Hey AS,

It was a nice try. The sad part is that I'm sure the sellers were complaining about your auctions.

I would have placed one, but I'm fighting to get my MSG back on Ebay so I can communicate with members.

I guess it is time to write our congressman and senators in the USA. Ebay is doing nothing about this problem.

I'm confused here.... I've seen plenty of ads on eBay selling "digital information". Intangible goods. "Secrets to getting a free iPod" or something, where the seller offers to send an email document. Why doesn't your ad fall under that category? Have you checked the guidelines theyre referred you to?

AlbertaSatellite wrote (View Post): › I am not going to jeopardize my Ebay account any further. I am pulling all these auctions. No one else has stepped up to assist on this. EDITED TO ADD: about 2 minutes after I received the below email from Ebay, I received another one threatening to remove my Powerseller status for "non-performance" Dear alberta_satellite, We appreciate that you chose eBay to list the following auction-style listing(s): 140072666337 - BEWARE 4GB MP3/MP4 PLAYER SCAM - SOFTWARE TOOL/GUIDE However, your listing was in violation of eBay's No Item policy and has been removed from eBay. All fees related to this listing have been credited to your account. We also notified members who placed bids on the item that the listing has been canceled. We would like to take this opportunity to let you know what part of your listing is not permitted. Your listing(s) contains the following information: !!!BEWARE!!! - 4GB MEMORY MP3/MP4 PLAYER SCAM ***Check your player with this software tool and guide!*** Many or all the MP3/MP4 players listed here with 4GB of memory actually only have LESS THAN 1GB OF MEMORY!!! There are thousands of people ripped off every month, paying a higher price for these players, believing them capable of storing 4GB. Once you try and store more than 1GB, the player will corrupt your files. If you use the format tool or Windows to reformat the memory, you will quickly discover that the player actually has less than 1 GB of memory. The flash memory in these players is the highest cost part. So leading potential buyers into believing they are getting a player with 4x the memory of other players for the same price is the bait that many people fall for. ALSO - many of these players have a worm or virus on the software that comes with the player, or stored on the player! So PLEASE take some time and look through the feedback for sellers, and watch for negative feedback for exactly this problem. Contact me for more information about this issue. I can supply you with website addresses to read more details. All proceeds from this auction go to relisting this item. Listings not offering an item or service for sale are not permitted on eBay. Listings that do not offer an item clutter the site making it harder for buyers to find and sellers to sell items. Furthermore, these listings undermine trust in the eBay marketplace. For more information on No Item visit the following Help page: http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-no-item.html IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you relist this, or any other item that violates eBay policy, your eBay privileges could be suspended. We value you as a member of our community and wish to continue this relationship, so we must ask you to refrain from further violations of the User Agreement and eBay policy. Please review eBay's Listing Policies and User Agreement at the following locations: http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/policies.html http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/user-agreement.html For more information on why eBay removes auction-style listings, or to write to us with questions, please review the following Web page: http://pages.ebay.ca/help/confidence/listing-ended.html We thank you in advance for your cooperation. Regards, eBay Trust & Safety

michiganjfrog wrote (View Post): › I'm confused here.... I've seen plenty of ads on eBay selling "digital information". Intangible goods. "Secrets to getting a free iPod" or something, where the seller offers to send an email document. Why doesn't your ad fall under that category? Have you checked the guidelines theyre referred you to?

I asked, Ebay gave me the usual BS story as shown below.
I am NOT going to give up on this. I am going to open a different sellers account, and try again. This time I will offer a CD, then winners will be giving links to download the software and guide as an alternative to the CD if they wish, plus links to websites including this one.

===============================================
We realize that there are times when you may have additional questions.
When your listings were removed by eBay, we sent you a Removed Listing Notice, which explained why we removed your listings and provided
helpful information about eBay's policies and guidelines. Should you
have further questions or concerns, please review the information below.

To ensure that eBay remains a safe and fun venue to buy and sell, all
listings must meet certain guidelines. When a listing does not meet
these guidelines, eBay may have to remove the listing early. For more
information on why eBay removes listings please visit:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/confidence/listing-ended.html

eBay may remove listings when the item or listing potentially infringes
a third party's copyright or trademark, is prohibited on eBay, or when
the item or listing otherwise violates eBay's listing policies.

Here we go:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270079211751

AlbertaSatellite wrote (View Post): › Here we go: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270079211751

Wow, that's a great ad, man! VERY convincing, very to-the-point, well detailed, great evidence! That was actually going to be my next suggestion, to put it on a CD. Except I didnt see the problem with selling information asyou did, like I said, I've seen plenty of ads do that (unless they changed the rules to where you couldn't sell information unless it was on media??). I STILL don't see what problem they had with your ad, how it violates policy. If it was me, I would MAKE them tell me exactly, SPECIFICALLY what their problem is, instead of having to make me guess by giong through pages of various policies! Seems like they want you to guess...

michiganjfrog wrote (View Post): › I STILL don't see what problem they had with your ad, how it violates policy. If it was me, I would MAKE them tell me exactly, SPECIFICALLY what their problem is, instead of having to make me guess by giong through pages of various policies! Seems like they want you to guess...

The "problem is" probably pressure from scammers selling those players. I just watched a number of the auctions finish for these 4GB scam players. Average sell price is about $52USD. So Ebay makes about $3.28USD per each sale, plus $2.06USD for Paypal fee. So about $5.34 per sale.

It appears that at a minimum, just the 4GB players are selling about 1 a minute. That's $1440 an hour, or $34,560 a day, over $1,000,000 a month

JUST on the 4GB players, never mind all the 1GB or 2GB players.

Goodness me, we wouldn't want to jeopardize revenues like that, now would we???

I agree 100% with AlbertaSatellite.

Ebay & Paypal do not care about people and ONLY care about their revenues.
I opened a dispute against blown-z and they were not helpful. I paid for the hacked???MP3 24 days ago and I guess that the seller was so busy that he forgot to ship it and the people from ebay know that fact (blown-z wrote to me telling me that he FORGOT to deliver it).
My points are: ebay knows about the sale of these hacked MP3 because they have many complaints and they KNOW ABOUT THE MISLEADING descriptions, from these masters of lies, in their ebay sales: if you want your money back they require the buyers to PROVE the scam spending a big deal of money out of their pockets.

Albertasatellite is right with the math and the super combination of ebay and these defrauders.

AlbertaSatellite wrote (View Post): › - Not contain any specific brand names or keywords unless the listing is offering the item in question.

This was in the message to you from eBay. I can't believe someone didn't pick up on it.

eBay states that its a violation for a listing to contain any specific brand names unless the listing is offering the item.

Scam Sellers call the fake mp4 players Nano's, IPods all the time and but don't offer the nano, ipod item in the listing. They change the name to iNano or uNano, and yet still there is no nano in the listing - nano is a regristered trade mark of apple inc.

i hope you saved the original message or otherwise your message is hearsay and not admissible. but if you did save the message from eBay, you've just caught them violating their own policies and the evidence is those listing that state the word nano but dont offer it.

I'll bet when eBay see's this... wait for it..... yep.... here it comes - one of their lawyers just got fired !!!

ashley_rb wrote (View Post): › AlbertaSatellite wrote (View Post): › - Not contain any specific brand names or keywords unless the listing is offering the item in question. This was in the message to you from eBay. I can't believe someone didn't pick up on it. eBay states that its a violation for a listing to contain any specific brand names unless the listing is offering the item. Scam Sellers call the fake mp4 players Nano's, IPods all the time and but don't offer the nano, ipod item in the listing. They change the name to iNano or uNano, and yet still there is no nano in the listing - nano is a regristered trade mark of apple inc. i hope you saved the original message or otherwise your message is hearsay and not admissible. but if you did save the message from eBay, you've just caught them violating their own policies and the evidence is those listing that state the word nano but dont offer it. I'll bet when eBay see's this... wait for it..... yep.... here it comes - one of their lawyers just got fired !!!

DAMN!! BUSTED!! I missed this too, but this is the KEY to force eBay to shut down all those scammer's auctions! I've never actually seen any of them use "iNano" or "uNano"! No, they use "Nano" and "iPod" in their auctions! And even if they say that it isn't a Nano, according to what we read above, eBay has to close their auction for violating policy!

You (AS) would be in the best situation to complain, since they pulled your ad for violating policies, and it would show "unfair practice" if they neglected to pull all chipod auctions that contained the registered brand names "nano" or "ipod". So if complaining about the seller selling hacked players doesn't work for them, the "nano" complaint has to!

Now we know why they didn't specify exactly why they pulled your auction! They don't want you knowing the "loophole" (that they pulled it because you complained about sellers selling hacked "nano" clones!). Knowing that the word "nano" violates policy means one could use the same tactic to force ebay to pull all nano clone auctions people complain about containing the word "nano"!

Hey people!

I'm new here, & found this place looking for a solution to the 4GB Scam! I was wondering what other genuine ebay sellers are doing.

I'm relatively (absolutely) new to selling on eBay. I invested in chipods, with a view to selling them both in retail on ebay, and in wholesale / dropship mode. While the wholesale mode seems to be fine & picking up, I am stuck in the retail section.

At the time when I bought these players, I was confident that there was no possibility of a loss, (as my costs are probably one of the lowest in the US) I thought that in the worst case, I could easily liquidate my investment by selling at cost.

Now, with the Flash prices down almost 25% in the last 45 days + the very big problem of the scammers, I see where I am headed!

I'd like to share some of my thoughts on this problem & get your feedback.

1. Alberta - that's a great idea! I just bid on that auction. I don't need the CD etc.. please just use the money to relist. (I could use the feedback
2. Let us all genuine sellers bid on different auctions by mp4_scam_buster & fund this campaign.
3. I would also like to cross-promote mp4_scam_buster listings on my store & listings. Could someone please tell me how to do that? I suggest we all do this.
4. I would like to commit 1 dollar from every sale I make, to fund this campaign. I just calculated, that we need about $170 a day to have one of these listings end every 5 minutes. Any other ideas on how to raise this money?
5. I saw a "Black List" here.. what about a "White List" ?
6. How about "certification"? Suppose if all sellers send a sample to say "michiganjfrog', and ask him to review & certify the product, then he posts that review on a separate website. Then we (sellers) could put a logo of the certification, with a link to the review in our listing. the 'review' website could then further offer more information about the Scam, and links to other sites, "Black" & "White" Lists etc. I was just trying to figure in ebay's links policy if this could fit into their policies. Anyone have more idea?
7. michiganjfrog - Great guides there - I gave my vote! The genuine 4GB players are now available. I myself am shipping wholesale lots to my customers since last week. These use 2 x 2GB chips. The 4GB chips are also now available in the chinese component market, but the 2x2 combination works out cheaper. I think we should also have the genuine 8GB (with 2x4GB chips) in the next few months.

HubbleMart wrote (View Post): › Hey people! 5. I saw a "Black List" here.. what about a "White List" ?

Yes, there was talk here of a whitelist. Around that time, I added a (rather small....) whitelist to my fake Nano eBay guide. (I'd have liked to have included a longer black & whitelist, but the space limitations of eBay and the fact that I can no longer edit the guide prevented that from happening).

Quote: › 6. How about "certification"? Suppose if all sellers send a sample to say "michiganjfrog', and ask him to review & certify the product, then he posts that review on a separate website. Then we (sellers) could put a logo of the certification, with a link to the review in our listing. the 'review' website could then further offer more information about the Scam, and links to other sites, "Black" & "White" Lists etc. I was just trying to figure in ebay's links policy if this could fit into their policies. Anyone have more idea?

Hi HubbleMart. Your name sounds familiar to me.... I must have seen it on eBay. As an independent 3rd party who is not an eBay seller (well, not of chipods), I think I would be in a position to qualify for your certification program idea, and I could be objective in doing so (and I would, if it gets off the ground). I don't know if I commented on the certification program but I read about it, and I think there were a number of good ideas hashed out. I like the "smart logo" idea that prevents scammers from stealing the logo in the eBay ad. Sellers can pay a small fee for the certification to help pay for the program.

That should get things sorted out as to who is the good and who is the bad sellers (because look at how many poor "future suckers" dont yet realize that its ALL sellers selling 4GB+ nano clones and other chipods....). Even if I had the time to warn them all, eBay wouldn't let me, it randomly(?) prevents me from responding to bidders or even queries in my inbox. My last warning was to a new US seller of 4GB iPlatinums name of "Red Dargon". I told him his goods had fake capacities and asked him to pull his ad, or I'd lodge a complaint with eBay and warn his buyers. He responded telling me he didn't believe me (not sure if he was sincerely misled or sincerely lying). I warned his top bidder who had bought the unit, and let me know that he was already worried about it being a fake, because he had since heard about the scam.

Quote: › 7. michiganjfrog - Great guides there - I gave my vote! The genuine 4GB players are now available. I myself am shipping wholesale lots to my customers since last week. These use 2 x 2GB chips. The 4GB chips are also now available in the chinese component market, but the 2x2 combination works out cheaper. I think we should also have the genuine 8GB (with 2x4GB chips) in the next few months.

Thanks for your vote. There are genuine 4GB Nano clones now? Uh-oh. Not good news! Now that f***ing scamming eBay Corp. can stop "pretending" that there may be some sellers selling true 4GB+ nano clones and point to the fact that there are, which will let eBay off the hook, more or less, in being responsible for the problem. It will also create even far greater confusion among buyers, as to what's a true 4GB+ player and what's a bogus piece of crap. Well.... enter the mympxplayer.org certification program then, I guess. It's the only thing I can see that could prevent people now from buying bogus players. Because the "eBay mafia" is certainly not going to introduce a certification program to help its customers from being defrauded, since they know how large the MP4 fraud program is. Reduce the income of the fraudsters and you reduce eBay's income. Reduce eBay's income and they'll find a way to break your f***ing legs..... (metaphorically speaking of course...).

Hey Michiganjfrog! Glad to know that we have your support! Any idea on how many actual chipod ebay sellers we have here on this forum?
Well, I have the same screen name on eBay, so maybe..

It is sad that the list of suckers is endless, and a new one is goind down every minute!

Though I am in not an ebay lover, and myself had a very tough time with them as i was trying to warn people about the Scam, & they suspended my account, and made me loose the entire christmas sale. But somehow, I still find it hard to believe that ebay would be in on this. Look at it this way - the scammers are contributing maybe about $20 million a year to ebay & paypal combined. This is only about 0.33% of ebay's revenues. They have much more to loose in the form of reputation than gain in this. Secondly, if the scammers were 100% stopped, ebay would not loose. The average selling price of the products would go higher, thereby generating more revenues for ebay. yes maybe 10 or 15% of people who are buying the fakes today, would not buy from ebay due to the higher cost, but I think in the end it would all even out.

Anyway, the point is that we should find a way to stop the scammers.

Alberta - I discovered that you can list in the ebay.in (india) website, and mark as 'ship worldwide' - in this case you could list for 35 cents, and it would still show up with gallery pictures in searches on ebay US & Canada. (although I am not sure in which category, because if you search MP3 or MP4 in ebay us, it forces you to go to the 'other mp3 players' category before showing listings). Listing in India will not however sho up with gallery images when searched from ebay uk or australia (also heavily infested with the scammers). ebay india also does not have any scheduling charges.
If you list in ebay UK, then is will show up in US + Canada with pictures, and I think also in Australia. UK is a little more expensive though.

Thought that maybe you guys might be interested to know that listings in eBay Singapore are free from insertion & final value fees. As very seldom do people buy stuff online, especially if the item is local, as we could get practically anything from shops nearby.

However, i'm not sure if the ad listed in eBay Singapore would appear when someone searches from example eBay US, UK, etc?

Would the ad still appear in the normal search results if the ad lists as shipping worldwide?

But i do know that the ad would appear right at the bottom, under the International Sellers section.

Perhaps those who are actively selling in eBay could answer this?

If it works out, the listing could basically be done for free.

HubbleMart wrote (View Post): › It is sad that the list of suckers is endless, and a new one is goind down every minute!

With the new true 4GB clones in production, seems like it might get worse before it gets better. You would think that eBay would smarten themselves up a little and not resort to waiting for the government intervention and class action suits to roll in, because greedy as they are, they don't seem to realize this scam is affecting their bottom line. I've seen the underthread of loss of faith from eBay customers who once had some faith in the eBay system, and are turning away from dealing with or buying on eBay because its no longer trustworthy and they dont feel protected. The worst thing for eBay is to be faced with massive rumours of an unstable unsafe marketplace.... which is happening I feel on account of this mp4 scam and other things.

Quote: › Though I am in not an ebay lover, and myself had a very tough time with them as i was trying to warn people about the Scam, & they suspended my account, and made me loose the entire christmas sale. But somehow, I still find it hard to believe that ebay would be in on this. Look at it this way - the scammers are contributing maybe about $20 million a year to ebay & paypal combined. This is only about 0.33% of ebay's revenues. They have much more to loose in the form of reputation than gain in this.

Well, you're the first I've heard who's saying eBay / Paypal isn't making that much money in the mp4 scam. I wonder how much it would actually be relative to... say, the cocaine trade? And if $20 mil (which still seems a little low from other guesstimates I've seen) is only .33% of eBay's yearly revenue, I wonder how long it will be before they can buy and sell the US government and others? Even more reason to be concerned!

I'm not saying they're "officially" in on the scam. I don't mean they meet in secret with the heads of the Chinese mafia in how best to organize the mass-scale fraud on the global consumer (of course, I have no proof that they don't...). But look at it this way: you said yourself they actually suspended you when all you were doing was trying to warn others in the so-called "ebay community" of this scam, and prevent them from being ripped off! If they put customers first, they wouldn't do that. Plus, suspending you, a seller, hurts their bottom line. Seems that's not a concern because they have a bigger bottom line... the money they're reaping from this scam. Why did they initially give the entire country of China free listing fees? Why didn't they instigate aggressive programs to stop the fraud after seeing a deluge of fraudulence on eBay due to the Chinese market opening up (it was a lot harder to buy fake Chinese goods before....). Seems the only thing they did was allow a few people to write eBay guides warning others of some of the fraud. Guides which you can't edit after a time.... (and who knows how many such guides they removed).

When a customer complains about being ripped off, eBay says on the one hand they don't get involved between seller and buyer... WHEN it is convenient for them to say so. When their sellers or bottom line is being threatenened however, they certainly WILL get in between, they do so in many instances. When AlbertaSatellite here tried to warn others about the MP4 scam, they pulled his ads and threatened him with suspension. Why? They didn't want to say, exactly. Preferring it seems, to have him guess so that they can justify going ahead with the suspension for next time, when he gets it wrong. I couldnt see a reason myself, since although he was selling "information in a digital form", I'd seen dozens of such "items" being sold before on eBay. I think we concluded it was because he used the word "Nano" in his ad, when he wasn't selling a Nano. Well, guess who else uses the words "Nano" and "iPod" in their ad? Yup, about 50,000 eBay sellers selling Nano clones.

There are all -kinds- of events that point to the fact that eBay is turning a blind eye to the scam. They give people the royal brush-off when they send letters to eBay, Meg Whitman even, complaining about the size of the scam, and the nature of it, pointing to the mountain of evidence that it is very real and very costly to consumers. My point is, they don't have to officially be "in on it" to officially profit enormously from the MP4 scam, and be "unofficially" in on the scam. They simply have to let it run rampant in their marketplace and do scratch all about it, letting the consumer be the one to protect himself. eBay purports (more like "lies") about people being safe if they stick to buying on eBay, and not engage in "unsafe practices" like dealing directly with a seller (thereby circumventing eBay's profits of the scam).

They say this in every message you send through their system. They even insist you have no choice but to buy a seller's product through eBay, and that you must use their email system. Well, if that's the case, then you would think that the least eBay would do to protect consumers is to stop ripping them off A SECOND TIME, by charging a $25US min. deductible for consumers who've been defrauded by products like MP4 players with less than advertised mem. capacities. If eBay makes so much money as you allege, then all the money they make can certainly be put toward paying for their own processing of fraud claims, instead of making a FURTHER profit off the consumer for the processing of fraud claims. Particulary since they admit by their own words they have an underfunded fraud investigation dept. (For a company who makes so much money, fraud does not appear to be a top priority...).

To my mind, the second part of The Great MP4 Scam is the fact that very few people, even those who've been scammed, are thinking in terms of eBay not simply doing nothing to prevent the scam, but ACTUALLY BEING PART OF THE MP4 SCAM TRADE. But since eBay have been made aware of this major problem and have reacted with indifference, who's to say that they are not taking advantage of the defraudation of consumers, whether directly or indirectly?

Quote: › Secondly, if the scammers were 100% stopped, ebay would not loose. The average selling price of the products would go higher, thereby generating more revenues for ebay. yes maybe 10 or 15% of people who are buying the fakes today, would not buy from ebay due to the higher cost, but I think in the end it would all even out.

If in one second you took out all of those listings that contain fraudulent MP4 players (I think "fraudulent" is a little more accurate than "fake", because "fake" implies they're just copies of the Nano and everyone knows that!), well a major portion of the listings would disappear. Could this be evened out by the higher sales figures for the proper non-fraudulent items? I argue that it wouldn't. And I'll bet that eBay has probably already worked that out in their accounting dept. and figured that it wouldn't either. As I have said before within these pages, and probably in my eBay guide, it would be VERY EASY for eBay to instantly eliminate most of the MP4 fraud in a second. At least up until recently, that is.

All they have to do is disallow any Nano clones over 2GB, just as they did with human hearts and such. They're not doing that, arguing that you can't know whether such players contain 2GB or 4GB+ memory, and anyway, they're not experts on MP4 players and simply don't know. It's called "pretending to be stupid". I pointed out in my eBay guide that yes you CAN know which Nano clones are fraudulent and which are not. You simply have to look at the ones that say "4GB" or more. I also pointed to the COMPLETE LACK OF EVIDENCE that there are any 4GB+ Nano clones on the market, and to sites like this that have documented evidence these players are fake, and no evidence that any of the 4GB+ Nano clones have that much nand flash.

I also argued that given this unique situation, it should be up to the sellers to PROVE that their players are indeed 4GB+. Instead of eBay/Paypal asking every decent, honest consumer who got ripped off by EVERY ONE OF THESE 4GB+ Nano Clones, to pay for "professional verification" and prove it to eBay/Paypal. Has eBay pulled all the 4GB+ auctions since publishing my guide-slash-exposé? Nope. Which leads us back to the evidence that they don't want to, for the sake of greed.

Quote: › Anyway, the point is that we should find a way to stop the scammers.

There's been many good ways to do so, talked about here. But note that we're not just fighting the scammers, we also have to fight eBay at the same time, because they're on the side of the scammers more than they are on the side of the consumers or even the good sellers. For example.... you can go to a lot of trouble to design a certification program of your own (without eBay's input) for sellers to show consumers that they are dealing with a seller who doesn't sell fraudulent players, complete with certification logo. Then big bad eBay Corp. can come along, notice all these logo's on peoples pages, and tell you to can the logo or get booted off their system. They've already done that to Paypal competitors in the past, not allowing certain logos or methods of payment.

Sure, delete my post. I was trying to find some way to fund my "BEWARE SCAM" auctions, other than paying out of my own pocket. Consequently, I won't be relisting the BEWARE SCAM auctions.