting fraud at a venue like eBay. You invariably tip the balance to one side or the other, and the fraudsters just move to that side. The tough part about tipping to the buyers' side is that buyers always have the power of the chargeback anyway.

But, eBay probably made the decision by simply asking who it is better to frustrate: sellers who have very little choice of viable venues at which to sell, or buyers who have a plethora of choices from which to buy.

Re: How Not to Sell Bitcoin on eBay for 300% Profit

#87

Post by jellicle »

tadfisher wrote: post #9

I am surprised that in his research, the author didn't come across any warnings not to sell Bitcoin on Ebay. This is pretty common knowledge these days. I was also under the impression that PayPal does not allow selling Bitcoin or Bitcoin hardware. This transaction should have been stopped automatically, and it's a shame Ebay doesn't have automatic tools to stop blatant abuse of their own policies.

Ebay could easily put their own auctions up for bitcoins at 200% of current market value, then simply cancel the accounts of anyone who bid on it. They'd hit 100% fraudsters.

Re: How Not to Sell Bitcoin on eBay for 300% Profit

#88

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

lnanek2 wrote: post #40
downandout wrote: post #34

By placing a ban on virtual currency transactions in their own fine print, but allowing most of the transactions to go through unless and until there is a problem, PayPal is setting themselves up for issues. In this case, only the author of the article was victimized, but it would be almost as easy to victimize PayPal/eBay itself even if the supply of legitimate Bitcoin sellers on eBay dried up. One person could easi…

PayPal is infamous for freezing accounts indefinitely and even putting accounts into the negatives even on people who did nothing wrong. That scheme is not going to work. They are so intent on nuking any fishy business they nuke a ton of innocents as well.

PayPal nukes fishy business when PayPal doesn't profit on the transactions.

Re: How Not to Sell Bitcoin on eBay for 300% Profit

#89

Post by eli »

badman_ting wrote: post #74

I think you have to be a little bit crazy to sell anything on eBay. But anyway, it struck me that there is a way to make money here (buy BTC then charge it back), the author just found himself on the wrong side of that process. As they say, if you don't know who the sucker is, then it's you.

Sure, just like running a bot net is way to make money.

Re: How Not to Sell Bitcoin on eBay for 300% Profit

#90

Post by dan1234 »

driverdan wrote: post #83
phoboslab wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's a bit more specific: PayPal doesn't care about sellers. I sell a JavaScript Game Engine[1] and have made the exact same experience over and over again. Someone buys it, I send out the license email and the download link and 2 days later I see a chargeback. I can show PayPal screengrabs of the license email and database records, showing that my software really has been downloaded from the account in quest…

There's an easy solution. STOP USING PAYPAL! When will people learn that PayPal is shit?

I don't think you can use eBay without using paypal.
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