Ebay Scam ?

[ken lyles]

My son found a Trek Madone bike on ebay for $1000.00. I emailed the seller and immediately received a response saying that it was new unopened and would be shipped fm Europe. The seller had 850 feedback entries and was 99.5% positive. I 'live chatted' with Ebay because it was suspicious, but they just said send them an email and they would research it. What kind of scam could this be ?

 

[djg21]

My son found a Trek Madone bike on ebay for $1000.00. I emailed the seller and immediately received a response saying that it was new unopened and would be shipped fm Europe. The seller had 850 feedback entries and was 99.5% positive. I 'live chatted' with Ebay because it was suspicious, but they just said send them an email and they would research it. What kind of scam could this be ?

They'll ask for a western union payment, or a bankcheck because they don't accept paypal. Take a look at the feedback and see what else the seller hs sold. Bet you a beer its a bunch on non-bike related trinkets. The conclusion you can draw -- a hijacked user ID. We both know that Madones cannot be bought for $1,000. If it's to good to be true ...

 

[JTE83]

can you post an ebay link of the listing? It might be for real and the seller knows that it will be bidded higher.

 

[astroluc]

this is possible; is it a "buy it now" price of $1000?? if so, it could be a scam... if not, it may just be a lowball starting bid to get some action on the listing. High demand items usually never list a "buy it now" price because demand + Bidding = higher selling price... unless A)the seller is misinformed,or unaware of the value of the item (VERY RARE) or B) the seller is not on the up and up and wants quick money. Do some research, and use paypal when you can.

 

[ken lyles]

They'll ask for a western union payment, or a bankcheck because they don't accept paypal. Take a look at the feedback and see what else the seller hs sold. Bet you a beer its a bunch on non-bike related trinkets. The conclusion you can draw -- a hijacked user ID. We both know that Madones cannot be bought for $1,000. If it's to good to be true ...[/QUOT

BINGO ! An hour later I went back the item was 'closed by Ebay, maybe they DID research it after I talked to them.
Then I did another search for Madone 5.9 and there were 5 more listings by other sellers with the same pictures.....and yes, the sellers and their profiles looked ligitimate. But like you said they were selling coins or some other non-bike stuff.

 

[djg21]

They'll ask for a western union payment, or a bankcheck because they don't accept paypal. Take a look at the feedback and see what else the seller hs sold. Bet you a beer its a bunch on non-bike related trinkets. The conclusion you can draw -- a hijacked user ID. We both know that Madones cannot be bought for $1,000. If it's to good to be true ...[/QUOT

BINGO ! An hour later I went back the item was 'closed by Ebay, maybe they DID research it after I talked to them.
Then I did another search for Madone 5.9 and there were 5 more listings by other sellers with the same pictures.....and yes, the sellers and their profiles looked ligitimate. But like you said they were selling coins or some other non-bike stuff.

It will be a Stella Artois next time I'm passing through Ablemarle Co, or when you're visiting the Adirondacks.

 

[JohnO]

That's a hijacked account. You've seen those phishing emails, that tell you to log onto your ebay account because it's about to be closed? They steal people's ebay ID with those emails, and then sell high ticket items from Europe to the US, because sending law enforcement internationally is very difficult.

There's a new phishing scam out now - an ebay message that says you haven't paid for an auction, and of course the auction is something you never bid on. So you want to log on immediately to check the situation out, and use the handy little link that the email provides, and... gotcha! That link was to the crook's website that is set up to look like ebay. To add insult to injury... I thought I'd log onto one of those phony ebay sites with a very rude login name just to express my contempt for this sort of theft, and the damn thing tried to install spyware on my machine. Saved by Linux again...

Something else to watch for: if the 'seller' specifies an email address for contact, rather than contacting them through the ebay 'send seller a message' facility. That's almost certainly a hijacked account.