This investigation has become a story that should be a Netflix documentary.  Grab yourself a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and enjoy:

PART 1:

On January 2nd, 2022 eCommerceBytes posted a short article that questioned if eBay is colluding with Carvana to deceptively change their feedback rating.  Being that I absolutely love investigating potential scams, I began doing my own investigating and more poured out and this simple blog post turned into a crazy multi-part real-life drama.  

Carvana is an online-only used car hub that connects people to thousands of preowned vehicles in their area. Like many other companies they also list on eBay, and nobody thought much of it until 2021, when a Reddit user simply asked if Carvana’s eBay page is a good place to purchase a vehicle. This question enticed Reddit users to take a peek at Carvana and specifically their eBay profile and this is where the oddities began appearing.

One Redditor quickly pointed out that vehicles that have been previously sold are not being removed from the eBay profile, yet they clearly appear on Carvanas website as being sold out. This means an eBay user can “buy now” a vehicle that isn’t available. I decided to investigate this claim for myself.

I went to Carvanas eBay page and selected the second vehicle shown on the main page, a 2009 red Mercedes:

I then went to Carvana.com and tried to look this vehicle up:

As you can see, there is NO 2009 Mercedes in Tempe Arizona available to purchase. Hmmmmmm….

Ok, perhaps we can chalk this up to whomever is running the Carvana eBay account is too busy to remove sold listings? BUT whats more strange is all of the sold and unsold merchandise is being relisted, over and over and over…

Additionally, Carvana is running ads on eBay and these advertisements also feature vehicles that are not available, yet are being advertised as “in stock”. So, at-best we can say whatever Carvana is doing on eBay is careless, but at-worst, it’s outright bait-and-switch fraud IF Carvanas goal is to get someone excited enough to click BUY, then drop the bomb on them that the one they bought isn’t available, then try to get them to instead purchase something that IS in stock.

But things get more bizarre….

On New Years Day an eCommerceBytes reader sent them a tip stating that he believes eBay is colluding with Carvana by “resetting” Carvanas feedback score every month. This person claims that by the end of the month Carvanas rating drops to 75% positive (-25% negative!), but on the 1st of the following month it pops back up to 100% positive, so I decided to take a peek at their feedback and it is indeed another head-scratcher. Their feedback is pretty terrible:

In fact, the majority of their feedback in the past month is negative (8 negatives, 1 positive):

And, as you can see, in the past 6 months they have essentially 9 bad feedbacks out of 20 total feedbacks… which is only approximately 60% positive. However, Carvana is considered to be a Top Rated seller:

If you’re not familiar with the Top Rated Seller program, the exact definition of it is, “You're one of the best sellers on eBay, providing an exceptional quality of customer service as well as meeting minimum sales requirements for the Top Rated Seller level”. And, one of the criteria for becoming a Top Rated Plus seller is a “low defect rate”, which is partially defined as not canceling buyers bids because the merchandise wasn’t in stock. In fact, to be Top Rated you can only cancel .05% of total transactions (or 3 TOTAL SALES) due to lack of stock. So you can see why the math regarding Carvana doesn’t seem to add up here because there are clearly more than 3 people who essentially got scammed out of their vehicle purchase.  

To add to the confusion, I was able to use WayBackMachine to find a screenshot of Carvanas eBay profile from Feb 2021 and at this time they had only 87% positive feedback.  Since today is January 2nd, 2022, the screenshot from February 2021 is within the same calendar year and we are able to see that Carvanas feedback score was under 90% then, and is substantially under 90% now, which begs the question, "How is this account Top Rated Plus?"

So, can we affirmatively say that eBay is colluding with Carvana?  No.  Do we have evidence beyond a rumor that eBay is resetting Carvanas feedback monthly?  Not yet.  But based on the data shown on this profile, it seems impossible that Carvana would qualify for the Top Rated Plus program without some inside help.  Additionally, what Carvana is doing (listing merchandise for sale that is not actually for sale) IS the definition of "Bait and Switch". According to Cornell Law, a Bait and Switch (scam) is defined as:

"A “bait and switch” takes place when a seller creates an appealing but ingenuine offer to sell a product or service, which the seller does not actually intend to sell. This initial advertised offer is “the bait.” Then the seller switches customers from buying the advertised product or service that the seller initially offered into buying a different product or service that is usually at a higher price or has some other advantageous effect to the advertiser." 

... and IS a form of FRAUD.  As mentioned previously, perhaps Carvana is being careless when it comes to monitoring their eBay listings, HOWEVER, based on the overwhelming amounts of bad feedback, it has clearly been brought to their attention that they are being deceptive, and, carelessness is not legally excusable when it comes to fraud, let alone repeated fraud.  

But this story is just getting started....

Next, READ PART 2 OF THIS INVESTIGATION