This week.. Starting
3rd April 2017...
6827 "Fully Loaded" Kodi capable devices are for sale on Ebay - USA, Canada and UK - all (Shamefully) Paypal Protected.
And this is only three Ebay countries covered....the tip of the iceburg...
A repost from Torrentfreak discussions 1st Apr 2017....
https://torrentfreak.com/amazon-bans-sal...em-170331/
thisguy1337 Wrote:Amazon has never been friendly with these loaded IPTV devices.
Ebay & (proactive) Paypal on the other hand are selectively ignorant even with regards of what is or isn't banned in Canada.
{Full Search Links hidden}
Canada: http://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html (4,642 results)
UK: http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html (1,285 results)
US: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html (8,558 results)
Over 15,000 'loaded TV' devices, all PayPal approved, and all 10% profit from each final sale price. And each one covered by Paypal's 'Buyer Protection package'..
From a Paypal forum....
Does "Proactive Paypal" approve "Fully loaded Fire sticks ?"
Not surprisingly Paypal have not even bothered responding, because it means they would be "made aware" and then susceptible to all of those claims of profiting from Piracy hardware sales.
I've just posted these links up here to see what the 'Fully Loaded" Ebay - Paypal protected number add up to, so we can monitor the extent, and any action that may be taken regarding this massive Kodi Piracy advertising problem.
And try and spark some Google Web Search Trawler and Ebay / Paypal interest - to possibly amended Seller policies into banning such advertising, like Amazon have just done.
I will try to keep Totalling numbers up each month - or anyone else can Post the totals here each Month / Week going forward....
I many consider re-posting the Full Search Links up - Kodi Piracy policies first need to be discussed.
Nice findings, lets see how it goes over the next few months. I expect a significant drop when the court case comes around.
As someone who's bought a couple of chinese s905 boxes - wiped on arrival and replaced with libreelec - I'm struggling to see paypal not covering me for problems with delivery / condition on receipt as 'a good thing' for the buyer.
Or something that has anything to do with kodi.
Meh.
I emailed to ebay and Paypal, amongst others last week and I received replies from both.
The ebay response was very typical and full of the we are a large business and cannot possibly vet every advert on their site but we can report those that do break policies for them to be investigated, followed by the usual we are constantly improving detection services etc.
Paypal's response was rather more guided and they seemed to want to avoid any talk of associated with pirates.
Buy Paypal are at least aware of such concerns.
When mailing, I did take one additional step to ensure that my concerns were taken in.
I copied in my Member of Parliament.
So my advice when contacting people with such serious issues is firstly get the mail addresses of those at the very top and always copy in one of your countries law makers.
It helps for those in powerful positions of influence to avoid any form of denial.
Have you got the full search URL you are using? Seems to be broken link.
That has been done so on Purpose.
I will not be publicly posting such easy "Fully Loaded" search links, which are also against Forum Rules.
Ahh ok
Well my UK searches don't show up many at all any more. Only importers from China and "Sponsored sellers".
Hopefully it will improve for everyone soon.
Hello. I am the person who posted the PayPal community thread. PayPal's support hasn't been friendly to me either. I have repeatedly e-mailed TorrentFreak regarding "thisguy1337" posts and "Ernesto" says those posts are allowed, despite reaching a degree of repetition that may be considered forum spam; he says the guy is making a point.
What "thisguy1337" probably doesn't realize are the following:
(1) It would be difficult to filter these sales as it is difficult to create filter terms that would not ban items that are compliant with eBay's seller policies.
(2) Even if there was a filter, these sellers would quickly learn to bypass the filters.
(3) The sellers probably register a large number of accounts over multiple IP addresses in order to circumvent account bans that are more than likely occurring as XBMC Foundation and/or eBay take down the infringing listings.
(4) There is no "approval" or "disapproval" of products by PayPal, only by eBay. When you buy something on eBay, the seller is only being paid by proxy; you pay eBay for the product then eBay pays the seller minus listing fees.
(5) When "thisguy1337" copies and pastes his links (it's copy paste as the first link has the same misspelling in every post), he probably doesn't realize that eBay has more than likely shared account information with law enforcement, resulting in the arrest of potentially several sellers.
"thisguy1337" may be ensuring that these sellers continue to have free promotion for their infringing products.
I have sent a Kodi employee an e-mail warning him of another one of these posts made today (which is a lot like a forum spam post) which once again has the full search terms to facilitate the sale of these illegally modified streaming boxes violating the Kodi trademark.
Another thing to note is that he is an affiliate for a so-called "VPN" service that knowingly facilitates copyright infringement, not sure if that is relevant or not.
(2017-05-08, 05:33)BFeely Wrote: [ -> ]I have sent a Kodi employee an e-mail warning him of another one of these posts made today (which is a lot like a forum spam post) which once again has the full search terms to facilitate the sale of these illegally modified streaming boxes violating the Kodi trademark.
Another thing to note is that he is an affiliate for a so-called "VPN" service that knowingly facilitates copyright infringement, not sure if that is relevant or not.
Who are you talking about?
I was reporting the links Thisguy1337 continues to advertise to a Kodi employee.
P.S. The PayPal Community thread has been taken down at my request.
Kodi does not have employees.
Are they considered volunteers under your organization then?
Also, is "Thisguy1337" problematic for your organization by continuing to push these links repeatedly?
P.S. Did you get my e-mail?
They are considered volunteers, because they are volunteers. That's the general definition of a person who works for free, I believe.
Honestly, someone putting links into the comments section of of a news blog is about as small potatoes as it can get for us. We care much more about the sellers than a random commenter. And even with regards to the sellers, we are limited by what VERO will give us, which is to say, if our name isn't clearly used, we can't do much.
I very, very rarely reply to emails or PMs that should be publicly discussed in the forum.