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I've Never Seen Anyone Run so Fast - A Real Life Story
by Brian McGregor
A friend of mine is a jeweller. I mean a proper jeweller, a craftsman. He specialises in old pieces. No, I'm not referring to his wife - she's lovely - I mean he is an expert in early 20th century jewellery. Anyway, he asked recently if I would mind as a favour trying to sell a piece of his on eBay, just as a trial. I should explain he is not computer literate at all. He'd read about eBay in a jewellery trade magazine, and he knew I was somehow involved with it so he just wanted to see if it could work for him.
So I agreed, and we put up for auction a beautiful amethyst and diamond necklace. To give you an idea of the value, I can tell you the Reserve Price was over £2,000.
I kept an eye on the auction, and we were getting superb viewing figures. And then it happened....
I received this email:
Hello! I'm very interested in buying your Item and I would like to know if you can ship it to Italy, zip 20099. Also what is your final selling price including shipping costs. Thanks and looking forward in doing business with you. Regards.
And I replied ........
Hi Yes, I would ship to Italy. My final selling price, including shipping, is £xxxx. Regards
And he replies (I know it's a he, as he signs this email Luigi)......
Hello Thanks for your fast answer. I will give you £xxxx (overnight shipping by FedEx, UPS or DHL included). I'll use escrow, and I am registered with http://www.ebso-trader.com. Please register yourself with them and let's start the transaction. I will cover the escrow fees. Thanks, Luigi.
And then I did a sneaky thing. I decided to check out http://www.ebso-trader.com, the escrow company.
Why did I want to do this? Well, just to come out of the story for a second. If you haven't heard of escrow services before, they are recommended to be used on high value items which are bought and sold via internet auctions. The escrow company is like a middle man. The buyer sends his money to the escrow company, who then informs the seller that the payment has been safely received. So, the seller despatches the good to the buyer, for them to examine. The buyer receives the goods and tells the escrow company they're fine, you can release the payment now to the seller. The seller is sent the payment held by the escrow company, minus their fee.
This all works very well - in theory. The problem is that about 90% of escrow companies on the internet are fraudulent. Yes, you read that figure correctly - 90% !!! I know this from being aware of a guy called Paul Moreau. He runs a special website under the pseudonym Fenton Smith.
You can check it out for yourself here:
http://sos4auctions.com/escrow/escrow.asp
However, as I wanted to know the position quickly, I decided to investigate http://www.ebso-trader.com myself. I'll tell you how I did it later, but it turned out that they were a fraudulent outfit. The only escrow site which eBay recommend we use is
http://www.escrow.com.
So, back to the story....
If you remember, Luigi was in Italy and wanted the necklace, we'd agreed a price, and he wanted to use his suggested escrow company.
I reply ......
Hi Luigi Great. I use http://www.escrow.com. Let me know when you have registered with them, and I'll set up the transaction. Regards
And guess what? Since then, I've hearda narthing froma Luigi! Surprisa, surprisa!
If you have a buyer who suggests you use their preferred escrow organisation, be very wary. You could find yourself without your item and without any money.
These escrow fraudsters are nothing if not fair - they treat everyone equally. So if you're a buyer, and your seller suggest you use their escrow organisation, Guess what? You'll find yourself losing your money, and you'll never see the item you're supposed to have bought.
Incidentally, how did I check out http://www.esbo-trader.com? Here's a useful checklist:
1. Their site says they've been in business since 2001 (or some other date indicating they have been in operation several years) but the domain name was registered a couple of weeks ago.
2. When you begin to register, they don't take you to an SSL secure site to do it. By that I mean no little padlock appears at the bottom of the screen, which you will always find on a legitimate escrow web site. The reason the fraudsters don't have a secure site service, is that it costs money!
3. Most fraudulent escrow sites copy pages and pages of information from genuine escrow sites, and in particular http://www.escrow.com. And in fact http://www.ebso-trader.com claimed their escrow services are provided by Internet Escrow Services (IES), and IES can be verified to be an independent escrow company licensed in California. However, Internet Escrow Services (IES) is a wholly owned subsidiary of escrow.com and only provides escrow services to escrow.com.
4. There was no phone number or address on the website, which is another indicator of a potentially fraudulent escrow company.
5. Poor grammar and/or spelling is also a giveaway.
For more details on detecting fraudulent escrow companies take a look at the excellent advice given here
http://www.escrow.com
Better still, try and avoid using escrow at all!
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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