14 DAY TRIAL // A group of eBay members started a real virtual rebellion a few days ago when they decided it was time to fight against the hacked MP3 players sold through the famous bidding website. All their actions brought an online petition signed at the time of writing this article by 1733 persons who requested eBay to stop the phenomenon and ban the transaction of all these devices. It appears that some sellers distributed MP3 players with less memory than the one listed on eBay, most devices being hacked to show the capacity mentioned inside the eBay auction. Many of the customers didn't even notice that, the angry users wrote so they decided to sign a petition as a last method to get eBay's attention.
"Every day 1000's of FAKE MP3/MP4 players are being sold to unsuspecting buyers worldwide. These players are being listed as having 2GB/4GB and 8GB (Gigabyte) of storage capacity but in reality they have much smaller memory modules that have been manipulated (Hacked) so that they read as larger than their true capacity," it is mentioned in the text attached to the online petition.
"These memory modules can be as small as 128MB. Unfortunately most buyers do not realize they have been scammed until it is too late. There have been no reports of authentic cheap no brand 4GB or 8GB chiPods or Nano clones as they are referred to. 2GB is reported as the maximum memory size supported however players as small as 512MB have been found to be tampered with."
Although the revolt is pretty popular these days among the eBay users, they claim that the auction website is ignoring their messages and avoid banning the fake transactions. In addition, eBay removes the messages posted by the affected users as a move meant to hide the reality.
"Is eBay aware of that these fraudsters are using their service to scam millions of dollars on a global scale? The answer is yes, every day they receive complaints from buyers through the eBay system. Every day their sister company PayPal receives dispute claims from buyers of these players seeking a refund. Despite the 1000's of complaints, eBay chooses to turn a blind eye to the whole scandal, even blocking buyers from trying to warn other members of the scam. Listings warning buyers of fake Hacked players are removed. Some claims are even denied despite the overwhelming evidence supplied by the buyer and 3rd party sources," the users stated in the petition.