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Ebay Scam - Caveat Emptor


JDOwen2

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If anyone noticed, there was a 2003 SC430 on Ebay yesterday for $18,000. Seemed to good to be true but I emailed the seller. They wanted $999.00 money transfer from Western Union as a down payment. The auction info said car was in "Great Britain" but the emails I got said the car was in Italy and the reason for the sale was because the car was U.S. specs and didn't pass Italy's emissions. Silly me, I tried to send a wire transfer thru Western Union online and got a processing error. I called WU and set it up over the phone until their service rep told me Ebay doesn't condone using wire transfers because of the fact you can't trace them. :o She also told me Italy was notorious for wire transfer fraud. Let the buyer beware.

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a similar person was selling wheels ths way.. and probably the same person... they claimed they lived in italy recovering from an injury and staying up in the mountains and his wife was still in the UK

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As an eBay PowerSeller, it hurts me to know that other sellers out there are scamming innocent bidders... my only words of advise: don't purchase high dollar items from sellers with low (or no) feedback. Over 100 feedback points indicates that you'll more than likely have a smooth transaction - under 100? Say your prayers!

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I have done a lot of buying over e-bay and have had good luck with honest people. The only time I have run into a blatantly dishonest person was when I won an auction for some Mercedes parts and they demanded a Western Union wire transfer for payment. Fortunately only $32, but I refuse to bid on an item that has only the Western Union form of payment.

Bill Harrison

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Yeah, I was selling my '90 325is online and got hundreds of those 'extra cash' offers. It was a real pain sifting through all the emails for genuine offers. For those who don't know, the scam goes something like this: You're selling a car and someone offers to give you more than what you're asking (for some reason it was always $5k more with some lame excuse why) via Bank Check and they'll have a shipper pick up the car for overseas delivery (most of the offers came from Africa/Europe). But, they want you to send them the 'extra-cash' in the deal, the fraud being that the financial instrument they send you is counterfeit and your out $5k. I don't really know if they bother trying to get the car too, I never went that far.

You can usually tell if it's a scam because they're so stupid they don't ask anything about the car, how's it run, what condition is it in, etc. - they just focus on the transaction! I'll give you my fake Bank Check, if you'll give me your real money. And they always talk about their 'Client', what client, we're talking about a car here, not some Wall Street securities transaction!

Anyway, I hope this helps somebody from being taken to the cleaners.

P.S. Very difficult to arrest and prosecute these individuals with International laws the way they are right now.

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I reported an Ebay scam to this board, to Ebay and to the Florida police department last year. Some crook was selling this really nice looking '98 SC400. The mileage was reported to be 62K (there was a photo of the odometer) but when I checked CarFax the actual mileage was 130K!! Ebay could care less. I spent about a week emailing everyone that was bidding on his auctions trying to warn them about this guy ... not one single Ebay member got back to me. This made me wonder if the seller had numerous fake Ebay accounts and bid on his own items to boost the price or to create a "virtual demand".

:)

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I purchased a Used SC400 Steering Wheel that I was going to attempt to redo in wood. I paid through PayPal and the guy never delivered. I then checked his history and found that several people had left him negative feedback since I purchased. He had no problems from Oct 03 to Feb 04, then he decided it was easier to keep the money.

I filed a complaint through PayPal and after about 3 weeks, PayPal determined that it was fraud by the Seller and reimbursed my money.

I now only purchase through PayPal.

:cheers:

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