Discovered a shady practice on ebay

[AZcraig]

I have bought a lot of items on ebay and assumed that a high number of ratings with 100% positive is a gold standard. Then I noticed a Rolex on ebay at a competitive price with a seller showing 217 ratings and 100% positive.

Next, I looked at the ratings details and saw 96 ratings in the last 30 days. Another good indication. I looked through the list of ratings "as a seller" and checked to make sure that there were high dollar items on the list. I don't want someone who usually sells Beanie Babies but now is selling a $50k Rolex.

What caught my eye was the discrepancy between the number of seller ratings (5 total) and the 96 ratings in the last 30 days mentioned earlier. So I go over to the ratings as a buyer and find 91 ratings, all positive of course, most of them are from one seller. In fact those items range from $1 to as low as 6 cents (with free shipping no less).

So this Rolex seller has stuffed the ballot box to get a high number of positive ratings. I have no idea whether the Rolex is genuine or even exists, but I would never deal with someone who is this dishonest.

Ebay listing 160840815563

[mrbill2mrbill2]

This has been going on since ebay started.

[Rockrolex]

I don't know. He's got a fair number of positive feedbacks as a seller of high end watches. He's probably trustworthy. But if you don't want to buy from an e-bay seller, that's fine.

[crowncollection]

seems to have moved into watch selling lately, i would fly to wherever the watch is if it was a platnuim model worth that much i was buying, when your talking that type of money go and get it and have it checked at the same time is my advice.

[GlobalGooch69]

he is a good friend of mine named akiva. he lives in NY and i meet up with him every few weeks to talk watches and do business. he is 100% legitimate and a good friend of mine, he is just breaking into the watch business. give him a chance he is honest and owns all of these watches. if anyone has any questions about him or the account feel free to call or text me at 617-602-5446. akiva is as honest as they come. thanks!!

[GlobalGooch69]

on his site alone i sold him the two tone ceramic gmt, unworn G daytona, SS daytona panda dial and the RG daytona everose dial. thanks.

[jcd]

I bought my first Rolex about 2 months ago from an ebay seller. Lots of Rolex sales, 100% positive feedback, 1000+ in fact. I gave him a "best offer." He called me and we chatted and agreed to do the deal off ebay. Fine, I've done that with cars before. Trying to avoid the ebay fees. But when I got the watch, it wasn't the one pictured in the ad he'd posted. It all checked out with my AD and I got the watch at a great price, but still. Lesson learned for me. I wish I'd have known about this site prior to my purchase. I'd rather have bought from a trusted seller here than deal with this.

[MoBe]

Anything to do with eBay must undertaken with extreme caution regardless of the information to the good,there are too many scam artists out there giving everyone a bad reputation unfortunately.

[Andad]

Originally Posted by AZcraig

I have bought a lot of items on ebay and assumed that a high number of ratings with 100% positive is a gold standard. Then I noticed a Rolex on ebay at a competitive price with a seller showing 217 ratings and 100% positive.

Next, I looked at the ratings details and saw 96 ratings in the last 30 days. Another good indication. I looked through the list of ratings "as a seller" and checked to make sure that there were high dollar items on the list. I don't want someone who usually sells Beanie Babies but now is selling a $50k Rolex.

What caught my eye was the discrepancy between the number of seller ratings (5 total) and the 96 ratings in the last 30 days mentioned earlier. So I go over to the ratings as a buyer and find 91 ratings, all positive of course, most of them are from one seller. In fact those items range from $1 to as low as 6 cents (with free shipping no less).

So this Rolex seller has stuffed the ballot box to get a high number of positive ratings. I have no idea whether the Rolex is genuine or even exists, but I would never deal with someone who is this dishonest.

Ebay listing 160840815563

You need to evaluate your findings in more detail.

[azguy]

Shady practice on E-Bay........no way...............

[watchf]

Below is my experience as a seller (although you are considering the watch as a buyer). The thing with ratings on ebay is that its worth nothing, its flawed. An ebay user who does dodgy scams as a buyer will still have good ratings as the scammed victims (Sellers) are unable to left negative feedback. I had an incident on ebay with a 100% (over 100 positive feedback) buyer who tried to do a scam on a high value item, although he was unsuccessful in the end but it wasted alot of my time.

I no longer participate in any high value transaction on ebay and certainly would never ever use paypal for any transaction of high value. Honest seller vs dodgy buyer situation, the seller always get the bad end of the stick using ebay and/or paypal. Ebay is a good place for buying low value miscellaneous items (socks, clothes etc.) but is a very very risky place for selling valuables.

My last comment will be for you to consider getting your Rolex from one of the trusted sellers/members here instead of risking it on ebay.

[Andelain]

I've bought 2 Rolexes on ebay, and both are legit. But I did my dilegence by posting both here before and after the sale to be sure. I've seen what you're talking about though, most recently after I contacted someone with no feedback about some nice wind chimes he had listed. He refused to send me a pic of them, but went and 'bought' some feedback.