It didn’t even draw the 1st bid..

They start it out at 3 Million Dollars.. Geez.. Just because a deadbeat bid THREE MILLION DOLLARS in an insecure eBay free-for-all, on a high profile item like this, don’t mean there is Real Money at that number!

I would have started it out at a BUCK! Put a 3 Mil reserve on it, and let em all play! That way the seller would get a good idea what the collection was worth – and if the auction didn’t reach the reserve, the seller didn’t have to sell it, or negotiate a legitimate second chance offer.

And how about some Real Photos of what the buyer gets?? Not every piece, but enough photos to give the buyer a visual in his/her mind of what they receive for the money!

Looks like someone made money putting that crappy listing together – and of course eBay got paid for the listing – the poor seller just got it up his rear end!

Contact me if you really want this collection sold..  I can get you a check!!

Saying it was tired of waiting for eBay to fix a security problem on its platform that has existed for years, German Internet watchdog group Falle-internet.de Translated Page gave a demonstration of how scammers are using flash files embedded into eBay auction pages to gather members eBay account info.

Ina and David Steiner, publishers of auctionbytes.com conducted the same test and got the same results, you can view there report here.

I have screen captured the Falle-internet page in case it gets taken down, you can view it here in our screen capture archive. Please see the file dirinfo.htm for instructions on viewing long image files.

I have been reporting this serious breach of eBay security for at least 2 years, And anyone that keeps up with eBay’s Sloppy Security knows it as well. eBay is quick to point the finger at Romania, China, and other foreign governments, but the fact is that eBay is too cheap to secure there own servers! This US-CERT Advisory was issued in April 2006! So eBay does know about this security breach!

eBay would rather intimidate and black list websites that expose their security vulnerabilities, rather than fix the problem! Fall-Internet was intimidated last year when it showed screen shots of Vladuz’s hacking utilities that Vladuz posted on one of eBay’s discussion forums. eBay promptly tried using the FBI in an intimidation letter to their web host!

Since when has the FBI had jurisdiction in Germany??

It is really interesting how Vladuz got even with Scott Noyce who sent the above email to Falle-Internet’s web host, By Hacking NOYCE’S eBay Account – and posting his Personal Account Info on his ME Page! I guess what comes around – goes around!

Looks like Vladuz crawling in through one of those eBay Security Holes!

You can see all of Doc’s Vladuz Screen Captures Over Here!

Nothing like looking at eBay through Rose Colored Glasses, Huh..

This vulnerability has been reported on by The Register in 2005, then again in 2006.  I also did a good write up with lots of screen captures here and here.

I sincerely doubt they will fix this vulnerability unless it gets to major media. It’s a shame, because it’s down right scary just surfing eBay!

Speaking of Vladuz, He has been pretty quiet – It’s about time for him to pay eBay a visit..

eBay continues to lie about censorship on their community forums. Those of us that frequent the eBay discussion boards know well about eBay’s famous pink slaps.

The pink slap is the common term used when a eBay users posting or whole thread is pulled from the forum, and the member receives a nasty gram from the forum moderators. “I just got pink slapped“. Get 3-4 of these and you could get sentenced to the “pink poky” a posting ban can be anywhere from a few days to a permanent posting banishment.

I once got a 30 day sentence for posting a link to a private discussion board i set up for a few friends. We were so tired of getting slapped silly by eBay’s moderators i came up with the solution.

That brings me to the topic of this posting.

In this article on pcmag.com. “EBay denied that any forum deletions were intentional. If any posts were taken down “it was accidental,” the spokesman said. “We’re not afraid of hearing from our community and allowing them to post and discuss things and be angry on our boards.”

A long time eBay seller “emovieposter.com” had posted a thread saying he was fed up with eBay and was leaving! But guess what.. He got pink slapped! And the post which was 7 pages long was pulled! I knew when i first read it that it wouldn’t last long! eBay is indeed very critical of posts like this!

I have 4 other pages screen shot in our archive “Click Here” These images are in raw full size format. To view an image click on it, allow it to fully load, then if necessary depending on your browser settings, left click on the lower right corner to expand to full screen view. To save to your local disk, right click after an image has loaded and select save file.

This posting sure made eBay look bad when Bruce Hershenson announced to everyone he was leaving eBay to go on his own with his own auction site.

Those of us who are seasoned eBay forum users know eBay (with it’s Nazi Regime style of management) couldn’t let Bruce embarrass them to all the other sellers! Then Poof.. With one click of the mouse, that thread was history!

Bruce, I wish you well, and know a credible seller like you will do just fine on your own. There is indeed “Life After IT!”

Also see our newest posting 05/01/2008 on this subject The 2nd Boycott Begins – And Is There More eBay Numbers Manipulation?

The eBay discussion forums have been buzzing all weekend about phantom auction listings that would not accept bids.

There were strange looking seller ID’s like, SDC_PROD_9074_35 that came up in item search, but clicking on that sellers feedback number the seller changed to PCRUSH.COM registered on 02/28/2008 and now NARU. See example below.

Another interesting thing about the above user PCRUSH.COM is that it is against eBay policy to register a userid.com or userid_com, and i believe the system will not allow that if you or i were to try it.

It has been confirmed by Ina Steiner, of Auctionbytes.com that eBay has been running test listings during the boycott. eBay has been busy pulling these test listings and pink slapping board posters that discussed it.

There are a couple of threads left, one is here and here is another, there were a bunch others but eBay has pulled most of them, including this one “is eBay creating listings to boost totals look” that was 18 pages long, I have it screen captured here in our archive in jpg format. NOTE: This archive is in a folder on our server. To view an image click on it, allow it to fully load, then click on the lower right corner to expand it to fit your screen.

Here is a lot more info with the selling names and suggested listing totals on Event Horizon’s Blog. Also see www.companyexposed.com for more screen captures and other info.

It seems John Donahoe is doing an excellent job wreaking havoc on eBay even before officially taking office!! Read this Seeking Alpha blog article by Timothy Church, It spells it out quite well.

eBay has claimed the boycott has had little effect on it’s listings. But if they were using these thousands of test listings to skewer 3rd party listing stats generators like, Medved Charts and PowerSellersUnite.com it is outright fraud!

You can see the listings fall after the February 18′th start of the eBay sellers boycott. Then notice it starts climbing around the 21′st, in February’s Medved chart below.

And notice the spikes in Medved’s March chart below

These spikes seem to indicate listings being indexed and removed rapidly. Very similar to the Vladuz Hackings of last year. Just not as excessive.

Interesting isn’t it!

I’m wondering if eBay did indeed use these test listings to skewer the publics view of the boycotts effectiveness? I wouldn’t put it past them to pull a dirty rabbit out of the hat, every corporation has their dirty bag of tricks.

Seichiro an alleged eBay PR Spinner who works Yahoo’s eBay Finance discussion board even publicly stated that eBay had a contingency plan ready to be put in place if the listings dropped too far!

Meanwhile eBay has started running damage control – as this story is spreading across the net like wildfire.

I got into it with Seichiro last night regarding one of the sellers in the phantom listings. Another poster quantum_analyst pointed out how to tell is a poster is working for the corporation that he was pumping for, Seichiro never did answer his request. He must be a for real eBay PR Spinner.. And it was sure interesting that he knew about the contingency plan!

It is my suggestion to all the eBay boycotter’s.. Keep on boycotting eBay and all their subsidiaries! Do not List or Buy Anything On eBay! And keep it up until eBay gets rid of John Donahoe and the rest of the useless board of directors that are getting fat off of sellers and investors hard earned money!

UPDATE 03/03/2008: The official eBay announcement is: Some Shopping.com listings appeared accidentally on eBay.com over the past two days. This system issue has been resolved. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience this may have caused.

However on 03/01/2008, Ina Steiner posted an update on her blog, Usher Lieberman responded by email on Saturday, “This was a limited test that has run its course.”

eBay should keep their stories strait! First it was a test – then the system “issue” has been resolved!