Ebay Fraud?

[paulears]

well he's made a nice grand out of the sale!

[lx999]

JUST TO LET EVERYONE KNOW THERE IS CURRENTLY SOMEONE ON E BAY SELLING HIGH END STUDIO COLOURS BASED IN LONDON

 

DO NOT BID ON THESE ITEMS.

 

WE RECENTLY LOST £1500 ON THESE ITEMS AS THE SELLER ASKS YOU TO DO A WESTERN MONEY TRANSFER AND THEN DISSAPEARS GIVING A FAKE ADDRESS.

 

THE NAME USED BY THE SELLER WAS ANDRE PASCAL, USING AN ADDRESS OF 13 CHESTNUT CLOSE, OAKWOOD, LONDON.

 

IF ANY ONE HAS ANY INFO ON WHO YOU THINK THIS MAY BE OR YOU HAVE HAD A SIMILAR PROBLEM LET ME KNOW.

 

MY ADVISE IS BID AND ONLY PAY ON COLLECTION OR DELIVERY.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Surprise surprise, I bid and won, but the seller vanished when I asked to check the items before we handed over any money. When the same item, with the same spelling errors was relisted I kicked up to ebay, and had a prolonged e-conversation with the nominal seller, who was remarkably evasive about location, history etc. The above advice is bang on, although putting a bid of £1.000.000.00 is an alternative : )

 

PS Any idea why single city colours are popular at the moment? I'm not suggesting that essential are doing anything dodgy, by the way.

[colinmonk]

suprised they selling off the newer ones, would have thought they would just add it to the stock they already have?

[Ynot]

Resurrecting this thread - not sure the item listed here is fraudulent, BUT there are a couple of oddities with the listing....

 

Firstly, the picture shows 4 flight-cased units that are definitely NOT Mac 500's (the auction is supposedly for one Mac), but also I recognised the text used there as being exactly the same as that used on this other auction, which I believe IS definitely legitimate.....

 

Strangely, though the first guy's user name is englishcowboy (!) he's shown as a US member, looking for bids in UKP....

 

He has over 80 auctions, all stated as 'no bids - contact him for a buy-it-now'.....

 

But that being said, he appears to have decent feedback.......

 

All very odd!

 

TD

 

edit:

Just noticed he has two auctions with the same pic, for 4 EVL movers, which could well be the actual items pictured... Still a bit strange, though, that description had been 'nicked'!!

 

Will mail him & ask a Q.....

[Brian]

I reported a similar set of auctions to these to ebay about 2 weeks ago. In those ones the seller had good feedback but all from Portugal. Similar text in the auction, asking people to contact him directly, saying that for some reason he couldn't be contacted via the ebay message system, low start prices for the goods etc etc.

 

Before we get a new batch of 'this is dodgy too' posts, why not do what I've just done and report them to ebay.

[Ynot]

Before we get a new batch of 'this is dodgy too' posts, why not do what I've just done and report them to ebay.

Already have done... (First thing I do if I suspect fishy-ness)

:blink:

[p3schwa]

I lost £800 lastyear via ebay. I'd like to swear!!!!!!!

It was a "Buy It Now" for 2x Mac 250's.

The seller was based in Napoli Italy, and I sent the money via western union. BIG mistake!

I've learnt from my mistake, and I now don't use ebay.

Supposidly the sellers of items have to pay ebay etc? Why don't ebay get more involved with fraud, scams etc?

My advice to anyone, forget ebay, and use other links for kit as listed on BlueRoom in the private ads, and secondhand gear links etc.

[Ynot]

I lost £800 lastyear via ebay. I'd like to swear!!!!!!!

<snip>

I've learnt from my mistake, and I now don't use ebay.

That's a great shaem - there are many, many legitimate sellers (and buyers) on Ebay - I've been selling & buying on Ebay for a couple of years now - nothing major, just the odd few bits & bobs here & there.

As a buyer you need to remember simple rules:

Communication - if the seller won't reply to your queries, or replies but without anything coherent, then avoid that item/seller;

Assess - Look at the going rate for a NEW item similar to that which you may want to buy - suss out how much a second-hand item would be (Google is your friend!) - decide how much your MAX is going to be, and stick to it!

Paypal - Paypal is there to protect both parties' fiscal agreements - use it. However, as a seller, I usually ask for cheques as payment, cos that means I get a bank account to fall back on if the deal fails - they just have to wait a few days for clearance.

Supposidly the sellers of items have to pay ebay etc? Why don't ebay get more involved with fraud, scams etc?

They do - there's a process set up to allow Ebayers to report suspicious auctions, as well as dodgy SPAM that purports to be from Ebay.

My advice to anyone, forget ebay, and use other links for kit as listed on BlueRoom in the private ads, and secondhand gear links etc.

Nah - carry on Ebay-ing, but use caution. :blink: :** laughs out loud **: ;)

[p3schwa]

Sorry, it did come across as ebay's a bad thing. It's not, but I do think they could do more to stop scammers etc. It's just put me off ever since, as I'm sure it would anyone else.

[marktownend]

Unfortunately there are a lot of dodgy people around the globe. Ebay has all sorts of warnings about fraud, and presumably a huge team working together with police forces to try to prevent it.

 

I report dodgy listings to ebay any time I see them - I feel it's part of my duty as an ebayer, even though it takes my time to do so. What annoys me is when you see a clearly fraudulent listing you've reported reach it's end, with bidders involved (in other words ebay haven't removed a scam listing).

 

With the item listed above (a MAC 500 starting at £3 if anyone's interested - the listing has been removed thankfully), the seller appeared to have had their account hacked. There seem to be 2 main scams - firstly hacking into other peoples' accounts and secondly setting up an account, then using their other dodgy accounts to gain some feedback (10 positive feedback all within 5 mins of each other?!). Gets interesting if you have a look at their other items for sale - there's almost always a list of high value items with low Buy Nows in the listing. Masses of spelling and grammar mistakes etc too.

 

Anyone interested in Coemar CF7s - there are loads of people 'selling' them in China it seems! I reported a whole load of listings a couple of days back, more yesterday and yet there still seem to be a new pile today. Grrr...

 

Just be careful people...

[paulears]

While I applaud everyones handy warnings on possible scams (I sold something myself over the weekend and the buyer seems to no longer live in the US, but wants it delivered to Africa) can we please be very carefull how we publish this kind of material on the forum.

 

This has been talked about for a while now within the moderators and we're worried that one day we will accuse somebody of being a con artist when they are genuine. While appreciating that the chances of legal action are remote - if I was the honest seller shot to pieces on here, I would be miffed.

 

 

We have the power to slag off and remain anonymous to outsiders - we need to be responsible.

 

Please can we be careful with these kinds of posts - think of the consequences before hitting the final send button!

[Ynot]

While I applaud everyones handy warnings on possible scams (I sold something myself over the weekend and the buyer seems to no longer live in the US, but wants it delivered to Africa) can we please be very carefull how we publish this kind of material on the forum.

Couldn't agree more - which is why my OP was cautious in what I said.

Turns out it looks like I was right - not only has the Mac item disappeared, but looks like all the other items have too.

:blink:

TD

[tompw]

While on the subject of EBay fraud... I was recently a victim in a slightly more unusual way. Somebody had hacked into my account and then used it to list an item (a mobile phone) with me as the *seller*. The idea (presumably) was that the auction would apear to come from a perfectly good member, by the hacker would then get sent the money, I would have to deal with bad feedback etc.... the first I knew about this was when a question got copied to my email address abut the item in question.

I sent warnings to everyone who had bid on it, and also alerted Ebay, who removed it... it helped that I had only used one IP address to acces the site for some months.

 

Anyway... just so people know!

[jayselway]

I had a near do with one chap this week - Masterpiece 108 for £380 on Second-Chance offer. Got an email from him, and then replied saying I would like it. He said to use Western Union, and straight away I was dubious. Even more when the "Learn more about security" links in the following eBay mail were not really links, and none of it appeared in "My eBay". Alerted eBay bods, and they said they didn't send it. The guy went mad when I said that I wasn't continuing at this time, and said how he would post me negative feedback. Enquired with eBay, and they said he couldn't do that, because none of it has gone through eBay.

 

Item was in Wales, he was in London.

 

Sorted.... although he seems to have legged it. PC Plod wasn't very interested really. Oh well...

 

Jay

[Ynot]

The idea (presumably) was that the auction would apear to come from a perfectly good member, by the hacker would then get sent the money, I would have to deal with bad feedback etc.... the first I knew about this was when a question got copied to my email address abut the item in question.

I reckon that this was what this was. I had an e-mail very shortly after I PM'd the guy through Ebay, saying "Our records indicate that you recently sent an email to or received an email from englishcowboy through the eBay email system" and going on to warn me about possibly making deals outside the system (standard thing - had a couple before).

Maybe my PM to the real seller prompted him to realise he had a hacker....?

 

TD