A couple of years ago, I was looking to buy a Palm Tungsten PDA. I decided to look at Ebay. I found a deal that looked pretty good, but being a little concerned by the whole thing of 'if it looks too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true', I decided to check out the buyer a bit more. Chinese; okay that might explain the price (or not). Good ratings, so who from? Other Chinese buyers. Hmmm, well okay. Check a bit more and find ... these seem to be a mini cartel buying stuff from each other and giving each other great ratings (I mean, too good, really). So I decided not to risk it and also reported it as a potential scam to Ebay. So interesting to find someone's done a study and found the same.
Worth looking at some of the other things going on. It's a jungle out there.
Technorati Tags: Ebay, research, scams, buying, selling, ratings, wisdom_of_crowds
common on eBay... more than 6,000 examples of buyers and sellers engaging in transactions solely to boost one another’s scores. These auctions frequently had titles like “100+ Feedback” and a price of 1 cent. Often, the item for trade was a booklet explaining how to increase feedback by reselling that same booklet.
Worth looking at some of the other things going on. It's a jungle out there.
Technorati Tags: Ebay, research, scams, buying, selling, ratings, wisdom_of_crowds
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