AuctionCut

The Ebay marketplace is rapidly becoming one where the con man runs riot, whether its a phishing attack to take control of an account, a simple sell and don't send attack or a rouge buying account registered by some idiot with a view to simply bid on items with no intention to pay, it is without doubt ruining the Ebay marketplace for everyone. So what can we do about it? Well if I was in charge of Ebay safety in the marketplace I would introduce the following:

1. All Sellers AND Buyers need to register using using a valid credit card or bank account.

2. At sign up the account is not active until you receive a confirmation password/verification number that you need to enter to confirm the account, this would be sent via the postal service to your registered address thus confirming your contact details are correct. This would also help with those accounts registered simply to bid on items without paying.

3. NPB Charter introduced, if a member refuses to pay for an item then they will receive a charge to their fee account AND they receive an automatic 7 day suspension at first offence and simply a lifetime ban after the second instance.

4. Ebay make the stance of NEVER sending an email to a third party email account, all mail should be handled through the 'My Messages' folder on your Ebay account.

5. Ebay introduce a membership fee, a one off fee that needs to be paid by all members which is non returnable. This is not going to be a popular idea but those committed to trading properly in the marketplace should not be to worried about this, maybe structure this for a private account and a traders account etc.

All in all a more robust registration system needs to be implemented, possibly including the introduction of a membership fee so that we can weed out those intent on disrupting the flow of trade and those determined to rip people off.

3. NPB Charter introduced, if a member refuses to pay for an item then they will receive a charge to their fee account AND they receive an automatic 7 day suspension at first offence and simply a lifetime ban after the second instance.

Wouldn't this be open for bad sellers to abuse?

Your ideas may be good, but if ebay charged a registration fee it would prevent new users from registering and selling items.

Mark wrote:

3. NPB Charter introduced, if a member refuses to pay for an item then they will receive a charge to their fee account AND they receive an automatic 7 day suspension at first offence and simply a lifetime ban after the second instance.

Wouldn't this be open for bad sellers to abuse?

There would have to be guidelines in place, qualifying timescales, default reports etc etc. Hopefully this would make the process fair..

EbayBargainHunter wrote:Your ideas may be good, but if ebay charged a registration fee it would prevent new users from registering and selling items.

Why would it? They register, pay their fee and then are able to sell..