eBay/Craigslist eBay Tractor Scams

nephromancer · Jan 31, 2005

Please be very carefull when browsing, shopping, and most of all buying on eBay. I spent several hours yesterday pricing tractors, and virtual window shopping on eBay last night. Every single tractor I looked at, (except from those sellers with a real storefront address), was a scam. Furthermore, some of the links had been corrupted and sent me to **** sites,( believe me that was hard to explain to my wife). Many appear to be real tractor ads that had been previously listed and then were copied, and relisted by the scammer. Others were listed hijacked ebay member IDs, so you can't even trust long time members with a proven track record anymore.

How to recognize a scam.
1. If the price seems to good to be true, it is.
2. New ebay members with no sales and therefore no track record, (see below)
3. Sellers posting and/or asking you to email them to a posted email box in the listing.
4. Listings from the UK, (I can't explain it, just reporting it).
5. Classic one owner, it was garaged and only used to take my elderly Irish mother to Mass every other Sunday, tractors. See #1 again.
6. Bad or broken English, and typos,(sorry guys, I know that hurts), this is especially evident in the reply to an email inquiry.
7. FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING, One day listings, Buyer PreApproval Required, and pink highlighted listings, all seem to be part of the pattern too.
8. Failure of the eBay member to respond in a timely manner to a request for info,(this is sent by eBay straight to their real email address and not to the scammers email and often results in a rapid delisting and disappearance of the listing from ebay when the true owner catches on and reports it). Often the owner of the ID also is then listed as NO LONGER AN ACTIVE USER.
9.. Yahoo email addresses,(they're free).

My advice is to deal locally when you can, read the fine print, use a credit card, and always test drive the iron you are buying.

Hope this was helpful
BJ

P.S. If you spot a fraudulent listing, take the time to report it to eBay.

Tractors4u · Jan 31, 2005

( Every single tractor I looked at, (except from those sellers with a real storefront address), was a scam. )

Kind of hard to believe, especially since there are a few of us on here that have sold tractors through ebay.

I have never had the "ebay tractor ****" experience though.

Evasive1 · Jan 31, 2005

It was snowing out so I too had some time to kill and was browsing the ebay tractor ads. I was shocked at all the scams like you pointed out. Several times I was redirected to a bogus web site. It looked and performed just like the ebay website but was not an official ebay address. The obvious scams almost always needed the bidder to be preapproved and some outragously cheap price for a tractor.

BB_TX · Feb 1, 2005

Your advice is well taken. However, there are some good deals to be had on ebay. You just have to be very careful. I have purchased quite a number of varied items there and so far have not had a problem.

BrettW · Feb 1, 2005

FWIW,
I bought off ebay but drove to see the tractor first. It all worked out well. bw

crk133 · Feb 1, 2005

i have reported scam listing to ebay in the past but they really dont seem to care.... as they have never done anything when i do!!!!

ericinmich · Feb 1, 2005

I bought a tractor on ebay, but only after seeing/driving it. I had almost given up on ebay due to the number of scams.

On one auction that I won (at a good, but not 'scam level', deal), they wanted me to use a specific escrow service before shipping. I went to that site, and it looked legit, with a customer service chat page. But after a bit of digging and calling, I determined that it was a fake.

Be vary careful...

SHIFTY · Feb 1, 2005

Another thing ive seen common on Scamb auctions is a 24 hour auction that usually starts over the weekend.
It seem that ebay takes up to 24 hours to pull a bad auction.
Always be sure to have a way of researching that ebayer,feedback and history.
Have they ever sold that type of product in the past or do they normally sell clothing and now they are offering a new machine at an offer too good to be true?
I have bought and sold on Ebay since 1999.
I have never gotton burned either way,I've Been aproached many times, Scamers usually want to pay with western union. also they will have an email adress within the ad which is different than what is registered to the seller.This is seen when somebodys account gets hijacked by giving out their password and login name by accident.99% of the auctions are great and offer great value and good products.J
ust do your research on the high end products

Bugsy · Feb 1, 2005

BJ you have a very good point about EBay. The buyer does have to be aware. To make matters worse EBay does not offer any real protection either way, to seller or buyer.

At the same time, the majority of us on EBay are not scammers. You previous post suggests that if a business does not accept credit cards or keep units in stock that they must be scammers. This is simply not true.

We used to keep 2 million in wrecker inventory. The result was a lot of people wanting to play with equipment.

(I also have another business selling abandoned cars. People want to "look" all day long. I have learned that after I quote the customer a price for that car, they must show the cash before I open the gate and let them "chew on the tires".)

I know this sounds harsh, but we are all in the show and sell business, not show and tell. And Florida does have more scammers and story tellers than most states.

Did you know that credit card fraud is number 1 on the list. Also did you know that the credit card companies and cardholders have up to 6 months on imported goods to try and request a chargeback. Do they always get it, no. Do you have to fight...**** yes! AND until it is resolved you cannot get your money. For that reason, and we had a fiasco, here in Florida, with a fraudulent card we do not accept cc's on larger purchases.

When a buyer uses a check, state and Federal laws kick in. The most protection afforded to both buyer and seller is with a check. The paper trail is what is used in court. If you pass a bad check, you go to jail. Mail a bad check, now it is Federal, still go to jail. (We always wait for checks to clear, rather than have to prosecute.) Accept a check by mail and don't produce, Federal again.

Credit cards only protect the buyer, fraud or not. In order for a seller to be protected with a credit card, against chargebacks, a notarized signed contract is needed.

You also make note of alternate email addresses in the listing. We do the same. Why? Well our security was compromised when we used to use 1 email address, using the typical EBay info request. Our solution is that we now use another email address STRICTLY for EBay. We will never respond to anyone from that. It is secret to everyone but EBay. When we get EBay mail in our other email boxes, we know they are fake. And believe me, we get lots.

Just because someone uses an address from Yahoo, MSN, Hotmail, etc. that does not make them a crook either. My person address is with Hotmail. I had an Aol address for years and when the X locked me out of Aol, I lost it. I can never lose my Hotmail.

Back to EBay. You stated that you complained. I did that 2x. They pulled the fraudelent listings then pulled mine because I had 1 link to my web for more info - NO PRICING available there. They said I was trying to circumvent fees. Each time I complained they pulled my listings. I feel that retaliation for making them do something.

Look at the listings by: chinabestproducts_com

They are breaking every rule in the book. 254's for $3000. Do you think Ebay cares...nope. They claim they are a Canadian company. They actually are Sentex, in China, registered in Canada but operate from China.

We have yet to sell anything on EBay. We figured from the start that we would give EBay 1 year to produce results. Exposure is great but no sales from there. Now we are looking at how sharp this two-edged sword is. We feel that these scams can hurt us in the long run, by making the general public distrust all of us on EBay.

I apologize for the long post and rant and BY NO MEANS am I trying to offend anyone. If EBay did their job and people used more common sense, then this thread would not even exist.

All of you guys are great. We are not new with equipment but we are new to the tractor arena. months and months of reading your posts has helped a great deal. THANK YOU!

George