[morpheuskafka]

> Accepting that most fraudsters will just go 'free'.

I think part of the problem is that even if eBay is willing to spend a lot more money on this process, everyday buyers will blame them whenever something goes wrong and just stop using it altogether. Basically, they want to be seen as an alternative to Amazon and don't want buyers to ever think about risk. The sophisticated users are already aware of it and are very skeptical, but the newer users who never read or leave reviews make them money too.

[ghaff]

There are two sides to every fraud. So if 75% of suspected/accused fraudsters go free, on the other side is a ton of buyers/sellers who got scammed. And to top it off the word gets around that you can scam on eBay and almost certainly get off with it.

eBay can try to make people whole who claim to be defrauded. But in addition to being expensive that creates its own perverse incentives.

[sokoloff]

I have several hundred EBay transactions over the last 15 years, probably 99 buys for every sale.

In the past few years, EBay has gotten very good at being pro-buyer (which is good for me). I can think of 2 transactions in the last 3 years that were “enough not as described” for me to bother to complain. In both instances, the sellers immediately offered something reasonable and we all moved on with our lives. (I think both sellers were clueless as to the defects, being high-volume churners of resold tech.)

It might be the case that EBay is more buyer friendly than Amazon at this point.

[hellotomyrars]

This reflects my experience as well. Same with Paypal. As a buyer when I have had issues, those issues have all been resolved to my satisfaction after going through the dispute process.

I dislike Paypal as a company and they do a lot of shitty things but the benefit to me using their services is tangible.

Honestly even sites like Aliexpress and Banggood have always resolved issues to my satisfaction once a dispute has been filed.

[actually_a_dog]

Almost all fraudsters on eBay already go free, at least in certain circumstances. I have reported numerous, obvious fake items in categories I'm familiar with to eBay, and had virtually none removed.