Am I the only one who thinks the guy from the store kinda looks skeptical himself? I don't know why, but part of me is really entertained by the face he pulls next to the smug face of the guy receiving the Xbox.
Man Who Bought $735 Xbox One Photo Gets Free Xbox One
- Thread starter Steven Bogos
- Start date
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I read this thread and some of the comments and I am just utterly shocked at the amount of hostility being directed towards the victim of this eBay scam. Sure, the man needed to be more careful, but the fact of the matter is a crime was committed against him. The eBay seller is a criminal worthy of condemnation, but the victim's only crime was carelessness. Also, I highly doubt that the item title or description made it obvious that only a picture of the item was being sold.
Then again, I am rather sympathetic because I made a similar mistake 6-7 years ago and got ripped off by a rather similar bait and switch scam. I am going to list my recollection of the scam below for those willing to spend the time to read it, to give you a better idea of what this guy may have gone through, and the highlight what utter scumbags these eBay sellers who use misleading auction descriptions are (which by the way are a direct violation of eBay's rules along with placing the item in the wrong category).
About 7 years ago I wanted to upgrade the processor on my computer. I went to eBay a searched for AMD Athlon XP processors (if memory serves correctly) within the computer > processors category and found what looked to be an excellent deal from a seller named wholesale_dealzzz (now long since removed from the eBay community for rules violations). The auction title was AMD Athlon XP 2400+ Heatsink, lapped. The description really didn't expand upon the title, and led me to believe I was purchasing a processor and heatsink combo. Had I been more careful, the real give away would have been the picture, as I could not discern what was actually in the picture. It turned out the picture was the close-up of the bottom of the heatsink, but was taken in a manner that made it impossible to tell what it was.
Despite the poor picture, the price was too low to pass up. I checked over the seller's feedback rating before purchasing, it was excellent with a score in the high nineties and thousands of transactions. The first couple of pages under the feedback summary listed nothing but positive reviews, including such descriptions as "exactly as described" and "fast shipping". After reviewing the feedback I bought the item and paid using a money order (big mistake). The item cost was approximately $70.
It took the seller over a month to ship. When it finally arrived, I received a poorly packaged, extremely poor quality heatsink, something I could probably buy for $2 from an electronics dealer. Rather than receiving what I thought was a processor and heatsink combo (a rather common pairing of items), it was apparently just a heatsink for a processor, that just happened to be priced like it was the processor itself, and somehow found itself in the processor rather than the heatsink category on the eBay site.
I almost let the matter drop after releasing the meaning of the auction title and wrote the whole thing off as a loss, but upon reviewing several pages deeper into the seller's feedback and found other seller's complaining that they found the title misleading, so I chose to stand up to the scammer. I left negative feedback titled quite clearly "FRAUD" and opened an "item not as described" dispute with the seller in eBay's resolution center. The seller not only gave me negative feedback in return, but then opened up an "unpaid item" dispute against me, despite having received the payment. I have to spend another $10 to get the post office to verify the money order was received, and I eventually got a copy of the money order with the seller's signature on it confirming that the seller was in fact paid. This got the seller's dispute dismissed. Unfortunately, the seller never suffered any further negative consequences for intentionally lying about my lack of payment, and I never did get a refund.
As for why the wholesale_dealzzz maintained such a high feedback score, she engaged in what is known as feedback manipulation. In this case a large number of items costing less then a dollar each were sold by wholesale_dealzzz, each generating positive feedback, and this accounted for the bulk of the seller's transactions. When actual buyers did buy the big ticket items and got scammed, often their negative feedback got removed because of successful "unpaid item" disputes initiated by wholesale_dealzz, much like the fraudulent one that was leveled against me. In all likelyhood these other scam victims simply did not keep records of the purchases like I did. Their comments would still show in the feedback summary, but there feedback was not added to the seller's feedback score, so buyers would never see them unless they went digging deep into the feedback comment pages. Worse yet, the seller left negative feedback comments on the feedback pages of her various victims declaring that these unfortunate victims were referred to a collection agency. So not only would wholesale_dealzzz rip people off, she would then accuse them of wrongdoing when they complained about her little scam.
Thankfully this seller eventually got kicked out of eBay for these practices. Ebay has definitely gotten their act together since I have dealt with this seller, and Paypal will almost always give you a refund if you dispute this kind of thing now (I have never used a money order since this incident). The feedback system is still completely worthless though.
Hopefully this gives a better idea of what this guy had to go through. He is not some shrewd mastermind trying to exploit society, he is just some guy who got ripped off by one of the many predators out there. It also should give you an idea of what kind of scumbags these eBay scammers are. The scammers are not doing some kind of service by keeping people on their toes, they are ripping off honest people and have no business sharing civilized society with the rest of us. Please do not justify the actions of individuals who attempt to use deception to take money from those who paid for items in good faith.
Then again, I am rather sympathetic because I made a similar mistake 6-7 years ago and got ripped off by a rather similar bait and switch scam. I am going to list my recollection of the scam below for those willing to spend the time to read it, to give you a better idea of what this guy may have gone through, and the highlight what utter scumbags these eBay sellers who use misleading auction descriptions are (which by the way are a direct violation of eBay's rules along with placing the item in the wrong category).
About 7 years ago I wanted to upgrade the processor on my computer. I went to eBay a searched for AMD Athlon XP processors (if memory serves correctly) within the computer > processors category and found what looked to be an excellent deal from a seller named wholesale_dealzzz (now long since removed from the eBay community for rules violations). The auction title was AMD Athlon XP 2400+ Heatsink, lapped. The description really didn't expand upon the title, and led me to believe I was purchasing a processor and heatsink combo. Had I been more careful, the real give away would have been the picture, as I could not discern what was actually in the picture. It turned out the picture was the close-up of the bottom of the heatsink, but was taken in a manner that made it impossible to tell what it was.
Despite the poor picture, the price was too low to pass up. I checked over the seller's feedback rating before purchasing, it was excellent with a score in the high nineties and thousands of transactions. The first couple of pages under the feedback summary listed nothing but positive reviews, including such descriptions as "exactly as described" and "fast shipping". After reviewing the feedback I bought the item and paid using a money order (big mistake). The item cost was approximately $70.
It took the seller over a month to ship. When it finally arrived, I received a poorly packaged, extremely poor quality heatsink, something I could probably buy for $2 from an electronics dealer. Rather than receiving what I thought was a processor and heatsink combo (a rather common pairing of items), it was apparently just a heatsink for a processor, that just happened to be priced like it was the processor itself, and somehow found itself in the processor rather than the heatsink category on the eBay site.
I almost let the matter drop after releasing the meaning of the auction title and wrote the whole thing off as a loss, but upon reviewing several pages deeper into the seller's feedback and found other seller's complaining that they found the title misleading, so I chose to stand up to the scammer. I left negative feedback titled quite clearly "FRAUD" and opened an "item not as described" dispute with the seller in eBay's resolution center. The seller not only gave me negative feedback in return, but then opened up an "unpaid item" dispute against me, despite having received the payment. I have to spend another $10 to get the post office to verify the money order was received, and I eventually got a copy of the money order with the seller's signature on it confirming that the seller was in fact paid. This got the seller's dispute dismissed. Unfortunately, the seller never suffered any further negative consequences for intentionally lying about my lack of payment, and I never did get a refund.
As for why the wholesale_dealzzz maintained such a high feedback score, she engaged in what is known as feedback manipulation. In this case a large number of items costing less then a dollar each were sold by wholesale_dealzzz, each generating positive feedback, and this accounted for the bulk of the seller's transactions. When actual buyers did buy the big ticket items and got scammed, often their negative feedback got removed because of successful "unpaid item" disputes initiated by wholesale_dealzz, much like the fraudulent one that was leveled against me. In all likelyhood these other scam victims simply did not keep records of the purchases like I did. Their comments would still show in the feedback summary, but there feedback was not added to the seller's feedback score, so buyers would never see them unless they went digging deep into the feedback comment pages. Worse yet, the seller left negative feedback comments on the feedback pages of her various victims declaring that these unfortunate victims were referred to a collection agency. So not only would wholesale_dealzzz rip people off, she would then accuse them of wrongdoing when they complained about her little scam.
Thankfully this seller eventually got kicked out of eBay for these practices. Ebay has definitely gotten their act together since I have dealt with this seller, and Paypal will almost always give you a refund if you dispute this kind of thing now (I have never used a money order since this incident). The feedback system is still completely worthless though.
Hopefully this gives a better idea of what this guy had to go through. He is not some shrewd mastermind trying to exploit society, he is just some guy who got ripped off by one of the many predators out there. It also should give you an idea of what kind of scumbags these eBay scammers are. The scammers are not doing some kind of service by keeping people on their toes, they are ripping off honest people and have no business sharing civilized society with the rest of us. Please do not justify the actions of individuals who attempt to use deception to take money from those who paid for items in good faith.
*Cough* Blatant promotional stunt by CEX *cough*
But wait a moment... CEX deal with second hand purchases. Does this mean that someone somewhere has truly bought an Xbox One and ALREADY handed it in to CEX for trade? Damn.
But wait a moment... CEX deal with second hand purchases. Does this mean that someone somewhere has truly bought an Xbox One and ALREADY handed it in to CEX for trade? Damn.
How is that a "nice thing" for them to do, when it is obviously a cynical PR stunt?hey_iknowyou said:
You say yourself that it is cheap PR. How is using the situation for cheap publicity a nice thing to do, for anybody apart from the company that stands to reap more profits from it?
That doesn't make any sense. If $735 is the retail price, then why not just buy it at a retail store, rather than on eBay? Who the hell would think to buy on eBay at the full retail price, when it is available from more reliable vendors at the same price?UltraPic said:
It's a mos5tly second hand retailer.It is fairly cheap but not a patch on , say, gainger games. Still i boycott the leeds store as it is massive and has tons of staff but you can still easily queue 40 mins in there, while the staff preen and pose and try to be funny and quirky. It's like some sorta alt beauty pageant. I wouldn't mind but aldi supermarkets run on 3-4 staff, not the 15 odd Cex employs.Me55enger said:
Victim? Someone who got robbed on the street is a victim, someone who had his house burgled is a victim. Someone buying a picture and hoping it magically becomes a console is not a victim. That's an idiot.Revnak said:
And THAT is what pisses most people off about this, that this is the hundredth story where a nimrod does nimrodish things and gets rewarded for being a nimrod! And that's a sad realisation. And I simply can't bring up any sympathy for that, sorry.
Why not give the free console to someone with a modicum of intelligence?
Since when do we reward people for being stupid?
Since when do we reward people for being stupid?
On the man falling for the scam:
- He was paying considerably less than the going rate for the same product elsewhere:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-7UV-00080-Xbox-One-Console/dp/B00BE4OUBG (check the Day One Fifa 14 Edition)
- He allegedly emailed the seller, who told him it was a console:
Of course, this could be bullshit. But if true, would be theft by deception.
- The listing was "Xbox One Fifa 14 Day One Edition, Photo Brand New UK 2013"
Forgive me for not thinking that the description was "clear". For anyone who has seen a scam, you'd probably know that they don't tend to work if they're obvious cons. Furthermore, being listed in the wrong section by a seller with good feedback? Yeah, it's not entirely unreasonable that someone would fall for it.
On getting a console for free:
- Sure, he didn't deserve it. He deserved a refund. The punishment for his naivety was the chore of having to get a refund, the humiliation, and also having his personal life dragged through the mud by you lot, by the way. He didn't deserve to lose his money too. He didn't deserve a free console. But whatever. He got one. I know I'd be over the moon, and my rich, spoiled white kid ass certainly doesn't deserve it.
- Yes, it's publicity for the company. But it's still a darn sight kinder than the sneering going on in both this thread and the other one. A lot of you should be ashamed.
I must say, for a website that tends to pride itself on fighting for consumer rights in the video game arena, when an actual affront to consumer rights pops up (i.e. the right not to be deliberately misled or deceived) a lot of you have shown rather poor form in detecting when something is unfair.
And furthermore, for a website that frequently flies into outrage for being judged unfairly by ignorant outsiders (such as: studies suggesting that gaming causes violence, Anita Sarkeesian, Fox News, Jack Thompson, etc) a good number of you have shown tremendous aptitude and enthusiasm for judging a person you've never met.
Spot on. I haven't been this disappointed in this website for a long time.
Finally, I've never been victim to a scam myself. This isn't me trying to defend my own hidden mistakes.
- He was paying considerably less than the going rate for the same product elsewhere:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-7UV-00080-Xbox-One-Console/dp/B00BE4OUBG (check the Day One Fifa 14 Edition)
- He allegedly emailed the seller, who told him it was a console:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2518874/Father-receives-photo-XBox-One-duped-Ebay.html
Of course, this could be bullshit. But if true, would be theft by deception.
- The listing was "Xbox One Fifa 14 Day One Edition, Photo Brand New UK 2013"
Forgive me for not thinking that the description was "clear". For anyone who has seen a scam, you'd probably know that they don't tend to work if they're obvious cons. Furthermore, being listed in the wrong section by a seller with good feedback? Yeah, it's not entirely unreasonable that someone would fall for it.
On getting a console for free:
- Sure, he didn't deserve it. He deserved a refund. The punishment for his naivety was the chore of having to get a refund, the humiliation, and also having his personal life dragged through the mud by you lot, by the way. He didn't deserve to lose his money too. He didn't deserve a free console. But whatever. He got one. I know I'd be over the moon, and my rich, spoiled white kid ass certainly doesn't deserve it.
- Yes, it's publicity for the company. But it's still a darn sight kinder than the sneering going on in both this thread and the other one. A lot of you should be ashamed.
I must say, for a website that tends to pride itself on fighting for consumer rights in the video game arena, when an actual affront to consumer rights pops up (i.e. the right not to be deliberately misled or deceived) a lot of you have shown rather poor form in detecting when something is unfair.
And furthermore, for a website that frequently flies into outrage for being judged unfairly by ignorant outsiders (such as: studies suggesting that gaming causes violence, Anita Sarkeesian, Fox News, Jack Thompson, etc) a good number of you have shown tremendous aptitude and enthusiasm for judging a person you've never met.
Spot on. I haven't been this disappointed in this website for a long time.
Finally, I've never been victim to a scam myself. This isn't me trying to defend my own hidden mistakes.
Man gets scammed, gets refund.
Some shop wants to surf on the publicity and gives him a free Xbox One, that's it.
If anything it might be the shop that is being smart. Advertising costs boatloads of money, yet now they've got their name all over the place by just giving the guy a free console.
Also, stop looking down on this dude from your supposed high and mighty position. I'm sure many amongst you have made retarded stupid mistakes in the past as well. I know I did for sure.
Some shop wants to surf on the publicity and gives him a free Xbox One, that's it.
If anything it might be the shop that is being smart. Advertising costs boatloads of money, yet now they've got their name all over the place by just giving the guy a free console.
Also, stop looking down on this dude from your supposed high and mighty position. I'm sure many amongst you have made retarded stupid mistakes in the past as well. I know I did for sure.
Wow, Caiphus pretty much just nailed it there.
I've been tempted to join up and add my little bit to the forums for a while, lord knows why I chose this point but hey ho, here goes.
There are a few facts we firstly don't know since either:
They have been omitted from the original stories or,
They have been jumped on and warped and guessed at and assumed.
So this is just my little attempt at sorting through everything.
1) The guy is RESPONSIBLE for a 4 year old child. At no point is it mentioned if he is (or isn't) the biological father. He could just as easily be a father figure for his girlfriends kid from a previous relationship. It's a possibility, but for whatever reason, he's decided to get the kid a present at Christmas.
2) It hasn't been stated if he's working etc. He COULD be working, some reports say he's a student, someone says one place put him on the dole, he can't be both so someone someplace has the wrong end of it all since you can't claim dole money and be a student at the same time. Whatever the situation, we don't concretely know where or how he got the money to make this purchase.
3) He fell for a scam. A deliberate attempt by someone to defraud. This means (of all things) he is human and had a moment of stupidity, I personally believe in the Scott Adams theory that we are all idiots at some point every day, we just slip in and out of idiocy without spotting it. Scammers prey on those moments of idiocy.
Lets not forget in all this, the whole thing was started because some low life put a photo up for sale on eBay under the wrong category with the direct intent of defrauding someone. That person is lucky to just get away with having their eBay account shut down and not be pursued by the law for criminal charges.
4) The guy got his money back. And so he should have.
Lets also remember here that eBay is host to lots of small businesses who sell new items direct to customers without the need for a physical shop front. So it is entirely possible that (if it were a genuine console) it might be sold through eBay.
At this point the story should have ended, the guy got his money back, and the scammer got lucky and got away with it (with nigh on a slap on the wrist).
But then some bod in CeX spotted the cheapest advertising campaign ever.
For the price of a XB1 (as many have quoted, about £450) they've managed to get a photo with their logo, and their name, printed in so many news outlets. For comparison an official advertising campaign on that scale would cost potentially thousands overall.
As for the guys choice in presents (assuming the XB1 is for the kid and not just for him), lets say I ain't impressed. At 4 years old the child will be more than capable of playing games, but will they really care about it being the super duper brandest of the brand new console? Or would they be just as happy with a WiiU and a couple of Lego sets, or an RC car, or a bike?
So lets appoint blame and vitriol appropriately, let the first (and quite frankly biggest) chunk go to the scamming scumbag from eBay. And the rest (a tiny amount) to the CeX manager looking for the cheap promotion.
All the victim here really deserves is to get a reminder of how many cheaters their are in the world looking for his money without earning it, and to get on with Xmas.
I've been tempted to join up and add my little bit to the forums for a while, lord knows why I chose this point but hey ho, here goes.
There are a few facts we firstly don't know since either:
They have been omitted from the original stories or,
They have been jumped on and warped and guessed at and assumed.
So this is just my little attempt at sorting through everything.
1) The guy is RESPONSIBLE for a 4 year old child. At no point is it mentioned if he is (or isn't) the biological father. He could just as easily be a father figure for his girlfriends kid from a previous relationship. It's a possibility, but for whatever reason, he's decided to get the kid a present at Christmas.
2) It hasn't been stated if he's working etc. He COULD be working, some reports say he's a student, someone says one place put him on the dole, he can't be both so someone someplace has the wrong end of it all since you can't claim dole money and be a student at the same time. Whatever the situation, we don't concretely know where or how he got the money to make this purchase.
3) He fell for a scam. A deliberate attempt by someone to defraud. This means (of all things) he is human and had a moment of stupidity, I personally believe in the Scott Adams theory that we are all idiots at some point every day, we just slip in and out of idiocy without spotting it. Scammers prey on those moments of idiocy.
Lets not forget in all this, the whole thing was started because some low life put a photo up for sale on eBay under the wrong category with the direct intent of defrauding someone. That person is lucky to just get away with having their eBay account shut down and not be pursued by the law for criminal charges.
4) The guy got his money back. And so he should have.
Lets also remember here that eBay is host to lots of small businesses who sell new items direct to customers without the need for a physical shop front. So it is entirely possible that (if it were a genuine console) it might be sold through eBay.
At this point the story should have ended, the guy got his money back, and the scammer got lucky and got away with it (with nigh on a slap on the wrist).
But then some bod in CeX spotted the cheapest advertising campaign ever.
For the price of a XB1 (as many have quoted, about £450) they've managed to get a photo with their logo, and their name, printed in so many news outlets. For comparison an official advertising campaign on that scale would cost potentially thousands overall.
As for the guys choice in presents (assuming the XB1 is for the kid and not just for him), lets say I ain't impressed. At 4 years old the child will be more than capable of playing games, but will they really care about it being the super duper brandest of the brand new console? Or would they be just as happy with a WiiU and a couple of Lego sets, or an RC car, or a bike?
So lets appoint blame and vitriol appropriately, let the first (and quite frankly biggest) chunk go to the scamming scumbag from eBay. And the rest (a tiny amount) to the CeX manager looking for the cheap promotion.
All the victim here really deserves is to get a reminder of how many cheaters their are in the world looking for his money without earning it, and to get on with Xmas.
I was all for calling this guy an idiot for what he did but... these comments man. I get that most of you are joking but gawddamn cut the guy a break. He lucked out that his slip up got as popular as it did and he wasn't 'rewarded for stupidity', CEX saw the oppitunity for some good PR and jumped all up on that shit.
I still think it's bullshit that he baught it for his son though.
I still think it's bullshit that he baught it for his son though.
Not quite sure what to think of this really. On the one hand, I do think the guy could have thought about his decision a little more carefully, on the other hand I don't see the problem in giving him a refund. Maybe the free console was a bit overboard, but I see that as more of something on the part of the retailer that gave it to him, looking for publicity especially around the holidays.
Honestly, whether he got the console for his son or not isn't really important to me, I can understand it would be annoying if he was using it for a sob story, but I find myself in a position that it's water under the bridge now.
And honestly, I have to disagree with the people who think shaming stupid people is the only solution to this sort of thing. And, in my opinion, negative reinforcement is not really the most effective way to encourage proper behavior (it can be, make no mistake, but there are other techniques that can be as effective if not more so, I think). Sadly, people tend to prefer a different narrative to that of the good upstanding citizen who always does the right thing. But, what I think is that some people who make good decisions should be rewarded and made examples of. Not going gonzo, but some sort of acknowledgement. Basic use of psychology.
Of course, then there's the argument of who we should use and how that wouldn't be fair...
But anyway, it was just a suggestion, don't mind me.
I am more with Revnak who posted earlier, there is enough suffering in the world as it is and we should do what we can if and when we can. This does seem a bit more trivial and the lad is in fact 19, not that there aren't fairly competent people that age out there, but I've heard of people that age doing much more foolish things.
That's just how I feel, I'm probably not reading into the issue as much as I should and for that I apologize.
Honestly, whether he got the console for his son or not isn't really important to me, I can understand it would be annoying if he was using it for a sob story, but I find myself in a position that it's water under the bridge now.
And honestly, I have to disagree with the people who think shaming stupid people is the only solution to this sort of thing. And, in my opinion, negative reinforcement is not really the most effective way to encourage proper behavior (it can be, make no mistake, but there are other techniques that can be as effective if not more so, I think). Sadly, people tend to prefer a different narrative to that of the good upstanding citizen who always does the right thing. But, what I think is that some people who make good decisions should be rewarded and made examples of. Not going gonzo, but some sort of acknowledgement. Basic use of psychology.
Of course, then there's the argument of who we should use and how that wouldn't be fair...
But anyway, it was just a suggestion, don't mind me.
I am more with Revnak who posted earlier, there is enough suffering in the world as it is and we should do what we can if and when we can. This does seem a bit more trivial and the lad is in fact 19, not that there aren't fairly competent people that age out there, but I've heard of people that age doing much more foolish things.
That's just how I feel, I'm probably not reading into the issue as much as I should and for that I apologize.