eBay/Craigslist EBAY FRAUDS, FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE...

del · Jan 22, 2004

I actually sent two emails through that page, I clicked on
"questionable listing" which took me to another page where I
clicked on "fraudulent listing" and sent via the box that opened
up.

Also sent directly to the address I've used before, vero something
that has helped me with simple copyright infringement issues. I
think I also sent a direct email to an address I had used before
something in their "safe harbor" section. I figured one of them
would work, 12 hours later, nothing yet.

thanks

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Slamfire · Jan 22, 2004

I was bidding on a chainsaw a couple of weeks back. Got an e-mail asking if I wanted a good deal on it. Since I had just been outbid the day before, I asked just what he was selling, he replied the blankety blank chainsaw. I sent a copy of both e-mails to e-bay's questionable transaction page. I have received no acknowledgement. I bought a different saw.

TresCrows · Jan 22, 2004

Like I said before in another thread and got blasted for it. E-bay is rife with scams and scam artists in all catagories. I no longer do E-bay for a variety of reasons including scams like yours. E-bay, Stay Away. J

herdfan · Jan 22, 2004

I've reported a couple of fraudulent auctions and it usually takes E-Bay at least a day to even look at it. Also, they will not give you any more information on what they have found out or have done, but you'll see that the auction has been ended (invalid) if they cancel it.

We had our E-Bay account stolen a few weeks back from somebody in Canada. I guess they hacked our account and changed our password and e-mail address. My wife found out that day (E-Bay junkie) but it took several hours to get our account back!

Even though E-Bay has its problems, other sites, especially Yahoo's, are many times worse.

r0GuE · Jan 22, 2004

People need to think of eBay as a yard sale. I personnaly just don't "get" the idea of trying to sell large heavy expensive items through eBay. I personally would never buy an item of great value "sight unseen" while paying in advance. Why would I think that anyone else would.

BUT for items of modest value (under $100), I find it a great resource for liquidating items I no longer need.

I have had mostly good experiences there (~110 good feedbacks, 0 neg).

Soundguy · Jan 22, 2004

Yep.. that is a big red flag when a seller approcahes you off the auction to sell the item... You loose your ebay protection that way as well.

Soundguy

spencer200 · Jan 22, 2004

I sell stuff on ebay all the time. I never have a reserve and I start the item low it generates more interest. I have never cancelled an item I always let them sell no mater what the price. Thats the chance you take at an auction.

Richard · Jan 22, 2004

I'm right now in the "getting the check" stage of a sale. I sold a pneumatic floor stapler for the hardwood floor I put down.

I told the buyer (located in US) I don't care if he uses a personal check or cashiers check... but I'd not take a counter check.

All I'm going to do when I get the check is call the bank it's drawn on, verify it's good... then after discussing it with the bank, I'll send it TO the bank (endorsed, copy of my drivers license..what ever the conversation with bank dictates) and I'll ask them to cash it, send BACK a cashiers check to me. I'll enclose an overnight for them to use and will have them take the price of the casheirs check out of my proceeds (over $500)

This way I figure, I'll find out quickly if it's a "good" check, and by sending overnight to the bank and having them return to me THEIR casheirs check, I figure I'm safe from bad payment.

Any error in my logic?

(oh... and since we do a lot here via overnight, it's no biggie for me to send that way...besides, if the buyer WERE to try to fake me out with funds temporarily in bank, I figure this method might catch them offguard)

Richard

Durbob · Jan 22, 2004

I've only had one transaction on E-bay and it was a positive one. I bid on a computer about 6 months ago and won. It was a new one with an amd 2500 processor with an Asrock motherboard, 512 of 2700 memory, an 80 gig hard drive, 400 watt power supply ,a floppy disk,a good 64 meg video card and good quality 52x cd burner. It has 2 usb ports on the front and 4 in the back and came with windows XP pro. Delivered to my house it cost me $435.00 I added another cd player to it from Newegg for $23.00 delivered. I couldn't even come close to that price anywhere else with the quality components it has. I overnighted the guy a money order and had the puter 6 days later. I'm not sure i would do that now tho. Me and him had a lot of e-mails back and forth and i had confidence in him. The only thing is he never left me no feedback, so my rating is still 0.

Junkman · Jan 22, 2004

Most sellers won't leave feedback unless you leave feedback for them first. The reason is that many buyers will zing a seller because of some minor thing that the seller has no control over, but would have dealt with had they know. I know of someone that gave negative feedback an hour after the auction ended and said that the seller didn't send them an address where to send the money to soon enough. Some people don't have a clue as to how e Bay works and that is what leads to the confusion. It is no different than buying a tractor... once you learn the ropes, it is easy and rewarding.

Durbob · Jan 22, 2004

I left him positive feedback as soon as i got the puter and saw it was working properly. He was going away for a couple of weeks and never did get around to giving me feedback when he got home. When i look at the ratings on E-bay,it doesn't bother me so much as a person having negative feedback as much as how did the seller respond to it. Like you said Junkman, some people leave negative feedback for hardly no reason at all.

Von · Jan 22, 2004

Richard,
I sell all the time on ebay, Just sold a cherry table for $6k on ebay. I take checks all the time. I just deposit them in my bank and don't send the item out untill the check clears. I wait 12 working days for this to happen. If its a MO I will send it right out. Have not been stiffed yet! and I do about $50-$75k on ebay a year. I guess it depends on what you are selling.
Von

del · Jan 22, 2004

TRACTOR IMAGE FOR SALE UPDATE

When I check this morning, ebay had yanked the listing, and
sent me an form email acknowledging it.

I think they have their hands full with this. I saw a blurb
today that auction fraud is the second most common type of
fraud after identity theft.

Good news, the lone bidder, a newbie to ebay, sent a
nice email thanking me of notifying him. I think he knows
he dodged getting hit with a rotten egg on this deal. If
his deposit or the full amount had been sent...He also got
an email from "Dennis" who I think I have emailed before.
(thanks guy)

I have to go now, I'm going to run down to the Museum of
Flight in Seattle and take a picture of the Concorde that
is there.

When you see it on ebay tonight, remember, bid early and
bid often! /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

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herdfan · Jan 22, 2004

A few months back, I was looking for a whole house backup generator. I asked the E-Bay seller some questions about a nice, new unit for sale - had 4-5 days left to go. I never heard from him until the last day of the auction when he said he would sell this $3000 setup for $1800 right now if I would bank wire him the money because his wife was just diagnosed with cancer! The thief didn't even check his auction, because the bidding was just over $2000 at that time. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

5030 · Jan 22, 2004

Junkman:

First off, I apologize for my absence from TBYNet, I have been up north, communing with the snow and my buddies and....Capt'in Morgan in the evening.

My wife and I also buy and sell on E-bay. I buy and sell Zippo lighters and have a large collection. I have sold lighters all over the world and have never had one problem. Some lighters sell in the hundreds of dollars.

I also buy perishable tooling for my shop on E-Bay. I can usually find tooling lots and much better prices than local or even national jobbers prices. I have also bought complete machine tools as well, but I always use the escrow feature for any transaction over 5K.

My wife and I use Pay Pal not only for E-Bay, but for other on-line purchases as well and I have never had a problem with them either.

We trade on E-bay under the i.d. old53man.

frank_f15 · Jan 22, 2004

for the components in that computer u got one heck of a buy!!

SHIFTY · Jan 23, 2004

Overall I have had good experiances buying and selling mostly larger ticket idems.
A few dead beat bidders that dont pay but for the most part everybody has been a pleasure to deal with.
I would say though that the past 6 months its hard to find a serious bidder,I do set reserves since some auctions dont go that high for example a 03 Kubota 3000dl tractor loader backhoe with 7 hours wouldnt go higher than 10.5k after 6 weeks,it did finally sell but I couldnt afford to set no reserve and chance loosing thousands of dollars.I have seen many fradulent listings though .I have seen my info copied on ebay as well as on trucktrader online,I knew It was mine since it was my description and my dog was in the photo,Ebay has been pretty good at pulling bad auctions but Im sure people have made contact to try to buy an idem off line and have gotton screwed over .Id sugest getting phone numbers from the seller,make contact,check referances and look at their feedback,did they ever sell a tractor or related equioment b4 or magazines?? That to me is a heads up,If your not far or it is a good deal spend 200.00 on airfair and see it in person.

Durbob · Jan 23, 2004

Frank , I bid on a lot of puters before i won one. I didn't want any with cheap components. I didn't need top of the line ,but i wanted something decent. I only bid from sellers that had excellant ratings. I knew with my 0 rating that they might have been a little hesitant with me, so i overnighted the money order. There are bargains if your patient. I probably bid on 15 or 20. Never more than one at one time. I didn't want to get stuck with several computers. I kept my price low ,so i would get a bargain if i won. I was kind of shocked when i won because i thought it would go for about a hundred more than it did.

Evasive1 · Jan 24, 2004

DAP,

I went to that link you left for the tractor on EBay and had to laugh. The guy selling the tractor has it listed as being in Wichita, Kansas. In all the years I lived there I must of not looked in the right direction to see those big beautiful mountains in the background.
Duane

Duane

Kelvin · Jan 24, 2004

( I was about to start a new thread entitled "Has Anyone ACTUALLY ever bought a tractor form eBay?" )

I actually bought my Kubota B2910 through Ebay. Almost....

I made the connection through Ebay, contacted the seller and drove about 4 hours to inspect the tractor. Since I am usually slow and methodical in my decision making process, the auction closed before I was through making a decision. But I did end up purchasing the tractor shortly thereafter.

Part of my "verification" process was to get the serial number off the tractor during the initial inspection and have my local Kubota dealer verify the puchase date (which checked out just as the seller had advertised). I also wanted to make sure that Kubota didn't have the serial number reported as stolen. Granted, my local Kubota dealer was disappointed that I did not purchase a new one with them, but they agreed that I got a really good price didn't blame me for buying the used one. Besides, they will continue to get $$$ from me for supplies (plus good recommendations for their excellent support).

I would have no problem purchasing a tractor or other big $$ item through Ebay as long as I could personally inspect it, or have someone that I KNOW and TRUST inspect it for me.

Kelvin