Schewanick Computer Services

The author is a practicing attorney, who has formed a very low opinion of eBay and its subsidiary Paypal, based on the manner in which they permit fraud to occur over their web sites. Recently, I was contacted by another defrauded customer of eBay, Lois Reynolds, and she asked me to tell her story so that others might not be victimized by using eBay.

Lois wanted to outline the details of the situation in which she was defrauded on eBay and $1232.49 has been stolen from her, not to mention the emotional turmoil she is going through. She had never bid on or used eBay before until this time.

Dec 15 2005 - Lois entered a bid on a 2000 Crown Victoria on eBayMotors.com of $1186.00, item number 4596509986. This vehicle was up for bid by Payless Auto 503-777-0012 and eBay member ID reddog4359. Lois was quickly outbidded and did not bid anymore on this vehicle.

Dec 18 2005 - Lois received an email in her eBay mailbox for a second chance offer from eBay member redlittlepebble to purchase the vehicle at her bid of $1186.00 because the winning bidder could not complete the transaction. Lois also received this same email on her alternate email address at lois.reynolds@@jamesriverins.com. The email advised what she needed to do to complete the transaction. Lois was told to email the seller directly at ianc1ianc@hotmail.com and that she would need to send a western union money order for her bid amount.

Dec 21 2005 - Lois emailed the seller at the email address given and requested additional info about the vehicle and asked for a payment method other than Western Union. He advised he did not have access to Paypal.com, but to go ahead and send the wire transfer as he had a $20k deposit with eBay.

Dec 21 2005 - Since Lois had never used eBay before and did not want to get ripped off, Lois went into her eBay account and sent an email to eBay's security and resolution department and asked if this was a valid transaction and told them what was going on.

Dec 21 2005 - Lois received an email back from confirm@eBay-info-pay.com that gave further instructions to send the money transfer. Also in a separate email on this day, Lois received another email from the same address advising the transaction was protected by eBay and to go ahead with the money transfer. [Author's note, eBay-info-pay.com is not the same as eBay.com, and this email message was probably sent by a fraudulent company.]

Dec 22 2005 - Lois sent a wire transfer via Western Union to a David Cantrell at the following address: 1105 W. 81st pl, Los Angeles, Ca. 90044-3546. Lois sent all of the payment details to the seller at Ianc1ianc@hotmail.com and sent a copy to eBay at confirm@eBay-info-pay.com.

Dec 22 2005 - Lois received an email from confirm@eBay-info-pay.com advising that the payment info had been validated and that they would contact the seller with instructions on shipping. These emails are signed, regards eBay payment department. The vehicle was due to arrive in Richmond Va on Tuesday 12/27/2005 but did not arrive.

Dec 23 2005 - Lois received an email from eBay Customer Support (mwebhelp@eBay.com) thanking me for reporting the possible fraudulent email and that they will investigate. By this time, Lois had already sent the wire transfer because the car was a Christmas gift for her son. Lois has since received several emails from eBays customer support department advising that the transaction was not an eBay transaction and that Lois was not eligible for any protection services.

Dec 28 2005 - Lois filed a IFCC report and filed a fraud report with the Federal Trade commission. Lois has also alerted Western Union's fraud department of this situation. A police report has been filed with the Henrico County Police Department also.

In summary, Lois was deceived out of money due to her trust in eBay's system. Lois logged into her eBay account and the email that offered the second chance offer was in her inbox. Therefore, without question, eBay opened up its internal email system to merchants who engage in fraudulent scams of unsuspecting members of the public. Lois contacted eBay before she sent the transfer and asked for help. Because of eBay's slow response time, another company was able to send Lois a message with an official eBay logo that advised her it was a valid transaction. Lois feels that this was an inside job or someone hacked into the eBay system and took her money, because how else would the fraudulent company have known that she wrote in just at that particular time and asked for verification. [Note from the author: It is important to close out all windows when contacting a company for verification, because if the consumer uses the same window or a linked address the link may say "eBay.com Security" but the actual link may go to another bogus site such as eBay-info-pay.com.]

EBay had responded via email advising this transaction is not covered by any protection services as it was not an eBay transaction. But everything Lois did relating to this transactions was initiated through her eBay account.

About the author:

Dr. Michael A. S. Guth, Ph.D., J.D., is an attorney at law based in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. His practice focuses on enabling people to represent themselves pro se without a lawyer (and thereby save on legal fees), as well as full representation for appellate practice. One area his work has particularly emphasized is child support defense and elimination of the unconstitutional debtor prisons that now saturate our court jurisdictions across