PRNDL

Decent article in today's NY Times about ebay scams and the "vigilantes" that try to expose them. (Article is available online but you have to register). Funny part is Ebay doesn't seem to appreciate the efforts of members trying to expose these scams. They are very widespread and numerous and certainly not limited to corvettes. :( MJ

MotorHead

Doesn't suprise me that ebay doesn't appreciate members exposing these scams because they by exposing them they bring it to everyones attention that it is a big problelm on ebay. Never ceases to amaze me the depths people will go when it comes to money :nonod:

Pedro'74

Interesting article. I think the scams on eBay are really getting out of control. One year ago our main concern when dealing on eBay was whether the items were misrepresented, overpriced, etc. Now, with these hijacked accounts, the main concern is whether the items exist or not...

I've reported a number of fraudulent auctions to them lately, and thought I was doing them a favor. In most cases, the auction was removed a couple of hours after I notified them. Would they have found these scams if no one had reported? Are they really on to everything that's going on? Who knows.... :confused:

I'm currently looking for a Caddy, and almost fell for one of these scams one of these days. At first I saw no indications of it being a scam (it wasn't one of those pre-approved bid auctions), until I emailed the seller to ask for some additional pictures. From the emails exchanged with him, it was crystal clear that it was a scam: he said in broken English that he was in Romania, had no additional pictures, and wanted a deposit via Western Union. He said the car was in San Diego (listing said it was in FL), and he'd come to the US to arrange the shipping... :rolleyes: Only then I saw the indications of fraud that I should have seen before: it was a 3 day auction of a very nice convertible with no reserve and low starting bid, the guy made a point in saying that he did not accept credit cards and that he should be emailed beforehand to discuss the auction terms, not to mention that the "seller" (the actual account owner) usually negotiates fine arts.

I notified eBay about that auction, saying that I had exchanged some emails with the seller, and that I suspected it was a fraud, and asked them to investigate. Nothing was done for a little more than one day. The auctions was getting near the end, and people were bidding on the car, so I contacted eBay again. This time I listed all the reasons why I thought the auction was fraudulent, and included the guy's emails. Then after a few hours it was finally removed.

-Pedro


[Modified by Pedro'74, 10:53 PM 3/20/2004]

fauxrs

Of course not, it eats into their bottom line.......