Ebay "gold power reseller" creates PC victims

The group of users complained that after they had bought laptops from a firm called Calvin's Auctions, their money was cashed but they've received no goods.

The group, which has a message board here, are not just reserving their ire for Calvin's Auctions but for Ebay and for PayPal, it has emerged.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars appear to be involved, with users complaining to various politicians about what they think is a massive scam.

One told the INQUIRER today: "I am a cautious kind of guy, the seller, Calvinsauctions, had supposedly had been in business since 1998, and was an eBay "gold powerseller". It was my first transaction with eBay and I looked around the sellers of notebook computers.

"This guy looked to be endorsed by Ebay and looked to be most reliable. How wrong I was. My gripe is with Ebay, they know.... I won't be getting my merchandise. Do they notify me to try and recoup my money? No they don't. They leave me to launch emails into the nothingness of cyber space."

One problem appears to be that PayPal allows a period of 30 days in which buyers are protected, but people who bought laptops waited for some weeks before wondering where their machines were, so missing the PayPal deadline.

PayPal has said that it will investigate the problems but so far Ebay appears not to have commented. µ