You are right - From the Age today
Online deals where winners are losers
Kenneth Nguyen
July 26, 2006
YOU press "Enter", win the auction with a canny last-second bid and arrange for payment. And then? Nothing.
You're not alone. Forty-eight per cent of buyers on online auction websites such as eBay and OZtion have ended up losers with 22 per cent getting nothing and 20 per cent receiving products different from those advertised, according to an Australian study released yesterday.
The Communications Law Centre study, Going, going, gone: Online auctions, consumers and the law, also reported on other opportunities for fraud on online auction websites, including dummy bidding by vendors and a trend towards stolen goods being traded.
Despite the high incidence of fraud, consumers are generally not contacting the police or fair trading offices for help, said the report's author, Nick Moustakas.
Whether auction sites can be sued in the event of buyers not receiving advertised products remains a legal grey area.
Perceptions of high fraud had limited the average value of transactions carried out on auctions sites, the report said, with most buyers restricting themselves to DVDs, CDs, textbooks, cosmetics and clothes.
The report recommended setting up a national consumer complaints and fraud database.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/online-deals-where-winners-are-losers/2006/07/25/1153816182659.html
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