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Risk factors

Fraud is a significant risk factor for eBay. The BBC 

(2005) reported that around 1 in 10,000 transactions 

within the UK were fraudulent; 0.0001% is a small 

percentage, but scaling this up across the number of 

transactions, this is a significant volume. To counter 

this, eBay has developed ‘Trust and Safety Programs’ 

which are particularly important to reassure customers 

since online services are prone to fraud. For example, 

the eBay feedback forum can help establish credentials 

of sellers and buyers. Every registered user has a feed‑

back profile that may contain compliments, criticisms 

and/or other comments by users who have conducted 

business with that user. The Feedback Forum requires 

feedback to be related to specific transactions and Top 

Seller status was introduced in 2010 to increase trust in 

the service. There is also a Safe Harbor data protection 

method and a standard purchase protection system.

The fees model that eBay uses is often changed and 

this can cause problems with users, but the impact is