Yahoo Auction Bidders Lose Claim For Damages

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: Class suit filed by ripped-off users against Yahoo! Auctions rejected
A court rejected a 150 million yen damages suit filed by users of Yahoo! Auctions who didn't receive the items that they'd successfully bid on and paid for. "The defendant (Yahoo!) raised caution in a timely manner to prevent users from falling victim to fraud," Presiding Judge Mitoshi Kuroiwa said at the Nagoya District Court, ruling in favor of the operator of the nation's largest auction site. The court dismissed the suit filed against Yahoo! Japan by 780 users, who demanded a total of 158 million yen in damages for failing to provide sufficient fraud protection. The plaintiffs, from 46 prefectures across the nation, successfully bid for such items as car navigation systems or DVD recorders through the Yahoo! Auction site, paying anything from around 7,400 yen to 3 million yen per person. The victims argued that Yahoo! should implement better fraud protection measures such as more warnings, disclosing information on auctioneers, a full compensation system and a reliability evaluation system by a third party. However, the judge concluded that the defendant was not liable for their losses, pointing out that the company's user agreement states that users join the auctions at their own risk. Furthermore, the ruling said that potential fraudulent auctioneers are likely to offer false information on themselves on the auction site, and that a compensation system wouldn't stop fraudulent activities...more...

[Big Booger]

Didn't The FGlurker get fucked in a scam to the tune of 40 or 50 man? I believe he did but I am not too sure.

[Mock Cockpit]

Can't quite see how Yahoo can win here. They've defended this but the message is "no matter what happens, you're fucked". What am I missing other than the defendents here were such total morons that they deserved to be ripped off?

[ttjereth]

Can't quite see how Yahoo can win here. They've defended this but the message is "no matter what happens, you're fucked". What am I missing other than the defendents here were such total morons that they deserved to be ripped off?

Isn't this the same with Ebay in the states? I know a friend has had orders off of Ebay never show up.

[FG Lurker]

Didn't The FGlurker get fucked in a scam to the tune of 40 or 50 man? I believe he did but I am not too sure.

Yup, I lost 48man or so to a Yahoo scam. Meh, life goes on. I can't imagine dragging it out for 3 years in a lawsuit! Live, learn, move on.

[FG Lurker]

Can't quite see how Yahoo can win here. They've defended this but the message is "no matter what happens, you're fucked". What am I missing other than the defendents here were such total morons that they deserved to be ripped off?

Yahoo had a massive scam problem a few years ago. They did very little about it for quite some time and it scared a lot of people away from the site.

eBay in the US has PayPal as a payment system which does (to a degree) provide some fraud protection. On Yahoo the vast majority of purchases are paid directly by furikomi.

[james]

Can't quite see how Yahoo can win here. They've defended this but the message is "no matter what happens, you're fucked". What am I missing other than the defendents here were such total morons that they deserved to be ripped off?

i'd slow down on calling everyone who was scammed a "total moron". some of these scams were very well run and very legitimate appearing on newly hacked accounts. if it was a newly hacked account, there may be no odd activity yet that would indicate something is fishy.

also, not everyone has the technical knowledge to sift through mail headers and check the ip / location of an originating message to at least see if it's coming from an account that is in the location purported to be. some otherwise intelligent people who aren't technically savvy (and quite possibly some who were) were probably taken. i really don't understand your point of view that being taken by a sophisticated scam-ring means you're a moron. these weren't your run of the mill 419 type scams. a few of them may have fallen in the "too good to be true" category but for the most part i don't think it was so easy to tell in all cases.