Ebids Future? Safety, Security

[djpleasure]

I would love to see Ebid kick Ebay in the ***** and take a lot of business from them, but sadly I can not see that occuring. Not because of Ebay being established longer and actively advertising in the media, but simply due to security issues.

All auction sites have an element of risk I guess, but on Ebid their are no safety nets so to speak, so buyers often get ripped off, or money taken but no goods, yet there is little that prevents this here. I have only made one purchase here, and I am having hassle with that already, procedure is not as simple as fill in item number and request users contact details, that would sure be a help. I personally will no longer be purchasing here until there is some peace of mind, for buyers, I guess sellers would want the same.

[damian_steele]

You are still covered by all the same laws which apply when you shop in the High Street. If you have a problem with a transaction you should first try to resolve that with the other party, and then if necessary, you can contact the police.

Are you saying that you wish eBid to add further legal rememedies to those already afforded to you under the existing laws?

Did you expect eBay to do that? In case you didn't know, users have no more protection when they use eBay than on any other site. Even the so-called protection offered by using PayPal often fails to come anywhere close to the hype which surrounds it.

In short, those taking part in electronic transactions of any sort must be aware that there is always a risk and must choose whether they wish to accept that risk or not.

[HannaHolly]

Fully agree with Damian.

I feel much more secure buying on EBID than I do on EBAY.

[Mark]

Escrow payments by PPPay.com will afford you the protection you wish. Money held in thirdparty until goods have arrived and the goods have been inspected.

[donkeyote]

At the risk of repeating myself, I think PPPay.com escrow should be made free, and then nobody would have a reason for not using it - then 99.9% of conmen would simply give up. Escrow could be a practically bullet proof way to prevent all fraud on Ebid, but only if the price is right!
It costs nothing to create a folder on a computer hard drive for each PPPay.com member, which is called 'Escrow', into which money goes, but can't be taken out by the recipient until the buyer receives their goods and unlocks it.
If escrow was made free, and this was strongly advertised and fully integrated into Ebid, I would bet that PPPay.com payments would go up by a factor of ten, twenty, or even more. Any dodgy looking auctions could immediately be sussed out by simply asking the seller if they are willing to take 'PPPay.com Free Escrow', at no cost to them or you. If they say no, don't buy from them.

The other thing that I think Ebid should do, is offer members the chance to have their address verified by post - sellers and buyers could pay a one off fee of £1.50 to have a letter generated by Ebid, which would contain a PIN, and posted to their registered home address. (The same address as their credit card or debit card is registered to, which presumably they need to use to sign up - I can't remember as I joined Ebid so long ago!) The letter would cost Ebid about £1.00 max. to print, put in an envelope, and post. (I'd do the envelope stuffing job for 50p a letter! Even at 30p a letter, you'd still earn about £18.00 an hour if you did one a minute.)
Then when the buyer or seller receives their letter, they simply enter their PIN to prove they live at that address, and then they would get an 'Address Verified' logo next to their username (or some other way of displaying this, like a coloured border or something, as long as it was clear to all users.)

Users could then click a button on any Ebid page to choose 'Verified Ebidders Only', which would display only auctions by address verified sellers, and you could also only allow address verified members to bid on your items if you chose. (Like Feepay allows you to have an 'immediate payment by Paypal' option for your auctions).

There could also be a button for 'Escrow Accepted Only' auctions, so you could view only auctions for which the sellers accepted PPPay.com Free Escrow (if such a thing came into existence).

These two things would reduce fraud to such a huge extent that it would massively increase both the number of successful auctions, plus the number of users in general. I see these two things as a win-win solution to the problems of fraud, and lack of sales here, but every time I suggest this, nobody seems to reply or to even have an opinion on it. Am I going slowly nuts?

[brassedoff]

There is another site that makes all members with less than 10 feedback at least offer escrow (securpay) as a method of payment, its then up to the buyer if they accept or not. Its not cheep however £2.95 minimum or 5.9% of the total inc P&P! but at least the option is there.

I think the more people that successfully use escrow the more popular it would become especially if it was if not free then affordable, the £0.99p fee at the moment is very good for the protection you get if you are spending say over £15.00 but for low value items it’s a bit much. Agree with donkeyote here free or a few pence for low value items but then a charge for greater value items perhaps.

[donkeyote]

I think it would actually be possible for an auction site as established as Ebid to make all of its auctions escrow only, and for buyers to pay the money to Ebid itself. I would think that most buyers would feel far safer sending money to a big company like Ebid, than to an individual unknown seller. Ebid could easily offer free escrow and do this, and then fraud would become virtually non-existent, sales would go up hugely, and everybody would be happy. On Feepay, I would estimate that 80% of sales are paid with Paypal, and even Paypal can't be bothered to offer an escrow function, even though it costs them absolutely nothing to do this. For some strange reason they'd rather allow thousands of scammers onto Feepay, and then pay the unfortunate buyers insurance for goods they never received - why not just offer free escrow and get rid of 99.9% of the problem?
Now, maybe I'm wrong about all of this, and there is some cost to providing escrow that I haven't seen yet, but I'm not aware of any.

[tamglasgow]

Great idea!
Why doesn't ebid be the first totally secure online auction by being escrow only?

I think it would actually be possible for an auction site as established as Ebid to make all of its auctions escrow only, and for buyers to pay the money to Ebid itself. I would think that most buyers would feel far safer sending money to a big company like Ebid, than to an individual unknown seller. Ebid could easily offer free escrow and do this, and then fraud would become virtually non-existent, sales would go up hugely, and everybody would be happy. On Feepay, I would estimate that 80% of sales are paid with Paypal, and even Paypal can't be bothered to offer an escrow function, even though it costs them absolutely nothing to do this. For some strange reason they'd rather allow thousands of scammers onto Feepay, and then pay the unfortunate buyers insurance for goods they never received - why not just offer free escrow and get rid of 99.9% of the problem?
Now, maybe I'm wrong about all of this, and there is some cost to providing escrow that I haven't seen yet, but I'm not aware of any.

[chanel5]

At the risk of repeating myself, I think PPPay.com escrow should be made free, and then nobody would have a reason for not using it - then 99.9% of conmen would simply give up. Escrow could be a practically bullet proof way to prevent all fraud on Ebid, but only if the price is right!
It costs nothing to create a folder on a computer hard drive for each PPPay.com member, which is called 'Escrow', into which money goes, but can't be taken out by the recipient until the buyer receives their goods and unlocks it.
If escrow was made free, and this was strongly advertised and fully integrated into Ebid, I would bet that PPPay.com payments would go up by a factor of ten, twenty, or even more. Any dodgy looking auctions could immediately be sussed out by simply asking the seller if they are willing to take 'PPPay.com Free Escrow', at no cost to them or you. If they say no, don't buy from them.

The other thing that I think Ebid should do, is offer members the chance to have their address verified by post - sellers and buyers could pay a one off fee of £1.50 to have a letter generated by Ebid, which would contain a PIN, and posted to their registered home address. (The same address as their credit card or debit card is registered to, which presumably they need to use to sign up - I can't remember as I joined Ebid so long ago!) The letter would cost Ebid about £1.00 max. to print, put in an envelope, and post. (I'd do the envelope stuffing job for 50p a letter! Even at 30p a letter, you'd still earn about £18.00 an hour if you did one a minute.)
Then when the buyer or seller receives their letter, they simply enter their PIN to prove they live at that address, and then they would get an 'Address Verified' logo next to their username (or some other way of displaying this, like a coloured border or something, as long as it was clear to all users.)

Users could then click a button on any Ebid page to choose 'Verified Ebidders Only', which would display only auctions by address verified sellers, and you could also only allow address verified members to bid on your items if you chose. (Like Feepay allows you to have an 'immediate payment by Paypal' option for your auctions).

There could also be a button for 'Escrow Accepted Only' auctions, so you could view only auctions for which the sellers accepted PPPay.com Free Escrow (if such a thing came into existence).

These two things would reduce fraud to such a huge extent that it would massively increase both the number of successful auctions, plus the number of users in general. I see these two things as a win-win solution to the problems of fraud, and lack of sales here, but every time I suggest this, nobody seems to reply or to even have an opinion on it. Am I going slowly nuts?

The AV besides the user id is address verified, meaning their address they gave ebid and the address on their credit/debit card matches, but that proves nothing to ebid, as I was Av and yet they presume I have two accounts, two different address and two different names, being myself a female and the other one a male, god knows how they do their homework.

[donkeyote]

That's why I think it would be much better if Ebid would send out a letter to members' home addresses with a PIN, and then at least to begin with, Ebid would know where they lived.
The introduction of free escrow, and a 'view escrow only auctions' option, would get rid of 99.9% of fraud on here, and would (I think) really increase sales and trust. How many people have not bid on an item because they don't think they can trust the seller, and they have no protection?
If escrow was made free, Ebid would be taking a huge amount of extra money through PPPay.com, and presumably they earn interest on money that is sitting in people's accounts, so they can't really lose.
If Ebid became the first online auction site to offer this, they would be offering something that Ebay will never offer its customers. Ebay is currently such a mess, with its huge number of 'get rich quick' auctions, wholesale sellers lists, pyramid schemes (just try buying a real Ipod and see how many 'Ipod for £25' 'auctions' there are on there...), pirated software, music, games, videos, etc. and no way to report any of this easily. Couple that with their woeful customer 'service' - i.e. they're a multimillion pound company, but take at least a day to reply to any e-mail you send them, and never read what you actually write, and never write a real response, they just cut and paste something from the 'Ebay book of answers', and you have a company who are asking for Ebid to take half of their customers away.
The big difference between Ebid and Ebay is that Ebid are not out to screw their customers - I've never once felt cheated, ripped off, overcharged, or not listened to, by Ebid.
Oh, and Ebid looks much, much better than Ebay does - Ebay's still stuck in the dark ages as far as web design goes! And I can't wait to see what the new version of Ebid looks like too!

So how about it Gaz and Mark - is it possible to offer free escrow? This would be the best thing since sliced bread as far as online auctions goes.