ebay seed scams - why are they not stopped?

Posts

• Fire Posts: 19,096

  August 2018

  Ebay is just a platform, not a seller of anything. Like to many platform / algorithm-based companies these days, it has no idea who's selling what under the company's auspices.  As with FB, Amazon, Youtube etc, it works by following up complaints, in order to remove offending stuff.
  

  
  

  I have reported the selling of illegal plants, and Ebay do follow up and take it seriously. But if nobody reports things, the stuff just stay around. It's a rubbish, passive, shruggish kind of a system, that is the pointy end of the model of essentially unregulated free trade.
  

  
  

  I would not assume that anyone else is chasing up the rose seed scams, so, go for it. Be dodged, chase up Ebay and keep an eye over the long term.
  

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• Fire Posts: 19,096

  August 2018

  Caveat emptor... yes, but it's not really the basis on which a world economy should run. 
  

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• ZeroZero1 Posts: 577

  August 2018 edited August 2018

  I have complained, but Ebay is set up so you can't complain about multiple lots. A quick search brought up over 1200 offers, one for example was for a 'rare' black rose seed  with a picture of a rose with jet black petals - obviously a scam for the bargain price of £100. Buyers of course will not know wether their seed is genuine, even if they plant it, for many years, if at all. 
  I think Ebay needs to act these scams are legion - if they are aware they are promoting scams and they profit by them, they are culpable IMO. 
  
  https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw=multicoloured+rose+seeds&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR11.TRC1.A0.H0.X+rose+seeds.TRS0&_nkw=+rose+seeds&_sacat=0
  

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• Fire Posts: 19,096

  August 2018

  "I know that in plenty countries it is the basis of their economies."

  
  

  That makes it a disaster not a model to celebrate.
  

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• B3 Posts: 27,505

  August 2018 edited August 2018

  Sometimes these things are substituted en route, I've heard. But, wherever it happens, you're still left out of pocket.

  In London. Keen but lazy.

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• Fire Posts: 19,096

  August 2018

  Zero, I don't think you could argue with them about the price. It seems fairly standard practice to post, say, a packet of seeds for £1, £10, £100 and £500. The sensible person would pay £1 but the gullible, rushed, foolish, rich or unwary would pay £500. I see this kind of thing done for all sorts of products from shampoo to  pillow cases. The same bar of soap offered by the same seller for £2 and £150 just in case someone out there is half asleep.
  

  
  

  It's interesting that the linked company says "we do NOT accept any email/message note after you place orders." Unsurprisingly. Ebay would want concrete evidence that the seeds offered will not produce multi-coloured roses as featured. It's a case worth pursuing, I think .
  

  
  

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• ZeroZero1 Posts: 577

  August 2018 edited August 2018

  I have just found a way to report the whole scam - all the listings. I expect some BS answer from Ebay like "thank you we will look into this". The scams have been going on for years on ebay - with ebay making a nice profit from them. 
  There are over 12000 listings for rose seeds!! Many totally bogus. 
  
  Fire: I think selling ordinary shampoo for £500 is wrong, I do not accept we should just accept it
  
  This really makes me angry! 
  
  Maybe a subject for Gardeners world?
  I can see it now, the nice pics of wonderful jet black, green or multicoloured roses... but...
  
  

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• Fire Posts: 19,096

  August 2018 edited August 2018

  Sure, it's wrong. And yes, it would make a great GW investigation or the Beeb consumer shows. £500 for a bottle of Head and Shoulders counts as "boosting economic growth" and the govt is all for that.
  

  
  

  I got somewhere with the Ebay live chat function. At least it allows you to communicate immediately with a real person. Don't be fobbed off by generic policies, though. And it's not worth getting shirty. If they want hard evidence of intent, you would have to produce it.
  

  
  

  I think the need for evidence of wilful misleading would be tough to produce. The bods at Ebay are very unlikely to know anything about the details of rose production and could care less. When I talked Ebay about illegal plants they wanted to be pointed to the exact paragraphs of UK/EU legislation that outlawed the sales. Nothing less would do.
  

  
  

  It would be worth finding out where the ombudmen stand on these issues and the trading standard bods. Ebay and like would seem to break every rule in their book.
  

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• ZeroZero1 Posts: 577

  August 2018 edited August 2018

  They get back to me in 48 hrs. I have what my daughter calls my "incredible green hulk" which comes out of me with corporate BS.
  If you are of an age, you will know that there was a time when companies, particularly large companies were expected to transact without fraud. Alas no more, I had one patient, a vulnerable one with mental health issues, that took out a payday loan with a leading company (soon to go bankrupt with directors keeping their cash) interest rates of 5000 %. Tthey included a clause to say that if he missed payments they could clean out his whole bank account - they did. Leaving him without money for food or rent. Common practice these days - it's wrong wrong wrong

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• Lyn Posts: 23,190

  August 2018

  I have found the same Chinese sellers on amazon and given bad feedback so no one buys on there, you can’t do that with eBay, you just have to look and not buy from China. 

  Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 
  
  

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