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I was in Court today when a woman aged 66 came in for trial charged with fraud.

She was allegedly selling stuff on fleabay which she didn't have. By the time fleabay caught up with her she was said to have made just a shade under £18k.

Interestingly, under examination in chief it became clear that she used to work for another fleabay trader and explained that she parted company with this trader because she couldn't accept their trade practices which she proceeded to outline.

It seems that some of the bigger traders on fleabay have a very simple philosophy. Sell. Sell. Sell. and evil take the hindmost, in as much as it was the trader's practice to totally ignore any and all complaints on the grounds that a lot of people may grumble and give negative feedback but don't bother with trying to claim their money back or, alternatively, if somebody does go to the trouble of claiming, they make no effort to address the complaint because while they're dealing with a complaint they are prevented from selling even more tat so the few people who see their complaint through to a successful conclusion are more than compensated for by the saving in time for the trader in not dealing with complaints. In addition, it seems that lots of people are unsure about giving negative feedback for fear of reprisals, although what form the reprisals might take we were not made privy to.

What a wonderful customer service ethos

For the sake of continuity, she was found guilty and was bailed for sentencing at a later date.

The reprisals take the form of giving the customer negative feedback so it makes it appear that a totally honest buyer is not to be trusted.

Some sellers give feedback as soon as the buyer has paid which is as it should be but others do not until they receive feedback so presumably this is to force the buyer to give good feedback so as not to then have bad feedback from the seller.

I always look at sellers feedback and will not use those with bad feedback and it is amazing how many bad sellers have feedback stating that the seller did nothing and money had to be claimed back via the eBay disputed procedure.

Why does not eBay take action against these sellers - I will leave it to the reader to answer this.

As a generalisation on some of the sentences for fraud I often work out how much money they make per year of sentence - i.e. defraud and make 200k and get 2 years inside and that equals £100k per year but if released after 50% served equals £200k either of which is not a bad salary. Now there is the Proceeds of Crime legislation but I wonder how much money is normally retrieved.

PaulT wrote:The reprisals take the form of giving the customer negative feedback

I didn't think traders had the option of giving negative feedback?

Oh, you may be correct - but they can make a reply if they are given negative feedback.