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Cautionary Tales on eBay
by Brian McGregor
Two new email scams were brought to my attention this week by readers of the Newsletter. Both are clever, and appeal to that most basic of instincts - greed - and the prospect of getting something for nothing.
The first one comes to you in the guise of a "Question for Seller". I am grateful to Chris for letting me share this with you. This is what he received as a Question for Seller:-
"Hi!
Your last buyer recommend you as a good serious seller. We want advise you very good work. We from Russia, PROWELL ONLINE WEB HOLDING. We know that you work on EBAY and with PAYPAL. We need people who can exchange money. Example is - our clients of our EXCHANGE SITE, send you money (PAYPAL), when u cashout them and send them by WU or BINK WIRE. You get 20% of amount. We have a lot of clients - who want exchange money. All money is clear, from SOFTWARE AND ADULT Sponsors. Weekly amount is 4000-8000$ (American dollar). You get 20% percent + We pay WU or Bank wires fees. We need answer from you, with additional contacts like ICQ, or MSN, or where we can speak with you instant. (It is not spam, we send you this email manually, we need only man who can work with us)
Thank you"
This is either an illegal money laundering scheme, or something worse.
By persuading the target individual that time is of the essence, it is easy to visualise how they could take them for several thousand pounds. The target receives a PayPal payment, and immediately withdraws it to their bank account. This process takes 5-7 business days. While that is happening, as time is of the essence, they send off the net amount by wire as requested. Once the wire payment is received by the fraudster, which is immediate, they instruct PayPal to reverse the payment transaction. In which case, the transfer to the bank account is stopped in its tracks!
It's not very pleasant is it?
This second scam has been reported to me by Terry. Let him explain it in his own words:-
"Hi Brian,
It is very time consuming as you know but I have found a 'clever' scam on ebay.com where this guy(s) in Amsterdam, copies a seller's car, places it for sale themselves with tons of +ve feedback under their names (construed or rather, probably, constructed), and after a process which is lengthy to explain here, he collects peoples deposits, in cash, from a Western Union office in Holland; of course you see nothing for it whatsoever.
Part of it is fairly convincing and because he doesn't have English as a first language and isn't brilliant with our tongue, part of it is pretty amateurish but, still, greed being what it is, convincing!
I have tracked down the real owner in the USA who didn't manage to sell this car but it is now re-listed - set up for some other unsuspecting people.
I have emailed ebay security (twice now) but what they r doing about it G only knows- the scam continues meanwhile.
I do believe my theories on this matter to be correct and I have copies of all the emails to do with it but.........?
Thought you might like to know anyway, my concern is to make this as safe a place as we can - not easy!
Regards
Terry"
As the lawyers say, "caveat emptor" - let the buyer beware!
Finally, an example from me...
A friend of mine rang yesterday and asked if I could help. He was staying in a B&B in Harrogate, and his landlord had received two angry telephone calls from people asking why he hadn't delivered the goods they had bought from him on eBay auctions.
My friend's landlord was very confused. He didn't know what eBay was, he'd never heard of it!
This turned out to be the crudest of deceptions which has netted someone around £1,200. This is what happened...
A person set up a User ID on eBay using my friend's landlord's name and address. They put three electrical items on auction at very low starting prices. The three items were sold. The buyers were sent an email from the seller asking them to send payment to a different address than that which was registered against the User ID. The three people duly sent cheques as requested.
That was the last each of them heard from the seller. Two of the buyers rang my friend's landlord, asking where their purchases were!
The police are now involved, but I suspect the villain is long gone with his loot.
Why did they choose this person's name and address for their User ID registration. I would guess it was pure chance.
The object lesson for everyone who buys on eBay is to make sure you know who your buyer is. This is particularly true when you're talking high value items. This seller had zero feedback, and yet buyers were willing to send cheques to the value of several hundreds pounds. I strongly recommend you check up on your seller BEFORE you part with any money.
If this guy had advertised an electrical item for £400 in the local paper, do you think anyone would hand over their money and wait for the product to be delivered? Well, that's effectively what these three buyers did! I thoroughly recommend you follow eBay's advice here:
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/confidence/ia/knowing_your_seller.html
Lastly with regard to careful trading, here is an excellent UK site which discloses the latest email scams on eBay and PayPal.
http://www.millersmiles.co.uk/index.htm
You can see, whether eBay buying or eBay selling, vigilance is the name of the game.
About the Author
Brian McGregor is an internet business creator, consultant and author. He is the author of several books including 'The eBay Formula', an essential guide to selling successfully on eBay. He has also written many articles and is published on the internet and in the printed media. He is also editor of the eBay Auction Newsletter, which you can subscribe to free. For a free ebook on how to use the leverage of eBay to help your business grow, go to http://www.leads-generation.co.uk/lgdl. For full information about Brian, go to his main website http://www.workwinners.com
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