ebay scam alert!!!

scam?

 

I fail to see how a starting price of $108.10 qualifies an auction as a scam.

 

I don't see anything on that first page for $108.50

 

The auctions were probably reported and pulled down already. The deal is there is an organized operation that hijacks multiple seller accounts and then lists a whole bunch of rare, desirable gear (photos of gear that a legitimate seller already sold in recent weeks) at prices that are too good to be true. The way they set it up, it's difficult for Ebay to catch them until enough people report each instance. Between the time the auction starts, and the time the auctions are pulled down, enough foolish people have hit "buy it now" and sent their Paypal payment that it is a profitable scam for the operators.

There are craploads of giveaway clues on these scam auctions once you've seen a couple of them. I report one almost every other day.

 

How do they hijack accounts? Is Joe User at risk?

 

Well the only technique I know of with certainty is phishing. The fake Ebay login pages are getting better and more elaborate all the time, and a good phish gets them the login and password which is all they need to get in, disable email notifications, re-route the Paypal info, and list the "goods".

So don't get suckered by phishing.

I would not be surprised if there are other methods/risks, but I don't know them.

 

That's a relief. I am pretty wary about phishing.

 

The first time I came across one of these auctions was when I was looking for a French Horn for my son. The BIN price was a great deal on a Yamaha horn, so I contacted the seller at the e-mail address they included. The auction was pulled down shortly after it went up and the seller insisted it was just a "problem with the listing". He tried to convince me that we could still do the deal. I kept telling him that once his listing was back on-line, we could talk. It didn't take long to figure out what was going on.

I'm in the market for a Ric 4001, and I came across three of those auctions yesterday for three separate Rics (and reported them immediately). When someone has a '73 fretless 4001 in mint condition for a $1300, you know something is fishy. Not to mention when the seller doesn't want you to bid, but rather contact them outside of eBay via the e-mail address they give....red lights are flashing.

As they say...when something appears too good to be true, it usually is.