************************************************************
EBAY'S BACK DOOR WIDE OPEN & LETTING SCAMMERS IN
************************************************************
There is a scammer's tool floating around the web that has been offered for sale to several ebaY users. This tool allows a scammer to access ALL user info through a utility ebaY uses to track all user information.
If you look at this link, you will see a page with ebaY seller information overlaid with the scammers SCO Helper program that allows the scammer to send second chance offers through ebaY's own system, to potential victims who have bid on the legitimate seller's items.
http://corriganb.com/sco.jpg
View Scam Tool Sample
Vladuz appears to be the person who wrote the program to break into the part of ebaY where all user information resides, and where it can be manipulated. He/She also appears to have authored "utilities" to exploit this open back door - such as the SCO Helper, that allows scammers to exploit second chance offers. As far as we can figure from online research, Vladuz is the online handle of a Romanian programmer/hacker, whose name pops up in relation to various scammer sites.
It is very possible that this ebaY function is what is being used by the scammers to post the BAPE auctions, and monitor email queries, replies and payments so they can reroute them. It is obvious that this information is readily accessible to the scammers, and that ebaY has not done anything to close the back door being used by the scammers.
For everyone wondering how scammers on ebaY manage to hijack accounts at will, this is the answer. ebaY says the scammers are getting the info due to ebaY users falling for phishing scams. That explanation let ebaY off the hook, but TAG never believed it, as it never made sense. In light of the BAPE scams - see this article -
BAPE Scam
it was definitely NOT falling for a phishing scam that exposed the user information of "Jack" or other tech savvy users who have contacted us since, with the same story. In the article we said that it appeared to have to be an insider with access to inside ebaY information. We now conclude that it may not be an ebaY insider, but instead an outsider, with complete access to all user account inside information.
If this is as it appears, ebaY is and has been aware of this wide open back door, and can't or won't do anything about it. We will update this on our website as more information becomes available.
Class action suit anyone?
An interesting note, is that since the earthquake on 26 Dec in Asia, cut off internet access to China and other Asian countries, the number of scams on ebaY has dropped drastically, as is easy to see by searching for BAPE Hoody listings.
Another note of interest is a reference to this tool that appeared on a Chinese Blog. The translation is done via the Google page translator, and as such is not the greatest - but it gives a good idea of what is going on. We have edited out a vulgar word or two - but the rest is as it appeared. Please take note of the dates!
====================
Ebay fishing website procedures
Author : indifference boys Date : 2006-03-30
Small size of the Chinese University :
Classification tool backdoor procedure : "br/> Linux operating platforms :
Tools size : 29,103 Bytes
MD5 5de7108546dfdaeb6d06fb3e02ad2af4 documents :
Source : fac@frauda.net tools
Ebay fishing website procedures "br/>Readme file
Copyright 2004 vladuz
Fac@frauda.net
-----------------------------------------------------
=
Updates : 1.6 : - WORKS WITH REGISTER_GLOBALS OFF!
- Checks if cvv2. cc and pin are numeric only if they are long enough and in lenght. (3 cvv2 min. pin min 4 min 16 cc)
- After script deletes cookie completed tasks
=
Ebay scam turns v1.6 FINAL~ This scam is in many ways.
It does the following :
Http://www.basd-action.net/initiatives/index.php : identical login/sign-in page of 22,500 (the new one)
Index2.php : 1 : if _ _ _ user password are invalid. it will show the identical '[invalid. try again 'of England.
2 : if user/pass are valid. cc/cvv2/exp/real echo ask for the name and current address.
3 : it can check if a user/pass are valid or not.
Index3.php : 1 : Send email and redirect my home to 22,500
2 : Verify if all fields are filled in corectly.
-----------------------------------------------------
You must have the following installed (this turns on Yahoo hosting files work (paid one))
1. Libcurl installed with PHP.
2. Some brain to configure it.
-----------------------------------------------------
Configuration :
Open your password setup and index2.php
Open index3.php and setup your subject and email address.
Your email is where you get the emails with user/pass/cc/cvv2/name/exp-date/ip/date/time
Subject is the email subject
Your password is used for email verification or manual checks. For example, if you setuped your password as "vladuz" and you want to do a manual check for the user "a" pass with "b" you have to type this in the government payments are capped : index2.php?user=a&pass=b&pwd=vladuz
On manual verification (when using pwd=) Invalid! the file will either return or, if valid. it will return the user and pass (for copy/paste hehe)
Simple enough?
Well go there and the [expletives deleted]!
-----------------------------------------------------
For ANY fac@frauda.net scam email me and I 'll do it in 30 hours max.
Study it, and refrain from doing bad things!
Member of the document only allows downloading! Download the registration |
===================
Friday, December 29, 2006
Sunday, December 17, 2006
ebaY Insider Hijack Scam?
ebaY Insider Hijack Scam?
Sat 16 Dec 06
On Tuesday 12 Dec 2006 we received an email from a subscriber, describing how his ebaY selling account had been hijacked, and was being used to sell BAPE Hoody shirts. There were many interesting elements of this hijacking, different from those we have seen in the past. Upon seeing items he had not listed, the legitimate account holder, let's call him Jack, removed the listings and changed his password on the account. In addition he found that all his email notification preferences had been set to NO. He set them back to YES. By lunch time, the fake items were back, so this time using a work computer, Jack changed his ebaY password again. This made no difference and the items reappeared.
Jack's home computer is firewalled and has a full complement of detection software installed and active. He is a savvy user well versed in phishing, and has not responded in a long time to any ebaY "second chance" offers. He has not logged in to ebaY via any channel but his own links, and he has not filled in any pop up sign in request. Jack's work computer is on a very secure system, as he works in an industry where online security is paramount. He did not fall for a scam, have his computer invaded, have his identity stolen or compromised.
In trying to analyze what was going on, it appeared that the hijacker or hijackers had to have access to accounts independent of passwords, and have the ability to set account parameters so the legit account holder would not know what was going on. If this is so, it either points to someone working inside ebaY, or to a security hole so big, you can drive a tractor trailer through it. Neither situation is tolerable.
Searching ebaY for BAPE Hoody, brought up 140 pages of one day listings. All the one day listings were on hijacked accounts, and the hijacked accounts were used in groups by the first letter, so accounts with very high (usually 100%) feedback, starting with the letters G, H, I, J were in great evidence. The accounts were US accounts, but in reading the description, certain phrases would indicate that English was not the scammers first language. A check of the feedback would show the legitimate account holder as being a buyer only, or a seller of items not including designer clothing, or any clothing for that matter. Many accounts had been inactive for many months or years.
We did a buy it now on one item that was evidently on a hijacked account. We pulled the account holder's contact info, and it all appeared legitimate via a white pages check. We checked their email address against their PayPal address on PayPal, and that too appeared legitimate. The scammer never contacted us for payment, so we don't know how that part of the scam would have worked. Other emails with questions sent to the scammers by the folks helping us with this investigation, yielded answers such as "yes, if you buy two items ,you only pay them with 150USD .thanks" and "to you address total pay only US160.00" again suggesting that English was not their first language, and that the scammer had access to emails sent through the ebaY system. We tried another two BINs, but never heard from the scammer, despite repeated requests for payment information. The net result is, we don't know how the scammer worked this so that they received the payment rather than the legitimate account holder. We did eventually receive an email from the legitimate account holder on the last two BINs we did, saying their account was hijacked and not to make payment.
These items continued to be listed every day, with ebaY only shutting down a small percentage of them. If this is an ebaY insider job, TAG is baffled as to why they haven't tracked this to the source and shut it down.
As a matter of interest, some of the images have been tracked to this source whose domain is registered in Beijing, China - -
http://www.xhxh246.com/Product.asp?BigClassName=BAPESTASHOES
http://www.xhxh246.com/index.asp
This story is ongoing, so we will update it as we find more information.
Sat 16 Dec 06
On Tuesday 12 Dec 2006 we received an email from a subscriber, describing how his ebaY selling account had been hijacked, and was being used to sell BAPE Hoody shirts. There were many interesting elements of this hijacking, different from those we have seen in the past. Upon seeing items he had not listed, the legitimate account holder, let's call him Jack, removed the listings and changed his password on the account. In addition he found that all his email notification preferences had been set to NO. He set them back to YES. By lunch time, the fake items were back, so this time using a work computer, Jack changed his ebaY password again. This made no difference and the items reappeared.
Jack's home computer is firewalled and has a full complement of detection software installed and active. He is a savvy user well versed in phishing, and has not responded in a long time to any ebaY "second chance" offers. He has not logged in to ebaY via any channel but his own links, and he has not filled in any pop up sign in request. Jack's work computer is on a very secure system, as he works in an industry where online security is paramount. He did not fall for a scam, have his computer invaded, have his identity stolen or compromised.
In trying to analyze what was going on, it appeared that the hijacker or hijackers had to have access to accounts independent of passwords, and have the ability to set account parameters so the legit account holder would not know what was going on. If this is so, it either points to someone working inside ebaY, or to a security hole so big, you can drive a tractor trailer through it. Neither situation is tolerable.
Searching ebaY for BAPE Hoody, brought up 140 pages of one day listings. All the one day listings were on hijacked accounts, and the hijacked accounts were used in groups by the first letter, so accounts with very high (usually 100%) feedback, starting with the letters G, H, I, J were in great evidence. The accounts were US accounts, but in reading the description, certain phrases would indicate that English was not the scammers first language. A check of the feedback would show the legitimate account holder as being a buyer only, or a seller of items not including designer clothing, or any clothing for that matter. Many accounts had been inactive for many months or years.
We did a buy it now on one item that was evidently on a hijacked account. We pulled the account holder's contact info, and it all appeared legitimate via a white pages check. We checked their email address against their PayPal address on PayPal, and that too appeared legitimate. The scammer never contacted us for payment, so we don't know how that part of the scam would have worked. Other emails with questions sent to the scammers by the folks helping us with this investigation, yielded answers such as "yes, if you buy two items ,you only pay them with 150USD .thanks" and "to you address total pay only US160.00" again suggesting that English was not their first language, and that the scammer had access to emails sent through the ebaY system. We tried another two BINs, but never heard from the scammer, despite repeated requests for payment information. The net result is, we don't know how the scammer worked this so that they received the payment rather than the legitimate account holder. We did eventually receive an email from the legitimate account holder on the last two BINs we did, saying their account was hijacked and not to make payment.
These items continued to be listed every day, with ebaY only shutting down a small percentage of them. If this is an ebaY insider job, TAG is baffled as to why they haven't tracked this to the source and shut it down.
As a matter of interest, some of the images have been tracked to this source whose domain is registered in Beijing, China - -
http://www.xhxh246.com/Product.asp?BigClassName=BAPESTASHOES
http://www.xhxh246.com/index.asp
This story is ongoing, so we will update it as we find more information.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
ebaY Motors Hijacked
22 Oct 2006
CORRECTION 7 NOVEMBER 2006
After more research we have found that being logged in to ebaY is not what allows the scammer to tap into your ebaY account information. Though the redirect is direct from ebaY, once you try to purchase the item you get a screen asking you to log in again - even though you were already logged in to ebaY. This second log in is actually on the scammers site, and by loggin in you are giving them all the information you need for the scammer to access everything on your ebaY account that you can access.
We have also found that even ebaY's own image service is being used by the scammers to execute the redirect.
On the 4th of October 2006 a buyer who had been scammed on ebaY Motors using a second chance offer and had previously reported the scam to ebaY, was told that ebaY was not responsible, quoth the email, " Please keep in mind that we do include information on the messages sent through our system as well as on our site that state items should not be purchased outside of the eBay platform and should not be paid for using Western Union." The problem is, that as far as the buyer knew, the purchase WAS made on the ebaY platform, by going to ebaY, through the buyers normal links - NOT an email link - logging on to ebaY - NOT a third party site - and clicking on the second chance offer on ebaY's listing page. When the page opened, the buyer then clicked Buy It Now, his personal information was populated into a confirm shipping address page with his name and address from ebaY's servers, and when he got to the Pay Now page he was given the option of Western Union Wire Transfer, which (unfortunately) he used.
Now all of you who read TAGnotes and visit our website know that it is never safe to pay a stranger for a purchase with WU, but not everyone knows that. What ebaY has always told users is that as long as you come to ebaY directly, and log in to ebaY directly, and complete the sale on ebaY, you are safe. This is no longer true. This buyer did come to ebaY and log in to ebaY, but due to a security hole the size of Niagara Falls in ebaY's coding, was automatically redirected from the ebaY link he clicked on, to a third party scam site, where he was robbed of his money. This redirect happened so fast he never saw it happen.
ebaY has known about this problem at least since 4 October, and of course posted no warnings about it, much less fixed it. On 22 October, an associate of the subscriber who informed TAG of this scam was able to use the same process and "buy" a fake vehicle from a scammer still using the same security hole. The buyer searched ebaY, found an item, clicked on the ebaY search result link, was taken to a page that looked identical to an ebaY listing, used Buy It Now, had their personal information populated automatically into a confirm address section and was taken to a Pay Now screen. To check that the personal information populated into the form came from the ebaY site, they first went to their ebaY account and changed some of their personal information to fake info, and the form populated with the fake info from ebaY, the only place in the world the info existed.
From what we have been told (but not witnessed) this redirect scam is also being used for second chance offers. The buyer follows ebaY's rule of going directly to the ebaY site to respond to a second chance offer, and not use a link in an email, logs into ebaY, goes to the second chance offer, and is redirected to a scam site where their money is stolen. The implication here is that My ebaY is also compromised, but we have not seen actual evidence of this yet, though it is also possible that the second chance offer message is only appearing on the closed View Item page.
Needless to say, all the accounts used were hijacked accounts, and ebaY's claim that these accounts are hijacked from information gained via external phishing scams is getting very old and less believable all the time. TAG has always said that ebaY must be considered as the prime suspect as the source for finding the buyer email addresses, so the buyer can be contacted by the second chance scammer on items the buyer bid on but for which they did not have the high bid. In light of this major security breach, TAG wonders if any information is secure on ebaY.
Right now we have only seen this redirect happening in ebaY Motors, but that does not mean it is not happening on other parts of ebaY. TAG has observed at least 3 variations of this scam, making it likely that the scammer/hackers who figured this out, shared the information with other scammers. We are sure to see more and more of this unless ebaY manages to plug this security breach.
One Tech Guru theorized that this might have been caused by ebaY's band aid fix for their broken search issues. ebaY search is broken, and to "fix" it ebaY is using a javascript redirect from the broken search result (bad) to a usable search result (good). Unfortunately this might be the open door that is taking a buyer from a legitimate search result (good), to a scammers redirect page (bad) using the same javascript code ebaY has bandaged and patched their problems with.
TAG feels ebaY should be responsible to reimburse every buyer who lost money to these scams, since these items were found and reached through legitimate ebaY links, directly from the ebaY site. TAG also recommends that NO purchases be made on ebaY Motors until this huge security gap is fixed. As a temporary work around, TAG further recommends that all users turn off /disable javascript in their browser settings for all of ebaY.Com.
The following images are from an item we found on ebaY today.
The first shows the listing from ebaY's search result
The second shows the item listed on the sellers ebaY item list
The third shows the URL reached when clicking on the link from ebaY's search result page and the item appearing on the ebaY site
The fourth shows the URL now redirected to the scammers site
Much information and assistance with this article came from The Folks at:
EBAY MOTORS SUCKS
And from other TAG subscribers and Gurus
Our thanks to all at Margaritaville for their invaluable assistance and advice.
CORRECTION 7 NOVEMBER 2006
After more research we have found that being logged in to ebaY is not what allows the scammer to tap into your ebaY account information. Though the redirect is direct from ebaY, once you try to purchase the item you get a screen asking you to log in again - even though you were already logged in to ebaY. This second log in is actually on the scammers site, and by loggin in you are giving them all the information you need for the scammer to access everything on your ebaY account that you can access.
We have also found that even ebaY's own image service is being used by the scammers to execute the redirect.
On the 4th of October 2006 a buyer who had been scammed on ebaY Motors using a second chance offer and had previously reported the scam to ebaY, was told that ebaY was not responsible, quoth the email, " Please keep in mind that we do include information on the messages sent through our system as well as on our site that state items should not be purchased outside of the eBay platform and should not be paid for using Western Union." The problem is, that as far as the buyer knew, the purchase WAS made on the ebaY platform, by going to ebaY, through the buyers normal links - NOT an email link - logging on to ebaY - NOT a third party site - and clicking on the second chance offer on ebaY's listing page. When the page opened, the buyer then clicked Buy It Now, his personal information was populated into a confirm shipping address page with his name and address from ebaY's servers, and when he got to the Pay Now page he was given the option of Western Union Wire Transfer, which (unfortunately) he used.
Now all of you who read TAGnotes and visit our website know that it is never safe to pay a stranger for a purchase with WU, but not everyone knows that. What ebaY has always told users is that as long as you come to ebaY directly, and log in to ebaY directly, and complete the sale on ebaY, you are safe. This is no longer true. This buyer did come to ebaY and log in to ebaY, but due to a security hole the size of Niagara Falls in ebaY's coding, was automatically redirected from the ebaY link he clicked on, to a third party scam site, where he was robbed of his money. This redirect happened so fast he never saw it happen.
ebaY has known about this problem at least since 4 October, and of course posted no warnings about it, much less fixed it. On 22 October, an associate of the subscriber who informed TAG of this scam was able to use the same process and "buy" a fake vehicle from a scammer still using the same security hole. The buyer searched ebaY, found an item, clicked on the ebaY search result link, was taken to a page that looked identical to an ebaY listing, used Buy It Now, had their personal information populated automatically into a confirm address section and was taken to a Pay Now screen. To check that the personal information populated into the form came from the ebaY site, they first went to their ebaY account and changed some of their personal information to fake info, and the form populated with the fake info from ebaY, the only place in the world the info existed.
From what we have been told (but not witnessed) this redirect scam is also being used for second chance offers. The buyer follows ebaY's rule of going directly to the ebaY site to respond to a second chance offer, and not use a link in an email, logs into ebaY, goes to the second chance offer, and is redirected to a scam site where their money is stolen. The implication here is that My ebaY is also compromised, but we have not seen actual evidence of this yet, though it is also possible that the second chance offer message is only appearing on the closed View Item page.
Needless to say, all the accounts used were hijacked accounts, and ebaY's claim that these accounts are hijacked from information gained via external phishing scams is getting very old and less believable all the time. TAG has always said that ebaY must be considered as the prime suspect as the source for finding the buyer email addresses, so the buyer can be contacted by the second chance scammer on items the buyer bid on but for which they did not have the high bid. In light of this major security breach, TAG wonders if any information is secure on ebaY.
Right now we have only seen this redirect happening in ebaY Motors, but that does not mean it is not happening on other parts of ebaY. TAG has observed at least 3 variations of this scam, making it likely that the scammer/hackers who figured this out, shared the information with other scammers. We are sure to see more and more of this unless ebaY manages to plug this security breach.
One Tech Guru theorized that this might have been caused by ebaY's band aid fix for their broken search issues. ebaY search is broken, and to "fix" it ebaY is using a javascript redirect from the broken search result (bad) to a usable search result (good). Unfortunately this might be the open door that is taking a buyer from a legitimate search result (good), to a scammers redirect page (bad) using the same javascript code ebaY has bandaged and patched their problems with.
TAG feels ebaY should be responsible to reimburse every buyer who lost money to these scams, since these items were found and reached through legitimate ebaY links, directly from the ebaY site. TAG also recommends that NO purchases be made on ebaY Motors until this huge security gap is fixed. As a temporary work around, TAG further recommends that all users turn off /disable javascript in their browser settings for all of ebaY.Com.
The following images are from an item we found on ebaY today.
The first shows the listing from ebaY's search result
The second shows the item listed on the sellers ebaY item list
The third shows the URL reached when clicking on the link from ebaY's search result page and the item appearing on the ebaY site
The fourth shows the URL now redirected to the scammers site
Much information and assistance with this article came from The Folks at:
EBAY MOTORS SUCKS
And from other TAG subscribers and Gurus
Our thanks to all at Margaritaville for their invaluable assistance and advice.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
The Unannounced ebaY Fee Increases
The Unannounced ebaY Fee Increases
2 Mar 2006
Revised 5 Mar 2006 to add information about the unannounced store fee increase
[Editors Note: We decided to leave both these articles posted so the changes we made would be clearly available for comparison. We found out about the store price increase when a reader emailed us after reading the original 2 March article posted on this blog]
On 18 January 2006, Bill Cobb, president of ebaY North America, announced a price increase for ebaY US. Of course, in the normal ebaY way, it was announced as fee adjustments, made to appear as if it was a minor increase, and that some fee decreases would mitigate the fact that ebaY has increased their fees every year, despite year over year record breaking profitability. As always, the business community looks at this and says that ebaY is justified in charging whatever the market will bear, but it once again puts the lie to ebaY's propaganda about being community based.
The fee increase went into effect on 22 Feb 06. The way the new fees were structured, ebaY reduced the fee on items listed at 99 cents or less from 25 cents to 20 cents, and increased the final value fee on the most common ending price level, an additional one quarter percent (.25%). They made some features free, including picture show and sales reports plus, and reduced fees for the second and third tiers of picture manager (all pretty worthless features, much less expensive and more reliably found from third party service providers). In addition, Bill Cobb said, "There are no changes for eBay Stores fees.", which you will see further along in this article, was a blatant lie on Mr Cobb's part. Despite the unannounced fee increases made to the store listing fees, TAG also expects an increase in store subscription fees, probably in the May/June time frame.
You can see the fee increase announcement at -http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200601181327302.html
What ebaY failed to mention, was that there were fee increases they did not tell their sellers about. TAG wonders if these fee increases, which probably border on the illegal, and violated ebaY's own user agreement, were even too sleazy for ebaY to mention in public, or if ebaY felt they could slip them in without anyone noticing. Once word got out and they were questioned about it, they would have probably used their old, "it has always been that way, we just didn't enforce it" line, or some other excuses, complete lies all, that seller's have the invoices to prove. Fortunately erudite TAG subscribers did notice the fee increases, and let us know about them.
There are two sets of ebaY increases, that ebaY failed to mention, or blatantly lied about. The first increase ebaY forget to mention, comes into play when a seller revises a listing to decrease the price of the item in that listing. In the past if the seller decreased the price of a listing, so that it took the listing into a lower fee category, ebaY would refund the difference. Just as, if the seller increased the price of a listing, ebaY would add the extra fee to the seller's bill. Now what ebaY is doing, is not refunding the difference in fees, in the case of a decreased price, but is still adding the increased fee when an item is revised to increase the price. This also probably applies to the reserve fee, when the change to the fee is based on a lowered reserve price. ebaY explicitly mentions, " Reduce the start price of your item. (You will not receive credit for the difference in your insertion fees.)" but does not address other fees, such as listing duration fees, or other items you might revise. See the revise your listing info at -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/edit_listing.html
For example, if you look at the fee schedule at -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html
If you start a listing at $59.99, the insertion fee would be $2.40. You then later revise it to $49.99. ebaY will not refund the $1.20 difference, they will keep it. But if you start an item at $49.99, you will be charged $1.20, and then later revise that to $59.99, ebaY will charge you the extra $1.20 to bring the listing fee up to $2.40.
The only place you can see this fee change is on the revise your listing page. But since that page is included in the user agreement by default (as are all ebaY's little back doors hiding information), ebaY will claim you agreed to this change by using their site. TAG argues that this is an illegal rule, keeping fees they are not entitled to, but until someone successfully sues them over this issue, or media attention shames them into a change, it will be the ebaY law.
The second fee increases were made in the stores, by removing the 60, 90 and 120 day listing durations. The only option now open to store users is 30 day and Good till Cancelled (GTC). All the listing upgrade fees are now charged every 30 days, and that change causes increases that range up to 300% (depending on duration) for those who previously used 60/90/120 day durations. The fee increases are shown as follows:
Gallery was 1 cent for 120 days and now costs 1 cent each 30 day period
Listing Designer (see note) was 10 cents for 120 days, and now cost 10 cents for each 30 day period.
(Note) No charge for listing designer for Blackthorne Basic, Blackthorne Pro, or Selling Manager Pro subscribers.
Highlight was $11 for 120 days, and now costs $5 each 30 day period.
Featured in Search was $34.95 for 120 days, and now costs $19.95 each 30 day period
Additional pictures were 45 cents for 120 days, and now costs 15 cents each 30 day period
Supersize pictures were $1.50 for 120 days, and now costs 75 cents each 30 day period
Picture Pack was $3.01 for 120 days, and now costs 76 cents each 30 day period
There is one price reduction, and that is for the Picture Show which was 55 cents for 120 days, and is now free
You can see the old stores fee schedule at - http://snipurl.com/n723
And the current store fees at - http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/storefees.html
Once again ebaY shows how willingly and blatantly it lies. When the President of North America, can post that there are no fee increases in stores, when there were increases, it shows how deeply corrupt ebaY and its management is.
2 Mar 2006
Revised 5 Mar 2006 to add information about the unannounced store fee increase
[Editors Note: We decided to leave both these articles posted so the changes we made would be clearly available for comparison. We found out about the store price increase when a reader emailed us after reading the original 2 March article posted on this blog]
On 18 January 2006, Bill Cobb, president of ebaY North America, announced a price increase for ebaY US. Of course, in the normal ebaY way, it was announced as fee adjustments, made to appear as if it was a minor increase, and that some fee decreases would mitigate the fact that ebaY has increased their fees every year, despite year over year record breaking profitability. As always, the business community looks at this and says that ebaY is justified in charging whatever the market will bear, but it once again puts the lie to ebaY's propaganda about being community based.
The fee increase went into effect on 22 Feb 06. The way the new fees were structured, ebaY reduced the fee on items listed at 99 cents or less from 25 cents to 20 cents, and increased the final value fee on the most common ending price level, an additional one quarter percent (.25%). They made some features free, including picture show and sales reports plus, and reduced fees for the second and third tiers of picture manager (all pretty worthless features, much less expensive and more reliably found from third party service providers). In addition, Bill Cobb said, "There are no changes for eBay Stores fees.", which you will see further along in this article, was a blatant lie on Mr Cobb's part. Despite the unannounced fee increases made to the store listing fees, TAG also expects an increase in store subscription fees, probably in the May/June time frame.
You can see the fee increase announcement at -http://www2.ebay.com/aw/core/200601181327302.html
What ebaY failed to mention, was that there were fee increases they did not tell their sellers about. TAG wonders if these fee increases, which probably border on the illegal, and violated ebaY's own user agreement, were even too sleazy for ebaY to mention in public, or if ebaY felt they could slip them in without anyone noticing. Once word got out and they were questioned about it, they would have probably used their old, "it has always been that way, we just didn't enforce it" line, or some other excuses, complete lies all, that seller's have the invoices to prove. Fortunately erudite TAG subscribers did notice the fee increases, and let us know about them.
There are two sets of ebaY increases, that ebaY failed to mention, or blatantly lied about. The first increase ebaY forget to mention, comes into play when a seller revises a listing to decrease the price of the item in that listing. In the past if the seller decreased the price of a listing, so that it took the listing into a lower fee category, ebaY would refund the difference. Just as, if the seller increased the price of a listing, ebaY would add the extra fee to the seller's bill. Now what ebaY is doing, is not refunding the difference in fees, in the case of a decreased price, but is still adding the increased fee when an item is revised to increase the price. This also probably applies to the reserve fee, when the change to the fee is based on a lowered reserve price. ebaY explicitly mentions, " Reduce the start price of your item. (You will not receive credit for the difference in your insertion fees.)" but does not address other fees, such as listing duration fees, or other items you might revise. See the revise your listing info at -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/edit_listing.html
For example, if you look at the fee schedule at -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html
If you start a listing at $59.99, the insertion fee would be $2.40. You then later revise it to $49.99. ebaY will not refund the $1.20 difference, they will keep it. But if you start an item at $49.99, you will be charged $1.20, and then later revise that to $59.99, ebaY will charge you the extra $1.20 to bring the listing fee up to $2.40.
The only place you can see this fee change is on the revise your listing page. But since that page is included in the user agreement by default (as are all ebaY's little back doors hiding information), ebaY will claim you agreed to this change by using their site. TAG argues that this is an illegal rule, keeping fees they are not entitled to, but until someone successfully sues them over this issue, or media attention shames them into a change, it will be the ebaY law.
The second fee increases were made in the stores, by removing the 60, 90 and 120 day listing durations. The only option now open to store users is 30 day and Good till Cancelled (GTC). All the listing upgrade fees are now charged every 30 days, and that change causes increases that range up to 300% (depending on duration) for those who previously used 60/90/120 day durations. The fee increases are shown as follows:
Gallery was 1 cent for 120 days and now costs 1 cent each 30 day period
Listing Designer (see note) was 10 cents for 120 days, and now cost 10 cents for each 30 day period.
(Note) No charge for listing designer for Blackthorne Basic, Blackthorne Pro, or Selling Manager Pro subscribers.
Highlight was $11 for 120 days, and now costs $5 each 30 day period.
Featured in Search was $34.95 for 120 days, and now costs $19.95 each 30 day period
Additional pictures were 45 cents for 120 days, and now costs 15 cents each 30 day period
Supersize pictures were $1.50 for 120 days, and now costs 75 cents each 30 day period
Picture Pack was $3.01 for 120 days, and now costs 76 cents each 30 day period
There is one price reduction, and that is for the Picture Show which was 55 cents for 120 days, and is now free
You can see the old stores fee schedule at - http://snipurl.com/n723
And the current store fees at - http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/storefees.html
Once again ebaY shows how willingly and blatantly it lies. When the President of North America, can post that there are no fee increases in stores, when there were increases, it shows how deeply corrupt ebaY and its management is.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
The Unannounced ebaY Fee Increase
The Unannounced ebaY Fee Increase
2 Mar 2006
On 18 January 2006, Bill Cobb, president of ebaY North America, announced a price increase for ebaY US. Of course, in the normal ebaY way, it was announced as fee adjustments, made to appear as if it was a minor increase, and that some fee decreases would mitigate the fact that ebaY has increased their fees every year, despite year over year record breaking profitability. As always, the business community looks at this and says that ebaY is justified in charging whatever the market will bear, but it once again puts the lie to ebaY's propaganda about being community based.
The fee increase went into effect on 22 Feb 06. The way the new fees were structured, ebaY reduced the fee on items listed at 99 cents or less from 25 cents to 20 cents, and increased the final value fee on the most common ending price level, an additional one quarter percent (.25%). They made some features free, including picture show and sales reports plus, and reduced fees for the second and third tiers of picture manager (all pretty worthless features, much less expensive and more reliably found from third party service providers). And though they did not increase the store fees, TAG does expect an increase in store fees, probably in the May/June time frame.
What ebaY failed to mention, was that there was a fee increase they did not tell their sellers about. TAG wonders if this fee increase, which probably borders on the illegal, was even too sleazy for ebaY to mention in public, or if ebaY felt they could slip it in without anyone noticing. Once word got out and they were questioned about it, they would have probably used their old, "it has always been that way, we just didn't enforce it" line, a complete lie that seller's have the invoices to prove. Fortunately an erudite TAG subscriber did notice, and let us know about it.
The increase ebaY forget to mention, comes into play when a seller revises a listing to decrease the price of the item in that listing. In the past if the seller decreased the price of a listing, so that it took the listing into a lower fee category, ebaY would refund the difference. Just as, if the seller increased the price of a listing, ebaY would add the extra fee to the seller's bill. Now what ebaY is doing, is not refunding the difference in fees, in the case of a decreased price, but is still adding the increased fee when an item is revised to increase the price. This also probably applies to the reserve fee, when the change to the fee is based on a lowered reserve price. ebaY explicitly mentions, " Reduce the start price of your item. (You will not receive credit for the difference in your insertion fees.)" but does not address other fees, such as listing duration fees, or other items you might revise. See the revise your listing info at -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/edit_listing.html
For example, if you look at the fee schedule at -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html
If you start a listing at $59.99, the insertion fee would be $2.40. You then later revise it to $49.99. ebaY will not refund the $1.20 difference, they will keep it. But if you start an item at $49.99, you will be charged $1.20, and then later revise that to $59.99, ebaY will charge you the extra $1.20 to bring the listing fee up to $2.40.
The only place you can see this fee change is on the revise your listing page. But since that page is included in the user agreement by default (as are all ebaY's little back door hidden information), ebaY will claim you agreed to this change by using their site. TAG argues that this is an illegal rule, keeping fees they are not entitled to, but until someone successfully sues them over this issue, or media attention shames them into a change, it will be the ebaY law.
Want more information on the Online Auction and Trading Industry? Go to -
http://www.auctionguild.com
2 Mar 2006
On 18 January 2006, Bill Cobb, president of ebaY North America, announced a price increase for ebaY US. Of course, in the normal ebaY way, it was announced as fee adjustments, made to appear as if it was a minor increase, and that some fee decreases would mitigate the fact that ebaY has increased their fees every year, despite year over year record breaking profitability. As always, the business community looks at this and says that ebaY is justified in charging whatever the market will bear, but it once again puts the lie to ebaY's propaganda about being community based.
The fee increase went into effect on 22 Feb 06. The way the new fees were structured, ebaY reduced the fee on items listed at 99 cents or less from 25 cents to 20 cents, and increased the final value fee on the most common ending price level, an additional one quarter percent (.25%). They made some features free, including picture show and sales reports plus, and reduced fees for the second and third tiers of picture manager (all pretty worthless features, much less expensive and more reliably found from third party service providers). And though they did not increase the store fees, TAG does expect an increase in store fees, probably in the May/June time frame.
What ebaY failed to mention, was that there was a fee increase they did not tell their sellers about. TAG wonders if this fee increase, which probably borders on the illegal, was even too sleazy for ebaY to mention in public, or if ebaY felt they could slip it in without anyone noticing. Once word got out and they were questioned about it, they would have probably used their old, "it has always been that way, we just didn't enforce it" line, a complete lie that seller's have the invoices to prove. Fortunately an erudite TAG subscriber did notice, and let us know about it.
The increase ebaY forget to mention, comes into play when a seller revises a listing to decrease the price of the item in that listing. In the past if the seller decreased the price of a listing, so that it took the listing into a lower fee category, ebaY would refund the difference. Just as, if the seller increased the price of a listing, ebaY would add the extra fee to the seller's bill. Now what ebaY is doing, is not refunding the difference in fees, in the case of a decreased price, but is still adding the increased fee when an item is revised to increase the price. This also probably applies to the reserve fee, when the change to the fee is based on a lowered reserve price. ebaY explicitly mentions, " Reduce the start price of your item. (You will not receive credit for the difference in your insertion fees.)" but does not address other fees, such as listing duration fees, or other items you might revise. See the revise your listing info at -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/edit_listing.html
For example, if you look at the fee schedule at -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html
If you start a listing at $59.99, the insertion fee would be $2.40. You then later revise it to $49.99. ebaY will not refund the $1.20 difference, they will keep it. But if you start an item at $49.99, you will be charged $1.20, and then later revise that to $59.99, ebaY will charge you the extra $1.20 to bring the listing fee up to $2.40.
The only place you can see this fee change is on the revise your listing page. But since that page is included in the user agreement by default (as are all ebaY's little back door hidden information), ebaY will claim you agreed to this change by using their site. TAG argues that this is an illegal rule, keeping fees they are not entitled to, but until someone successfully sues them over this issue, or media attention shames them into a change, it will be the ebaY law.
Want more information on the Online Auction and Trading Industry? Go to -
http://www.auctionguild.com
Saturday, January 28, 2006
ebaY = Convicted Thief
ebaY = Convicted Thief
28 Jan 2006
ebaY has been convicted by a court of law for theft. In the polite parlance of white collar business crime, instead of stealing, it is called patent infringement. But theft is when one person knowingly and illegally takes something that does not belong to them, and that is what ebaY did, and for which they have been convicted, guilty as charged.
When Pierre Omyidar first opened AuctionWeb's site on 5 Sep 1995, he allegedly had spent a weekend thinking up the programming code that allowed the auctioning of items on his site. If we give him the benefit of the doubt, we can assume that he failed to do what any inventor of a commercial product should do, and that is check to see if anyone had invented, and patented, the idea first. If Pierre had checked, he would have seen an auction process patent filed in April 1995 by someone named Thomas Woolston, and his company MercExchange. In 1995, it was not as easy as it is today to do such a search, so we give Pierre the benefit of the doubt that he did not know (or care - he was working for General Magic at the time, and probably subject to an invention agreement with them for anything patentable) of the patents existence, but the success of AuctionWeb, which changed to the name ebaY in 1997, would make knowledge of such patents important to the company.
With the growth of ebaY, and the company going public, auction and trading sites started to sprout like mung beans at a vegetarian restaurant. Moves made by ebaY in 1999, adding advertising banners tied to search, interfering with the auction ads already paid for by sellers, along with fee increases, caused seller rebellions and gave birth to a movement called the Million Auction March. This movement moved 2 million listings to Yahoo Auctions, making it a possible contender of note (action on Yahoo's part soon destroyed this advantage). This along with other's wanting to cash in on what appeared to be a goldmine, might have been the impetus for ebaY to get serious about researching the status of patents and see what kind of control they could get on the industry. It was early in 2000 that ebaY contacted Mr Woolston to see if they could buy the several auction and instant buy patents he had invented and registered, some before AuctionWeb/ebaY's launch, and some since.
Negotiations quickly broke down, very unsurprising given ebaY's arrogant attitude, and ebaY dared Mr. Woolston to sue them. Made of stern material, forged in the fire of service in the military and with the CIA, Mr Woolston, an inventor, electrical engineer and patent attorney, did just that. So far Mr Woolston and his company MercExchange, has won against ebaY in federal district court in 2003 for patent numbers 5,845,265 and 6,085,176, the instant buy patent (what ebaY calls buy it now) and a search patent that directly affects Half.Com. The district court would not let Mr Woolston sue for the auction process patent, and would not let him file an injunction against ebaY, shutting down the functions used by ebaY in the violated patents. The case then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (case 03-1600,-1616). This court ruled in 2005 and upheld ebaY's conviction on the instant buy patent, (5,845,265), said Mr Woolston could sue on the auction process patent (6,202,051), and allowed an injunction against ebaY to stop their willful infringement of Mr Woolston's patents,. This conviction is final as only the Supreme Court of the United States could overturn it, but ebaY chose not to seek such a losing appeal. Instead ebaY filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, (docket 05-130) to try to stop the injunction ordered by the US Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in March of 2006.
In the interim, ebaY has tried to insult, discredit and isolate Mr Woolston. ebaY has successfully demanded that the Patents and Trademark Office (PTO) review all Mr Woolston's patents ( a common acquiescence on the apart of the PTO in such disputes). So far the PTO has confirmed the validity of Mr Woolston's auction process patent (number 6,202,051), but TAG has no confirmation on the status of 5,845,265 or 6,085,176. ebaY has represented Mr Woolston as a liar, denying that ebaY ever negotiated with him for his patents, and claiming that Mr Woolston changed his patents to cover what ebaY was doing after the fact. As recently as the fall of 2005, when Mr Woolston and some other personnel from MercExchange were invited to attend a non-ebaY run conference of online sellers, ebaY President, Bill Cobb, threatened the folks running the conference that if the folks from MercExchange remained at the conference, he and the ebaY team would leave. The sellers running the conference did what they felt they had to, given ebaY's immature spoiled brat that thinks it is god attitude, and asked the MercExchange folks to leave. The MercExchange folks, being grown ups, left the conference without a fuss, leaving conference attendees to shake their heads at ebaY's adolescent behavior.
Information Sources
USPTO Patent Number Search -
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm
Supreme Court MercEx vs ebaY Docket
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/05-130.htm
US Court of Appeals decision PDF download
http://www.auctionguild.com/03-1600.pdf
Various people at MercExchange
ebaY SEC filings
28 Jan 2006
ebaY has been convicted by a court of law for theft. In the polite parlance of white collar business crime, instead of stealing, it is called patent infringement. But theft is when one person knowingly and illegally takes something that does not belong to them, and that is what ebaY did, and for which they have been convicted, guilty as charged.
When Pierre Omyidar first opened AuctionWeb's site on 5 Sep 1995, he allegedly had spent a weekend thinking up the programming code that allowed the auctioning of items on his site. If we give him the benefit of the doubt, we can assume that he failed to do what any inventor of a commercial product should do, and that is check to see if anyone had invented, and patented, the idea first. If Pierre had checked, he would have seen an auction process patent filed in April 1995 by someone named Thomas Woolston, and his company MercExchange. In 1995, it was not as easy as it is today to do such a search, so we give Pierre the benefit of the doubt that he did not know (or care - he was working for General Magic at the time, and probably subject to an invention agreement with them for anything patentable) of the patents existence, but the success of AuctionWeb, which changed to the name ebaY in 1997, would make knowledge of such patents important to the company.
With the growth of ebaY, and the company going public, auction and trading sites started to sprout like mung beans at a vegetarian restaurant. Moves made by ebaY in 1999, adding advertising banners tied to search, interfering with the auction ads already paid for by sellers, along with fee increases, caused seller rebellions and gave birth to a movement called the Million Auction March. This movement moved 2 million listings to Yahoo Auctions, making it a possible contender of note (action on Yahoo's part soon destroyed this advantage). This along with other's wanting to cash in on what appeared to be a goldmine, might have been the impetus for ebaY to get serious about researching the status of patents and see what kind of control they could get on the industry. It was early in 2000 that ebaY contacted Mr Woolston to see if they could buy the several auction and instant buy patents he had invented and registered, some before AuctionWeb/ebaY's launch, and some since.
Negotiations quickly broke down, very unsurprising given ebaY's arrogant attitude, and ebaY dared Mr. Woolston to sue them. Made of stern material, forged in the fire of service in the military and with the CIA, Mr Woolston, an inventor, electrical engineer and patent attorney, did just that. So far Mr Woolston and his company MercExchange, has won against ebaY in federal district court in 2003 for patent numbers 5,845,265 and 6,085,176, the instant buy patent (what ebaY calls buy it now) and a search patent that directly affects Half.Com. The district court would not let Mr Woolston sue for the auction process patent, and would not let him file an injunction against ebaY, shutting down the functions used by ebaY in the violated patents. The case then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (case 03-1600,-1616). This court ruled in 2005 and upheld ebaY's conviction on the instant buy patent, (5,845,265), said Mr Woolston could sue on the auction process patent (6,202,051), and allowed an injunction against ebaY to stop their willful infringement of Mr Woolston's patents,. This conviction is final as only the Supreme Court of the United States could overturn it, but ebaY chose not to seek such a losing appeal. Instead ebaY filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, (docket 05-130) to try to stop the injunction ordered by the US Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in March of 2006.
In the interim, ebaY has tried to insult, discredit and isolate Mr Woolston. ebaY has successfully demanded that the Patents and Trademark Office (PTO) review all Mr Woolston's patents ( a common acquiescence on the apart of the PTO in such disputes). So far the PTO has confirmed the validity of Mr Woolston's auction process patent (number 6,202,051), but TAG has no confirmation on the status of 5,845,265 or 6,085,176. ebaY has represented Mr Woolston as a liar, denying that ebaY ever negotiated with him for his patents, and claiming that Mr Woolston changed his patents to cover what ebaY was doing after the fact. As recently as the fall of 2005, when Mr Woolston and some other personnel from MercExchange were invited to attend a non-ebaY run conference of online sellers, ebaY President, Bill Cobb, threatened the folks running the conference that if the folks from MercExchange remained at the conference, he and the ebaY team would leave. The sellers running the conference did what they felt they had to, given ebaY's immature spoiled brat that thinks it is god attitude, and asked the MercExchange folks to leave. The MercExchange folks, being grown ups, left the conference without a fuss, leaving conference attendees to shake their heads at ebaY's adolescent behavior.
Information Sources
USPTO Patent Number Search -
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm
Supreme Court MercEx vs ebaY Docket
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/05-130.htm
US Court of Appeals decision PDF download
http://www.auctionguild.com/03-1600.pdf
Various people at MercExchange
ebaY SEC filings
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