Seller details of high-volume business sellers, mind you. With additional provisions to protect the privacy of individuals.
I generally agree with the law. Marketplaces like this have long been used as a front for scamming, and with the anonymity provided there are basically zero repercussions. If i am doing business with someone I want to know who I am doing business with, so that there is at least the possibility of taking legal actions. Now let's hope we'll soon see similar regulations for Amazon sellers, ideally with some way to prevent commingling inventory.
The only thing which stands out to me is the relatively low monetary threshold: $5000 might be a lot in revenue if you are selling something like second-hand clothing, but something like a single car or camera can easily put you over that limit already. The bill refers to "high-volume sellers", and defines that as a) 200 orders, or b) $5000. It does make sense to protect high-value sales too, especially considering that the information only needs to be disclosed to the marketplace at that point - providing the information to the buyer only needs to happen at $20.000 and at that point you are definitely a business - but it is interesting that they do not seem to explicitly state so.
>Marketplaces like this have long been used as a front for scamming
Commercial eBay seller here.
Honestly, it's been damn near impossible to scam someone via eBay (as a seller, at least) since around 2008, when they introduced mandatory PayPal payments by default. Managed Payments (rolled out during the pandemic) makes it even harder to scam as a seller.
There's still the perceptions that hang around from the early days, but buyer protections and reversible payment methods controlled by eBay themselves have successfully scared away the scammers. The only fraud you still get is friendly fraud from buyers.
> The only fraud you still get is friendly fraud from buyers.
I’ve been bitten by this. I thoroughly tested a PC part, packed it in original anti-static packaging, packed that inside of an excessive amount of packaging and a thick box, and then shipped it all via a well-tracked shipping method.
Buyer waited until a day before the end of the claim period and then insisted the part didn’t work. Wouldn’t cooperate with any debug questions so I grudgingly authorized a return. Buyer never returned anything, never even provided return tracking info. Yet he’s been escalating this to eBay and now filing a chargeback with his credit card company.
After less than 10 minutes with eBay support, they admit that this buyer has a pattern of doing this exact scam. Just follow the steps and provide the requested info and I’ll be fine, they said.
I’m blown away that they know a buyer has a habit of doing this, yet continue to let them operate on the platform. Losing the couple hundred dollars wouldn’t be the end of the world, but I’m deeply frustrated that eBay is so heavily tilted toward the buyer that someone can develop a pattern of fraudulent chargebacks and false complaints with apparently no consequences.
Support's right, you'll win the case. If they open a return case, they need to send the item back. Happens all the time to us.
>I’m deeply frustrated that eBay is so heavily tilted toward the buyer
Their answer to this criticism is that siding with the buyer by default creates trust, which encourages more buyers to use the platform and therefore increases sales volume for their seller. I'm honestly inclined to agree. I'd much rather lose 1% of our revenue each year to fraud and unnecessary returns than 50% through buyer hesitation because they're not sure their items will work or even arrive.
>Their answer to this criticism is that siding with the buyer by default creates trust, which encourages more buyers to use the platform and therefore increases sales volume for their seller. I'm honestly inclined to agree.
I'm not: it depends on the seller.
If you're a high-volume seller, then sure: a few bad transactions like this overall is the "price of doing business" because the popularity of the platform means you'll do much more sales volume, which more than makes up for a few shitty buyers.
However, if you're a low-volume seller who's just using Ebay to sell your old stuff, with only a very small number of higher-value items sold per year, then even a single bad transaction like this can ruin your profit and make it not worth it to sell on this platform. Personally, I'm much more inclined to sell high-value stuff via Facebook Marketplace, in-person only, because of this possibility. Add in Ebay's high fees and FBM is really attractive, but the problem is you're limited to people in your local area.
However, Ebay years ago decided they cared much more about the high-volume sellers than the regular Joes using it as a virtual garage sale venue, so this makes sense for Ebay and increasing their stock price. To be fair though, in my years of using Ebay as a low-volume individual, I haven't had many bad transactions, and have been able to sell off a lot of stuff.
> Support's right, you'll win the case. If they open a return case, they need to send the item back. Happens all the time to us.
Haha, this is optimistic.
I'm 99% a buyer (hundreds of items bought, and three items sold, and never again).
I sold a Mavic 2 Pro drone with 5 batteries. The whole process was a mess. Buyer complained that it didn't come with the CrystalSky tablet in one picture (that was only added after the buyer started bidding was requested BY the buyer, to show Flight Logs, was explicitly disclaimed as being a part of the package, and was not in the receipts I sent the buyer). After pointing out those details, silence.
Then, three weeks later:
"The batteries don't work."
"Any of them?"
"Nope. I want a refund."
Note that two of the batteries were less than 4 months old, still in warranty.
He then stated he wanted a refund of $800. Bear in mind, 5 -brand new- batteries would be $670.
No evidence was shown. I stated I'd like to get the original batteries back, as I'd be able to get them replaced under warranty or possibly repaired and recoup some of my money (I was skeptical there was -any- issue, but still, good faith). He agreed. I asked him to send me a message -on eBay- acknowledging that offering a partial refund was contingent on him sending me the batteries back and that he accepts me disputing the refund if not.
He does so.
Refund is sent (for about $700, to include his return shipping costs).
Less than an hour later I get a message, "USPS says they won't ship damaged batteries so I will not be returning them". (Like, 35 minutes. So what, you sat around waiting, and then the moment I sent this money you jumped in your car, got to the post office, had this discussion, got home, and sent me this message?)
I then suggest we meet in person to exchange them (I live a few hours away, not convenient, but still, $700...). He umms and ahhs, "How will I be able to prove that I gave them to you in person?". I suggest we do it in a police station (his local PD even welcomes people to use their lobby for CL, etc.). More umms and ahhs. "I need to contact eBay support to see if they recommend this." (eBay literally has a specific FAQ page describing how they recommend doing in person sales, and refunds, documentation thereof, and how they support it). But he ignores that and says, "I never heard back from eBay support so I'm not sure what to do". I point this page out again, and he goes silent.
I open a dispute. No evidence provided for damage/faulty goods (I'd asked for even a video of him putting a battery in the drone, to show it wasn't active - or putting one on a charger. Nothing.) Multiple instances of the buyer trying to show something/anything was problematic with the listing. Not abiding by agreement, refusing/avoiding any method of returning damaged items.
Overnight, no further inquiries.
"We have closed your dispute. Based on our review, the buyer is entitled to a partial refund for damage. He is also not required to return the damaged items".
So he ended up with a Mavic 2 Pro, with less than 20 hours flight time, 5 batteries, for in the order of $950, all told.
eBay is on the side of least resistance, damage or liability, financial responsibility to eBay, no-one else.
>The platforms also face the problem of banning someone only to have them open a new shop an hour later as someone new.
I think Ebay lets you screen buyers based on feedback, i.e. refusing bids from 0-feedback accounts. I could be wrong though. But this is one way to avoid this problem.
Funny thing about the feedback. It helps the buyer more than anything.
It became meaningless when you stopped being able to leave negative feedback for the customer. [1]
I remember having a discussion with customer support about this "You mean you will pull money from a sellers account and potentially cause financial harm based on accusations of a person with a 1 feedback when the seller has thousands of positive?" the answer "we cannot rely on feedback alone sir"
I slowly moved away from selling on ebay commercially at that point. Every few years I list a couple items (still have some inventory, or something to sell) only to have someone scam or attempt to scam within weeks. There seems at times the only "gain" the scammer gets is to cause a "loss" to the seller...not sure the end game though.
Selling a laptop on eBay, there were two bidders and one cancelled at the last minute after pushing the other way up. Other bidder then refused to pay, claiming they hadn't got their paycheck. I waited the mandatory time and then got on eBay support, they recommended using a setting that essentially banned anyone from bidding on my items who has a pattern of cancelling. Why this isn't the default is beyond me, or why eBay doesn't ban such buyers. The fact is these kinds of actions are abuse of the system: they can remove competitor's listings prematurely or make them unattractive to bid on, without any loss, and keep doing it.
I can see you being frustrated by your time being wasted in a failed auction, but why should you feel the other guy should pay a bid-up price?
I've buy a bunch of stuff on ebay auctions, but when I'm losing an auction and suddenly I'm winning because somebody cancelled, I just nope out of it, qui bono, could be the seller.
How did auctions handle this before Ebay? I imagine they had various rules for how to handle buyers flaking out.
The "bid-up" price reflects an automatic bid that you set in advance: you allowed the system to bid on your behalf, up to a specified amount. The other seller outbid your maximum bid, and then disappeared, but that bid was still your maximum bid. Of course, it seems unfair because if that bad buyer had never bid in the first place, the final price might have been much lower.
Honestly, I don't know what should be normal and proper here, which is why I asked the first question. Ebay's auction rules mostly follow pre-existing norms for auctions, but not entirely.
(A former commercial eBay seller here.) First, you can block a buyer from interacting with your store ever again. Second, you can leave a scathing review of the transaction and the buyer; if it's factually correct, eBay won't remove it, no matter how the buyer insists.
This eventually lowers the scammer's rating low enough to be a signal to other sellers. Such an account is either left to dust for a year or so, until the bad reviews go out of the rating-calculation window, or is replaced with a new account.
This works if you're a seller with some daily volume and selling experience. If you just want to sell a piece of your stuff at a random moment, you're at a higher risk, and are for a bigger downside if scammed.
But anyway, eBay's policies are stacked against the seller and heavily in favor of the buyer. I understand why it makes business sense.
> I’m blown away that they know a buyer has a habit of doing this, yet continue to let them operate on the platform.
Makes me wonder if it's more convenient to have known scammers with known records (unbanned accounts) and just refund sellers since it's a known issue, than to have unknown scammers with less certainty (new accounts) with uncertainty on whether the seller is trying to pull fraud.
> The only fraud you still get is friendly fraud from buyers.
Nope, I've had 3 different sellers run the exact same scam on me.
Each time it was an item not even close to as described -- e.g. damaged and used when advertised as new, an old inferior model different from the one advertised, etc. No problem, I can understand people make mistakes so I ask for a return and they send a prepaid label, I ship it back.
But turns out they've manually entered a totally different tracking number in eBay's system for the return label tracking info. I ship the item back but obviously it never shows to eBay as delivered or even sent in the first place, and there's no way in the user UX to correct the tracking info to the label you sent.
The only way to resolve it is to call eBay, except that's almost impossible because it has to be a callback initiated through a link on their website, and if you've called too many times before, they stop showing the link. (Turns out there's still a way to do it, clicking through several links in the support center, as long as you're not logged in so they don't know you're the one "using up" their phone support.)
Because the actual return label is in their message to me, a customer service rep eventually decides I'm right, they can manually see that label was delivered, and so they'll initiate a full refund but it will take several days. But every time, the refund doesn't go through. You have to wait a couple of weeks, call them again, explain the whole process again, and then the refund will go through on the second attempt. (All 3 cases, it required the second try.)
Three times, three different sellers trying to offload junk on me instead of the actual new item, and using this "wrong return label tracking number" scam so not only does it not get refunded but they get the original (albeit crappy) merchandise back too! Definitely a full hour of work to deal with eBay after each one to get the return fixed and actually refunded, and I imagine most people can't even get someone on the phone to do it. (Chat and messages simply didn't work or get responded to, or they were unhelpful autoresponses.)
I've lost out on buyer's protection through similar eBay shenanigans. I opened a dispute and the seller didn't respond. But that doesn't mean you win as a buyer. There's an additional step you have to take in order to claim your victory. Some arbitrary clock ran out by the time I noticed it was too late.
Yeah, buying anything 3rd-party through Amazon is basically like gambling, and I don't recommend it. Ebay is MUCH better and safer than Amazon 3rd-party: you can look at seller feedback easily and see if a seller is a trustworthy, long-time seller or not. Amazon is only good if you're buying from Amazon itself.
My "new" (and I don't claim this is unique at all) rule for Amazon is that I no longer buy 1) anything that goes in or on my body, 2) is a safety device (carabiners, rope, flashlights, etc.), 3) is a fire hazard (charging bricks, etc.), or 4) high counterfeit risk/low barrier (SD cards, etc., as I do wedding photography professionally).
And that's even from the "Manufacturer Store", "from Amazon". Still not worth the risk of co-mingling (which I'm skeptical even happens, even if Amazon says a seller can opt out of co-mingling).
There are easy ways to scam on eBay as a seller - you just have to know what is and is not covered by eBay's Money Back Guarantee for buyers and make sure what you are doing purposely deprives buyers of that protection.
Two examples that I've seen play out repeatedly in recent history:
List a pre-sale item that is 60-90 days out, with no intention of actually shipping anything. By the time the buyer realizes they've been had, it will be past the time they can file an eMBG claim and eBay will tell them "too bad."
Or list hot items like a Steam Deck or MoonSwatch under "Specialty services" or "Business and Industrial Equipment" instead of the correct category (again with no intention of actually shipping anything)...if some poor sucker doesn't notice and buys it any way, once again eBay will tell them "too bad" because those special categories are exempt from the money back guarantee.
Sure in both of those cases, buyers can resort back to a chargeback with their payment method, but eBay absolutely allows the scam to happen and typically does nothing on their side to prevent it proactively or assist the buyer after the fact.
And then of course there's the perennial favorite - send an envelope with a piece of paper to an address in the same zip code as the buyer so you have tracking with a delivery scan and any "item not received" claim will instantly be closed in the seller's favor.
> Or list hot items like a Steam Deck or MoonSwatch under "Specialty services" or "Business and Industrial Equipment" instead of the correct category (again with no intention of actually shipping anything)...if some poor sucker doesn't notice and buys it any way, once again eBay will tell them "too bad" because those special categories are exempt from the money back guarantee.
Back in the day, I knew people who'd make a fortune buying "Plam Pilot"s from eBay (because you couldn't edit your item title, and fuzzy search was not/barely a thing. They'd search out common typos, and buy and resell stuff that was just not getting any/many bids (this is before Buy It Now was a thing, too, though you might have guessed that from the Palm Pilot reference...)
It's super easy: provide a valid FedEx tracking number to the proximate area code that is eventually marked as delivered, address and content don't matter. That's it.
I ordered a drone, tracking showed 3 pallettes of 50lbs each, PayPal did nothing. If you're not the shipper, FedEx won't disclose the destination address despite having the tracking number and PayPal won't lift a finger no matter how often you tell them that's not your actually your zip code or that drones don't weigh 150lbs. Afaik it's FedEx specifically.
That's when I was done with PayPal. I was not happy when ebay introduced their own payment system with forced KYC but PayPal is worse.
The current scam on eBay is to provide a tracking number to the same Zip Code as the purchaser.
These tracking numbers are attached to the sale after the tracking number shows delivery.
By default eBay will close undelivered item cases because the tracking number shows the item was delivered.
Appealing the closed case is possible, but the link to appeal is difficult to find and the level of proof required is high.
I know because it happened to me and it took going to my local post office, talking to the postmaster, and getting the USPS internal tracking log. And that required convincing the postmaster I would not try to recover the package from the home where it was delivered.
I assured the postmaster that this was a scam, and it helped my post office serves an affluent zip code,
It was a ridiculous amount of time and effort for the amount involved.
This is not to dig on eBay. I still prefer it to Amazon. But that’s the scam you can use if you are so inclined.
Contrary wise, I ordered 8 of an item on eBay, and received only 2. The fact that the full FedEx shipping weight wasn’t enough for even 4, and that the box wasn’t physically big enough to fit the items (pictures provided in my complaint), didn’t dissuade eBay from declaring that the seller had “confirmed” that they had shipped the correct number, tough luck for me.
I experienced a similar thing from purchasing something from a fraud (realized what happened after I submitted payment) website that used PayPal for payment. PayPal refused to follow or investigate what I was saying and found. I had to get my credit card company to issue a charge back. They listened to me. I told them how to call FedEx with the tracking number and that FedEx cannot divulge the actual delivery address but they are allowed to verify if the package was delivered to a given (one's home) address. The scammers send a package with tracking number to an address in the same zip code and have people grab/pickup the package, or they have access to FedEx's system and can look up package tracking numbers. The size and weight of the packages won't make any sense for the dimensions of the item(s) purchased too. PayPal also refuses to close the PayPal account associated with the scam website!
Some older methods of seller fraud don't work anymore, but there are plenty of new ones that do.
I had a seller try to steal $20k from me-- and they told me right out that eBay wouldn't refund it. They were right.
In my case the seller sent an item which was ultimately delivered back to them (they seem to have intentionally munged the delivery details so that a delivery to me was never even attempted). The tracking however ultimately showed "delivered" and that's all eBay cared about.
I even got a phone recording of the seller admitting they had it back then demanding more money from me to send it again! Ebay didn't care. (Maybe the seller actually would have come through if I'd paid their ransom but I surely wasn't going to send more money to someone who was trying to screw me over)
Through extraordinary effort I even got the full detailed shipment history, including showing it going back to the seller's address (which AFAICT the shipper wasn't really supposed to give me but I basically spent a whole day at their offices). Ebay didn't care, they demanded a letter from FedEx corp on Fedex letter head saying the package wasn't delivered to me (even though you could just see that from the cities named in the online tracking-- it never even made it into my state). I couldn't find any way to extract such a thing from Fedex even with another trip back to their offices.
So ebay ruled against me, absurd.
Fortunately I was still within the window to reverse the charge on my credit card (though ebay wasted enough time that I almost wasn't)-- and the credit card took care of it.
Back to the topic: This law would have done nothing for me. I was already able to track down the sellers identity without difficulty-- but what am I to do with that? I could sue them at great cost with years of trouble and time and a substantial risk that I get nothing-- including my legal costs-- because they're bankrupt or vanish. Honestly I would have much rather spent my time and money suing eBay since at least there would be a possibility of recovery if I won.
My entire problem was ebay's pants on head stupid policy that regarded a package as delivered to me even when the tracking made it completely clear that it wasn't. I don't think the seller even had to lie to ebay: they simply had to respond "Here is the delivered tracking number: xyz".
> My entire problem was ebay's pants on head stupid policy that regarded a package as delivered to me even when the tracking made it completely clear that it wasn't. I don't think the seller even had to lie to ebay: they simply had to respond "Here is the delivered tracking number: xyz".
Yup. With apologies to the BOFH comics of old... "Click. Delivered. Close dispute. Clickety-click. On to the next one."
> Back to the topic: This law would have done nothing for me. I was already able to track down the sellers identity without difficulty-- but what am I to do with that? I could sue them at great cost with years of trouble and time and a substantial risk that I get nothing-- including my legal costs-- because they're bankrupt or vanish. Honestly I would have much rather spent my time and money suing eBay since at least there would be a possibility of recovery if I won.
A month after "losing" a phone a guy calls me from a couple of states away. "Hey, I bought a phone on eBay and it's apparently yours. If you got a new one through insurance, could you unlock it for me? I mean, I know it sucks, but you got a new phone and this way I am not getting scammed too".
Set of balls on him. I said I wasn't willing to do that, because how do I know he wasn't responsible for my phone being "lost"?
So we figured something out. He reached out to the seller, asked for a refund. Seller said "pound sand". I didn't know at the time, but the seller lived -very- close to me. He says to seller. "I am in contact with the legitimate owner of the phone. Refund me or he gets all your contact details."
Seller refunds.
Buyer gives me all his info anyway.
I check out his eBay page, and it's the most blatant case of selling stolen electronics ever.
Not just "broken/parts only". But 50+ MacBooks, most "missing charger/accessories", same with phones "no accessories included, as-is". I look at the listing for mine and the IMEI is on the page, to give the illusion of legitimacy. But the last two digits are transposed, so it's not valid. To a cursory buyer, "must be legit, or he wouldn't put the IMEI on the page", to me, who lost my phone, in the event I searched the IMEI, no results. All of the IMEIs were like this, last two digits transposed.
Call the police. "Hey, this guy is selling hundreds of thousands of stolen goods".
They could not care less.
"Well, he probably didn't steal them himself"
Uhh? Fairly sure that's still a crime, especially when it's obvious from your listings that you're covering that up.
"Not much we can do. Sorry."
Whatever. I resisted the urge to drive to his house and pour sugar and water in his gas, but only just.
> Honestly, it's been damn near impossible to scam someone via eBay (as a seller, at least) since around 2008
This is not true. Several sellers sent me broken version of a device I was looking for recently. In fact, it turned out that, for the device I was seeking recently, pretty much everyone who was selling around slightly (say, ~25%) below what I thought was the market price (for a used item!) was selling broken versions of it. The ones that were slightly more expensive actually worked.
You should see a button that says "Return this item" for your faulty product.
Click it, go through the prompts and complain that it wasn't as described. In the description field, write "broken". If the seller hasn't set up a proper RMA process, the system will automatically generate a return label. Once you lodge the return using that label, you win the case (regardless of hwo well the fault was described by the seller). The seller will also be billed for the label.
I'm aware, I already did that. And yes, I got my money back. That seems completely beside your "it's near-impossible to scam people since 2008" point though? Unless your position is "it's only a scam if it succeeds"?
There's a legitimate market for faulty electronics, which I personally participate as both a buyer and a seller.
People buying something without realising it's faulty is an expensive problem for me, as it inevitably means a return which is both time consuming and leaves me on the hook for postage both ways (return postage usually being a more expensive method).
If they're trying to scam with it, I doubt they'd get very far as it's extremely expensive and ruins your metrics.
It's great that you deal with faulty devices honestly. I sell my own share of broken devices too. The difference between us and these sellers is we're honest and upfront about faults, instead of trying to pass off broken devices as "tested and working". The fact that they instantly issue a refund without even a single peep suggests to me they know fully well what they're doing and that it's profitable for them. Regardless of whether they do this intentionally or just out of reckless disregard, whatever metrics are supposed to be getting ruined by this evidently aren't getting ruined enough; my experience shows the problem is clearly there.
To be honest wih you, I've been in the other seller's exact situation before. Just the other day, we sold a PS2 which had been serviced, tested and confirmed working.
The buyer received it, the disc tray would even eject at all. They opened a return request, sent it back and it turns out that the employee who serviced it hasn't properly reinstalled a small clip that holds part of the disc drive in place, which led to it collapsing internally during shipping.
Other times, we've had requests which were not our fault but simply not worth fighting. Why spend time, energy and money trying to convince someone to be a bit more patient waiting for their $5 item when you can just refund and ban them from future purchases?
Multiple times, I've been accused of all kinds of nasty things even when there's no fault or issue at all (and in 0% of cases, this has helped the buyer).
I think the average punter just seriously underestimates the difficulty of thoroughly testing second-hand goods.
Well your experience is not relevant to mine. My device didn't need a "thorough" test, literally turning the device on and testing its most fundamental functionality would've told them it's broken. No, mine did not have mechanical or sensitive parts like this that could've broken along the way, or anything like that. These were very clearly something they never tested. And no, they weren't $5, they were quite a bit more. And these were very clearly priced just enough below the actual working ones to entice you into buying them.
Of course it doesn't seem like you want to to believe me no matter what, which is fine. I'm not sure what the point of arguing to discredit my experience is. It just drains our energy to no end. I know what I see, and you know what you see, and that's basically all it is.
> Honestly, it's been damn near impossible to scam someone via eBay (as a seller, at least) since around 2008, when they introduced mandatory PayPal payments by default. Managed Payments (rolled out during the pandemic) makes it even harder to scam as a seller.
This seems like a fairly important facet of this discussion.
Fraud is much easier on Amazon since Amazon has product pages for multiple sellers. On eBay every seller lists their own products as a separate listing.
This means on Amazon you can be fooled into thinking that you are buying from Amazon, but in reality the product you are getting is from a random seller. What this tells you is that Amazon doesn't care about getting rid of scammers. They are part of the business model.
It’s plenty easy to scam people on eBay if you’re smart.
I collect movies - and eBay has sent me bootleg DVDs and box sets countless times. They’re pretty convincing - even with stickers on the shrink wrap - but they are bootlegs regardless (sometimes poor printing, single instead of dual layer discs, no copy protection, etc.). eBay almost always makes me send them back despite my evidence, so I unfortunately know someone else will get scammed next time, but what else can be done?
Counterfeit Nintendo 64 cartridges are also becoming very widespread. eBay also sent me counterfeit AirPods Pro once. Very convincing box and look and feel, but the atrocious noise cancelling was the giveaway. It even made the little AirPods pop-up on your iPhone.
This is fair - they don't fight counterfeits as well as they possibly could (and frankly never have. 15 years ago it was the same thing with counterfeits).
That's not normally what people are talking about when they mention online scams, though.
> it’s been damn near impossible to scam someone via eBay…
I got scammed by an eBay seller with thousands of transactions, and an almost faultless history. He shipped me a ‘brand new’ Punkt phone, but when it arrived it was in really bad shape: not only was it scuffed and scratched, there was about a year’s worth of call-history on it.
I made the mistake of contacting him first - and he immediately opened a complaint against me with eBay - meaning I was unable to leave a review of the sale (therefore his impeccable record).
In the end, because I had pictures and evidence of the phone having been used, next to screenshots of the sales page describing the phone as totally brand new, I eventually got my money back.
> This seems like an example of a scam not working on eBay
It did work, because even though I got my money back and returned the phone, the mechanics of the complaints process - and his immediate opening of an issue against me - meant that I was never able to warn others of his dishonesty.
This is a seller that had “100% perfect” transactions.
I bought a raspberry pi off eBay earlier this year for about $120. It was fried and didnt actually work and was able to return it for a full refund.
Seller was super nice - but I imagine the reason they were nice is because they didnt want me to make an extra report about them. They prob had to pay for the $10 I spent to ship it back (unless it comes out of eBay?) but either way they can try that 10 more times and try to turn a profit on an otherwise valueless item.
I've wondered before if there isn't a nice business for scammers on ebay where they buy high value broken parts for nothing then sell them and graciously accept returns from anyone who notices. Eventually the part lands on someone's shelf as a spare or for a delayed project and the issue isn't discovered until long after the return window.
I doubt this would pan out for a rpi-- too low a price relative to the cost of accepting a couple returns. But there are many items it probably would work for...
Can't you just also sell some random cheap crap (perhaps via drop-shipping) to pad the activity on your account and avoid having a bad rate of returns?
I dont know how much the user paid to get my pi returned - but it couldnt have been much. They are pretty light and fit in a small envelope. It wasnt rush delivery or anything.
I imagine if the rate of return was 80%, and eBay didnt ban you, youd make money (minus your time)
I disagree, I've been the victim of dropship scams before and despite it being strictly against both eBay and Amazon's TOS there's not even an avenue for reporting as a buyer. I've also definitely received used/returned items which were marketed as "new". I think the nature of scamming is changing, but there are definitely scammers
I'm assuming you're talking about situations where someone lists an item they don't have on eBay, then have it "drop shipped" from another seller on Amazon once it sells (or vice versa)?
If so, you might be interested to know the INFORM act requires sellers who meet the $20K threshold to disclose if a different seller is shipping the item and if so, if the buyer request, they have to provide the contact info for that seller.
"Whether the high-volume third party seller used a different seller to supply the consumer product to the consumer upon purchase, and, upon the request of an authenticated purchaser, the information described in clause (i) relating to any such seller that supplied the consumer product to the purchaser, if such seller is different than the high-volume third party seller listed on the product listing prior to purchase."
I know a lot of buyers have been frustrated with this kind of online arbitrage drop shipping for years and most of the marketplaces don't enforce their policies about it - it will be interesting to see if this helps curb the practice.
Yeah I don't understand how it's even possible to get scammed. eBay always sides with the buyer and refunds them if the seller doesn't do it first. In the extremely unlikely chance that a buyer somehow loses an eBay dispute, they can still file a chargeback with their credit card.
> The only thing which stands out to me is the relatively low monetary threshold
Which is typical for laws like this. Make the essence of the law something most people would agree with ("disclose high-volume sellers"), then define some ridiculous numbers so what the law actually means is disclose the details of anyone who does any semi-serious business there and doesn't just sell the odd used sweater.
Yes, it’s easy for a criminal to do that. However, then they escalate from simple marketplace fraud (which is very hard to prosecute) to committing wire-fraud which is not just a federal felony but also carries stringent punishment and is much easier to prosecute.
For evidence, see the trial of Elizabeth Holmes and SBF.
During different parts of my life, I’ve done real estate on the side, group fitness as an independent contractor and software development as an independent contractor (C2C) each time I went to nolo.com and registered an LLC that was recognized both by the state and federal government.
As I said in another post, I’ve set up a virtual mailbox for other reasons where all of my mail goes to. But they also sell business use cases. None of this is illegal. I had an EIN and reported taxes through it.
The GP's point is that if you do these things in conjunction with a scam, you're now ticking off more crime boxes that could increase the severity of a punishment. There are a lot of perfectly legal things that when done to commit a crime lead to someone breaking additional laws.
(See also: never mess with the postal service police.)
I have four eBay seller accounts. They require SS# and ID as part of managed payments, in addition to the EIN. There system didn't want to take the information on one of my accounts, even though it was valid, and they suspended payouts for a month. Got it sorted out eventually.
I don't know if this comment is a genuine question or one of those questions noting that any system could be defeated. I think it's genuine, but it still makes it hard to respond to. Anything I can say, you can rebut because it's not a 100% deterrent. We don't have rules because they work 100% of the time, but we also don't want to live in The Purge where there are no rules. Often the rules we've put in place make it more difficult to break the law and deter the vast majority from doing so.
It doesn't stop someone from doing that and there will always be ways around things, but it's not that easy. Virtual addresses should require a notarized Form 1583. Maybe some don't do what is legally required, but things have become harder. Yes, you can get virtual phone numbers and burner phones, but there's a reason why a lot of sites want SMS verification: most people won't go through the cost and effort of getting a burner (and sites can differentiate between VoIP/Google Voice and real phones). Yes, you can get an LLC and EIN, but that again costs money and spreads knowledge about your identity a bit more. Yes, maybe you can fake some stuff, but then how are you getting the money? Are you getting a check for "DefinitelyNotAScam, LLC", but you're not a member of that LLC so you can't cash the check? Yes, maybe some places will still cash the check, but we're now talking about lots of payments that are eating into your margins: LLC fees, registered agent fees, burner phone numbers, virtual addresses, shady check-cashing places taking a cut, etc. And if you need to get a new LLC/phone/address for each scam, you're really increasing the cost and effort. It also increases the surface area for mistakes. If you're looking to insulate yourself, the more places you need to register and do stuff, the more chances for mistakes, especially as people are starting out. More surface area makes it harder to hide - certainly not impossible, but harder.
Know Your Customer rules in banking haven't eliminated money laundering and other nefarious activities, but I'd guess that they've made them a lot harder.
Yea, it doesn't stop everything, but it does really change the money and effort required. Maybe you don't think it's that much money or effort, but it might be enough to deter a lot of stuff. How does the lock on my house deter theft? I've seen the LockPickingLawyer make short work of basically every lock. Why even bother with a lock when the lock can be so easily picked? Yes, I know that the locks on my home won't stop determined, skilled thieves. However, they do work well enough for their intended purpose. Will these measures work well enough for their intended purpose? I don't know, but it does seem reasonable to think that they could raise the cost and effort enough that it'll deter a lot of bad actors and leave platforms with more resources to handle what's remaining.
It's just hard to respond because you can easily say, "well, I know a place that will give out virtual addresses without a Form 1583 and I know how I could..." Yep, there are ways around things. I think this is more a debate about how much bad activity it will deter. That's kinda the situation with almost everything in life. How much will masks prevent COVID spread? How much will a lock keep my stuff from being stolen? How much will a semi-anonymous username-based system like HN prevent really bad stuff that some anonymous forms see? How much does email or SMS verification deter bad acting on platforms?
It's just hard to figure out what you're looking for in a response. Yes, it won't stop someone truly determined to get around it, but maybe it should give you the same amount of comfort that the lock on your house does - and most people don't leave their place unlocked.
So do you think the bill is worthless because there are legal workarounds and therefore we should give up trying to regulate online marketplaces? Or are you suggesting that the bill doesn't go far enough and that your suggestions should also be illegal?
He's addressing the first one, but I could read your comments as either way in which case there's two different discussions going on.
There is nothing the bill is doing that lets the customer know who they are buying from. If I want to hide my identity, I can obscure it using legal means.
This is just as useless as the GDPR that just added cookie pop ups across the web.
You have to provide government issued ID if you are a high volume seller that is a business and not an individual. There are also different rules about address disclosure for corporations. Per the blog post
> However, sellers that are not individuals (businesses) must provide a valid personal government ID on behalf of the seller (business) or provide a valid government-issued record or tax document that includes the business name and physical address.
I use 1Postal as my “virtual mailbox” now that my wife and I fly across the US six months out of the year and our “home” the other six months is a unit in a “Condotel” in Florida that we own that doesn’t accept mail.
It specifically shows up as a physical address for post office coding and lookup purposes and not a PO Box.
Setting up an LLC is also easy to do and relatively cheap using sites like nolo.com.
I’ve bought two cars on EBay that were more than $20K each, neither from a business. I felt like I could already get as much info as I wanted to go through with the sales (both of which went smoothly), so I’m not sure a single transaction of $25K (or even perhaps any amount) means I need this additional policy.
Single transactions the buyer is more likely to bother to go chase if they go sideways anyway.
For the same reason a lot of marketplace regulation exists in effective societies where markets are key to economic functioning.
A good marketplace develops consumer trust. Parasites will try to exploit that, creating bad experiences and diminishing that trust. But that is bad not just for the consumers getting scammed, but both the marketplace and society at large. It's also bad for society to have lots of money ending up in the hand of criminals, because they will then go do more crime.
And note this doesn't stop you from doing business with Joe Anonymous. You just can't do it on an online marketplace. But you can always just not look at the details if you want, so you can get the experience you seek with a little custom CSS.
"In addition, marketplaces would have to disclose a business seller’s full name, address, phone number, and email address, only allowing for some limited protections for home-based businesses."
You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
Well, yeah. That should have been required years ago. In general, you're not allowed to run an anonymous business. Arguably, it already was in the EU, under the European Electronic Commerce Act.
If Amazon doesn't like this, they can be the seller themselves, and take responsibility for product liability. They've fought that in court. They lost in Pennsylvania, appealed, and then paid off the plaintiff to avoid an adverse decision on the record.[1]
This was what I was thinking as well, the whole freight forwarded "fulfilled by amazon" thing where a "company" is none existent so that liability is not a problem (if anyone gets serious in their complaints the company goes "poof" and a new version shows up).
Animats is correct, ask yourself the other question "Do I need to be an 'official' company to do business as one on Amazon?" The answer is no, very little data has traditionally been required to be presented as a business on Amazon and that practice has been copied to Walmart, Newegg, and elsewhere.
All Amazon needed was for you to ship product to their warehouses, and a place for them to send payments. In the US there is something called a "DBA" which are initials for "Doing Business As" and you can register it with the county and then use that name to create a bank account. There were a number of tutorials out there about how to create a "company" where you wired money to some factory in China that would then drop ship your "product" to Amazon, set up a DBA and a checking account, and then create a bunch of ads for AdWords/Twitter/Facebook etc to sell your gizmo for 5 - 10x what you paid for it. Amazon handled all the logistics, you collected cash, and when your stock ran low you wired some more cash to the factory to send more product. Instant side hustle that brought in revenue.
There are literally thousands of these companies out there.
Because Amazon wasn't required legally to validate you were officially a business, they don't. This tries to plug some of that loophole with the trick that when you buy your product they have to tell you to whom the money is going. With that, a private investigator, and $10K you can often get to the individual involved. Now whether you can recover any money from them? That isn't really answered.
It just ups the risk for the "fly by night" vendors.
Do these vendors file a proper D/B/A name? A D/B/A name is not anonymous.
I have "Animats" as a D/B/A name. Filed the notarized statement with the county, published the required notices in a local newspaper, and paid the fee. The county publishes my name and address. Online lookup is available.
That's California, though. Some states let you use a D/B/A name without registering it.[1]
I just want country of origin listed somewhere. There's a big difference between shipping from Michigan to California versus Hong Kong and California. Shipping estimates have been really wrong since before the pandemic.
Maybe put flags next to brand nanes in filters? I don't recognize 90% of the brands on Amazon and that filter is useless to me, unless I could tell is was a domestic or foreign brand. Again, just trying to determine if I can wait 2 weeks or 2 months for things like birthday gifts.
Not sure why you are bringing up Hong Kong on this, most unknown brand names on Amazon are Chinese companies selling Chinese products marked up by 300% to Western customers who are unable to notice the red flags.
Then again, it is not so different for Chinese companies to register in US and continue their scam anyway.
I assume you’re talking about shipping origin? eBay lists shipping country and city of origin on the product page. You can even search by closest distance.
Craigslist doesn't act as an intermediary. They never handle the money. They just put you in direct contact with the other party. Amazon doesn't want customers and sellers to communicate directly.
and so does the seller here act as the “anonymous business” (OP’s words)? cash transactions w/o asking for ID or anything isn’t uncommon on CL. and there are CL users out there making a living from it (admittedly, they’re usually multi-platform sellers). at what point are such sellers breaking the law?
“ Also, the language in the bill continually refers to High-Volume Sellers. The bill defines such sellers as having at least 200 or more discrete transactions, totaling $5,000 or more in gross revenues over any continuous 12-month period during the previous 24 months.”
“Individuals that are high-volume sellers will only need to provide their name. However, sellers that are not individuals (businesses) must provide a valid personal government ID on behalf of the seller (business) or provide a valid government-issued record or tax document that includes the business name and physical address.”
“ There are exceptions to the contact disclosure requirement if the seller does not have a dedicated business address. That means sellers that only operate out of their residential home address or have a shared residential/business address will only have their country and state (if applicable) disclosed. However, shoppers will be informed that no business address exists for this seller and the only communication available between the two parties will be through phone (personal numbers exempted from disclosure – again shoppers will be told), email, or the platform’s messaging system.”
Literally all of the concerns you keep bringing up are addressed in the bill.
Whenever I see that rare consumer-protection or worker-protection law get passed in the US, I'm always amazed at how timid and gentle on corporations the law ends up being. I know I shouldn't be amazed but I still am. I read the bullet point list in the article and think "Wait, don't companies already have to do these sensible things?" When it comes to protecting the investor class, you get giant sledgehammers like SOX. When it comes to protecting the little people, they put on the kid gloves legislation and give the company a popsicle if they at least try to follow the law.
I think the sad fact, addressed in the article, is that the bill wasn’t going to pass without industry support. Oftentimes this means either a) limited recourse for failing to comply, and/or b) new barriers to entry to smaller organizations. While this bill is meek, it does seem to be purely a net gain, since the burden on businesses is low and it gives consumers an easier recourse in cases of fraud (since the collected information will now available directly or by a subpoena).
SOC was in response from Enron which impacted a lot of regular people. Enron bought up utilities that were often “widow and orphan”, boring stocks that were held for a long time by retirees. I knew a few people whose parent or grandparents lost everything when their ancient electric company stock turned into Enron, then rode to zero.
Minus a big story, people aren’t in favor of consumer law.
TBF, Sox is also protecting the little guy and it has the effect (for better AND worse) of increasing the cost of doing business (properly/legally). When regulating small businesses it’s important to be mindful of the overhead inflicted such that significant barriers aren’t being raised to business creation. Similarly, Amazon doesn’t advocate for $15 minimum wage out of altruism, no matter what your thought on the issue - they can afford to pay it whereas more local businesses would struggle and go under. Anti-competitive regulatory advocacy is a thing, so light touches in the SMB arena represent caution as often or more than regulatory capture.
It's pretty weird how they were able to not do this so far. Think about it: company presents shop front, sells you goods, handles the payment and instructs some nebulous third party to ship goods (or sometimes they ship them from their central warehouse). Goods arrive, or not, and quite frequently are either broken or in some other way deficient, not the article advertised or they don't arrive at all.
And then ... poof legal magic ... the company that presented the shop front and sold you the goods, handled the payment and probably instructed the nebulous third party says they have nothing to do with the whole matter and the nebulous third party - assuming they exist in the first place - disappears only to reappear a day or so later under a different name.
Either the company (Amazon, Ebay, Etsy and many others) should accept responsibility for any merchandise where they handle the transaction or they should get out of the loop and allow you to transact with the third party directly, so Amazon would only serve as the means of discovery.
If I use Google Shopping to search for something, all it does is redirect me to the actual retailer, there's no way to purchase from Google themselves. Retailers might pay for priority placement in the search listing, but that's the extent of Google's financial involvement in the transaction. It's not like I pay Google and they hide the details of the seller from me.
This is not true. I've encountered Google Shopping offering to checkout right on Google Shopping, where underneath they wrap the third-party transaction for you. They had some questionable sellers on there, were selling used goods, and they were even promoting it with discounts. It was probably a minor feature being trialed but the point is the line is not so clear.
I wonder how this will work for all the sellers based in China.
Sellers in China are indispensable for things like repair parts for 15 year-old laptops. Occasionally an obviously shoddy quality, and presumably using branding without license. But usually a genuine pull, genuine new-old-stock, or a sufficient-quality knockoff/aftermarket part that's worthwhile.
(Though I'll never buy any kind of flash media on eBay, ever again, and I'd love to have those counterfeit sellers shut down.)
There's also the occasional curiosity, like what looks like multiple seller accounts for the same entity, or claims that an item ships from HK but ends up shipping from Shenzen.
I wonder how they'll get valid seller identity info from the sketchier sellers outside of the US, where that might be harder to verify.
I have experience with these schemes. Usually ends up as “we were required to ask and document the answer, not to conduct thorough investigations of veracity.”
Oh, I could see that. In the US, for domestic sellers, I could see it having some positive impact.
(For work, occasionally I had to look into some sellers of diverted goods on various online marketplaces. The info from business names and addresses was helpful. And if it were fabricated/false info, there's a good chance that could be figured out, and the fact that false info was given would also be helpful.)
Will Amazon 3P sellers be subjected to this? It will be interesting to see how many of the made up brands like HORDUSY and ASCALFT are backed by the same parties.
If an AliExpress-ordered charger burns your house down, good luck getting any money from the seller based in Asia.
If a dropshipped charger burns your house down, the European ‘entity’ (usually just some dude in Europe making a buck) is on the hook, and either his legally required liability insurance makes you whole, or you can garnish his income for decades.
Haha, I try not to buy things that could burn my house down from there. Unless it's 3D printer parts ironically, but those sellers have somewhat of a reputation to maintain.
In America, we tend to have strict liability for product defects across the chain of commerce.
At least in California, that is established to include Amazon for Marketplace products, at least those that are FBA. Bolger v. Amazon, 53 Cal. App. 5th 431 (2020).
EDIT: Actually, that also applies to non-FBA, as well; Loomis v. Amazon, 63 Cal.App. 5th 466 (2021).
I just self-warranty and self-return AliExpress items into the garbage can. I assume that will happen ~10% of the time, which is much less than my savings.
Ok, I’ll admit, sometimes I warranty claim and get a refund.
What I like about aliexpress reviews is that they seem to mostly be by well-intentioned Russians evaluating purchases on a strictly technical basis. Ali’s auto-translation is sloppy but it’s nothing like the wasteland that is most Amazon reviews.
Presumably the distinction is between people who use eBay like a virtual garage sale (selling only sporadically) and people who use eBay as an ongoing source of income.
If you operate an LLC in the US, you need to have a mailing address listed. Perhaps a phone number too. I believe this information is typically made public.
No one said your business mailing address has to be your place of residence
Etsy can be a garage sale. It may be dominated by dropshippers at the moment, but the average person selling real DIY things on Etsy is not making anywhere near 20k/yr. You two must be very skilled at your craft to be able to do that within your first year, even if revenue != profit. Either that or you're selling a couple things that cost 10k+ to make (Which actually wouldn't count as high volume because you also need 200 sales)
20K rev divided by 200 sales is $100/sale. We dıd about $200-$300 on an margin of about 2%, we got like $1K profit, which considering how much went into "capital" as in buying tools and learning how to use them becomes very negative value.
In fact we went into black on our third year. And now this.
Okay, fuck Congress. Maybe I'll buy it and fire everyone just like Musk did with Twitter. :=/
I'm not sure anybody should care what Etsy is "about". What I'm saying, positively and not normatively, is that the distinction the statute makes is between casual sellers and people who sell as a recurring source of income. I'm really not sure what part of that you're trying to argue with here. You can not like that distinction, but you haven't rebutted that it is a meaningful distinction.
Both Etsy and eBay have sellers who use the site to, like, clear out their basements and workshops every once in awhile, or to get rid of an old piece of equipment when something newer comes along; the moral equivalent of the customers of a used record store. The distinction prevents those people from being inconvenienced; sensibly, because they aren't businesses.
There is a qualitative and quantitative difference between someone who runs a literal garage sale once a year to clear stuff out and someone who is running a garage sale every day, 365 days a year, buying product for the sole purpose of reselling it at their permanent garage sale.
Local regulation usually places a fairly arbitrary but still useful benchmark of 4 garage sales a year before you need a business license. At 4 per year and a max of 1 day per garage sale chances are you're not making tons of money. When my family would run their garage sales back in the day a hundred dollars would be a big day. It was more about clearing stuff out than trying to make money.
This is placing a fairly arbitrary but still useful benchmark of 200 sales or $5,000 in revenue in a year to be considered using this as a business. If you sell 200 distinct items I'll buy that it's a business. If you're selling $5,000 of merchandise, I'll buy that it's a business (or you're selling a used car or something of similarly high value).
Either way you're a business and need to start abiding by business regulations, including things like having a known address.
Actual Title: eBay, Etsy and Other Marketplaces on Brink of Having to Disclose Seller Details with INFORM Act ‘Hidden’ in 4,000+ Pages Federal Spending Bill Before Congress
The bill passed since publication and I changed "on Brink of Having to" to "Now Have to" (and trimmed the end to fit).
Not only will this give consumers a measure of recourse when they are ripped off by sellers, it will give vendors and manufacturers a clearer idea of which of their distributors and retailers are violating their vendor agreement. Those that wish to better enforce MAP and other terms of their agreement will have the information to do so.
Unfortunately, I'm guessing we'll find out many vendors prefer to be ignorant (and theoretically powerless) as long as they move units.
It remains to be seen with how much enforcement this will receive. If the remedy is that Amazon deplatforms the seller and just gets random, trivial fines now and again, this could be totally useless.
MAP enforcement is essential if brick and mortar retailers are going to stay in business. And MAP enforcement is essential for companies seeking to maintain brand value and integrity. I believe both of those things are good for consumers.
MAP is minimum advertised price. For instance in the old days lots of Herman Miller distributors sold online for a lot lower than what Herman Miller wanted them to so Herman Miller banned them from distributing their products. In the context of “brand integrity” the debate is usually about undercutting.
I am just concerned about the privacy implications we do not see yet.
I am also super confused by the definition of "high-volume"...
> any continuous 12-month period during the previous 24 months, has entered into 200 or more discrete sales or transactions of new or unused consumer products and an aggregate total of $5,000 or more in gross revenues.
I wonder if this creates an opportunity for "seller privacy" services to establish the minimum viable LLC, PO box, etc on behalf of sellers. Like domain privacy, but with more paperwork.
These services already exist and they a good way to have some privacy. However setting up LLC and then running the scam might not the smarterst idea in the world.
(OP) I'm reading conflicting articles on how available seller details will be.
Going by this quote from eBay, it seems that seller info will be very available: "And if you reach an annual total revenue of $20,000, we’re required to include your name (or company name) and full physical address in purchase confirmation emails and order details, but there are some exceptions." ref: https://www.valueaddedresource.net/what-sellers-need-to-know...
Lastly: A June analysis of IA considered how the bill's language will aid small minded autocrats seeking to unearth people they don't like. ref:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31743375
Earlier this year I took Etsy to the UK small claims court when a seller refused to accept a return (it wasn't a customised item, so returns are mandatory under UK law). I wanted to take the seller to court but Etsy refused to give me the seller's details.
Etsy argued two things in court:
1) I can't sue Etsy because my contract was with the seller.
2) I can't sue Etsy in a UK court because their terms and conditions say I must sue them in Ireland.
The judge agreed with me that it was ludicrous that they could refuse to give me the seller's details, while simultaneously arguing that I should be suing the seller.
The judge thought that #1 was such a serious violation that he disregarded #2.
Disclosing seller details is a great idea, but "disclosing buyer details" would be, too.
If you put an item up for sale on craigslist, you're fairly likely to have someone say "Your price is acceptable. My agent will pick it up tomorrow and give you a cashier's check."
There's a time window of a few days in which the bank seems to have accepted the cashier's check, but then they discover it's fraudulent, and by then you've already given away the item. If you fell for it.
And, then there are another 3999 pages in the bill. There aren't enough hours in the day to read all of these 4k-10k page bills to learn what they really say.
I am a long term MTG player. Sometimes I sell on eBay, about once per two or three years, because I get too many lowballs in other groups.
Last year eBay asked me to verify my identity because I was selling for $260. It was cringe, I had much larger buys or sales in 2000s but apparently their database don't even have the record anymore
Probably because the income thresholds for such things were heavily lowered in 2021. Previously you didn't need to include the sales on a 1099K until sales exceeded $20,000. It was changed to $600.
In 2020, I personally reported 150+ hijacked eBay accounts used to commit $160k+ in triangulation fraud against a company I worked for at the time - eBay did very little to help.
In February 2022, I collected about 80 reports from people who received 1099-Ks from eBay even though they had never knowingly created an account on the site - their PII (names, addresses, and in some cases even correct SSNs) were used to create fraudulent accounts that sold tens of thousands of dollars each with no vetting or verification of any kind by eBay.
And all of that is a tiny drop in the bucket.
I place a lot of the blame for where we are, and why this legislation ever came to be, squarely on the marketplaces.
They've known about rampant fraud and scams for years, could have put in stricter vetting and verification procedures, invested more in highly trained human powered Trust & Safety to deal with counterfeits and fraud etc. but for the most part they have done the minimum required to cover their own "assets" and nothing more...which still left room for a lot of consumer harm to be done.
While I don't think this will curb all of the fraud, like you said they will likely just jump to new accounts, having to produce actual documents to match the stolen PII may at least slow them down a bit.
eBay already collects most of this information for tax purposes as I’m sure you are aware. This will do literally nothing, fake scans and photoshop cost nothing. Something like Onfido probably would raise account creation costs a big amount but I don’t think this bill mandates that level of identity verification . Go on any sketchy forum even ones frequented by teenagers like marketplace section of mpgh or bitcointalk and you will find EBay with attached PayPal for only a couple hundred dollars.
There's a hundred ways to mask your selling identity, this law won't change anything except, as usual, placing more bureaucratic baggage on honest sellers.
I generally agree with the law. Marketplaces like this have long been used as a front for scamming, and with the anonymity provided there are basically zero repercussions. If i am doing business with someone I want to know who I am doing business with, so that there is at least the possibility of taking legal actions. Now let's hope we'll soon see similar regulations for Amazon sellers, ideally with some way to prevent commingling inventory.
The only thing which stands out to me is the relatively low monetary threshold: $5000 might be a lot in revenue if you are selling something like second-hand clothing, but something like a single car or camera can easily put you over that limit already. The bill refers to "high-volume sellers", and defines that as a) 200 orders, or b) $5000. It does make sense to protect high-value sales too, especially considering that the information only needs to be disclosed to the marketplace at that point - providing the information to the buyer only needs to happen at $20.000 and at that point you are definitely a business - but it is interesting that they do not seem to explicitly state so.