E-Bay Scam

I was almost caught up in a scam.

I saw a brand new K20 listed for just 310quid bin, it was only listed 10mins previous and it was listed as an unwanted prize. I quickly clicked the bin button.

It seemed a little too good to be true and I was a little suspicious so I messaged the seller and asked a few questions about it, and she gave the serial number and even if I wanted to pick it, well being 4000kms away, on the other side of the country, that was out of the question, (and I suspect they knew that).

I also checked thier feedback which was 100% and some 40 transactions. (They sold baby clothes and toys)and this camera stuck out like a sore thumb. So I said to myself maybe it is an unwanted prize.
Well I sent off a paypal payment for the amount asked and waited to hear back from the seller.

Well the next morning I checked E-bay and it was saying I needed to pay for 1 item, which turned out to be the camera. I checked my paypal account and the money had been returned and was on hold ??

I then checked my e-mail and there was an e-mail from the seller saying they were having problems with thier Paypal account and could I send the money via bank deposit to an account they gave me. Alarm bells started ringing.

I did a bit more checking and ran a search of completed listings from this seller and bingo there were 3 other cameras sold over the previous week, all with the same M/O about an unwanted prize. (2 canon 450Ds and another K20)

I reported it to E-bay and Paypal and also messaged the 3 buyers of the other 3 cameras, all of which replied back, 1 guy paid by bank deposit and the other 2 had there money returned by paypal requesting a bank deposit. They also thought it was a scam.

Well I recieved an e-mail from the seller this morning stating she had her identity stolen by a relative who was living with her and they had changed her bank and paypal accounts in E-bay and were attempting to scam people. She was very apologetic and shamed by her relatives actions and it was now in the hands of the police. Whether thats true or not I don't know.

I am just relieved that paypal were on the ball and had there account frozen or I could have been out $700

What annoyed me a little was none of the other 3 who were scammed before me bothered to leave feedback to warn others of the scam.

So the moral to the story is, as my mum would say, If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. I should have listened to mum

It's common for eBay accounts to be hijacked - but it's usually by people not known to the account holder who have cracked or phished the password. They prefer accounts that haven't been used for a long while as the holder is less likely to regularly check their account and emails.

After reading this I checked my account which has not been used for 2 years, with iceblinker's information I have just closed mine..

There could well be a danger if you don't use any account, because how many of us would check something that we had not used for years?

At the same time you might want to think about old unused e-mail addresses, internet banking for closed accounts and credit cards and other sundry items.

It's difficult to avoid danger altogether though.

It certainly is John, I always thought myself bullet proof and believed I could sniff out a scam from a mile away, obviously I was wrong.

This type of hijacked account scam has been going for some time, a few years to my knowledge. I always check the sellers other sales. If they are not related to the item I'm buying, I always pass on it. As you say, "If it looks too good to be true . . ."

I did have some luck about three years ago when a woman was selling 2 *istD cameras and lenses with each. One had the FA 100mm Macro. These were her first two sales and it looked a bit dodgy. I wasn't really surprised when Ebay closed her account assuming it was a scam and removed the two items from sale. Later, they appeared again under the same user name.

I did some checking with the seller and Ebay. It turned out that the cameras belonged to her deceased husband and the sales were genuine. Ebay satisfied themselves that the auctions were genuine and reinstated her account. Eventually, I got a *istD and the 100mm Macro lens, both of which I still have, for £400. A real bargain at the time and probably still would be today.

To cap it all, the lady seller delivered the kit in person to my house and included 2 X Sandisk Extreme III 2Gb CF cards and a Jessops aluminium CF card storage case. I was well chuffed, and still am.

Thanks, Mannesty, that's the other side of the argument. If we never trust anyone, we never communicate with anyone and end up isolated and all the poorer for that.

So maybe we have to take risks, we just use common sense as much as we can.

John,

My experience shows that not all odd looking auction transactions are bad. But still, I prefer to err on the side of caution. These scammers take advantage of a very common human trait, greed. I don't mean that in any malicious sense. Let's face it, who can resist a bargain when something we want comes up at a price we can afford? Just let your sensible head make the decision, not your lustful heart.

Using terms like greed and lust here might not be wholly appropriate, but it does make the point. I'm not wishing to offend anyone so feel free to substitute your own words.

One suspicious factor wouldn't necessarily put me off an item, but you should be cautious when there is more than suspicious one factor, especially when PayPal isn't accepted. PayPal really helps in the event of recieving nothing.

If you are at all suspicious, search for similar items* to see if the seller has copied the description and pictures from another seller. They do this when they are too ignorant to write their own descrpition and have no item to photograph. Actually I find it quite reasuring that scammers are so often so stupid as to copy descriptions or write one in such a way that it stands out.

An item description containing only text and pictures copied from a manufacturer's or dealer's website should ring alarm bells, too, although some genuine-but-ignorant/lazy sellers do this as well.

* including Completed Items via Advanced Search

A while back someone apparently hacked into my eBay account, not for a scam but to spam. A Chinese company seemimgly was sending spam looking for distibutors using the Ask Seller a Question feature. What did intrigue me was that their obviously spamming message got polite, negative responses from several people. All the sent replies were sitting in My Messages. eBay notified me that the account had been stopped until I reset the password: of course I thought their message was a spoof at first! Since then I check my account occasionally to ensure there are no strange messages around.