I have just been perusing the ebay website and came across some very dodgy sales where cars look to have been dramatically underpriced.
I was wondering why people do this? All the adds are of the same format, so I suspect some kind of organistion? The adds all have an email adress to contact and notes at the top only pre-approved bidders are entitled to bid.
A short list of adverts follows.
cgi.ebay.co.uk/2002-Renault-Clio-Sport-172-Monaco-...m
cgi.ebay.co.uk/2005-55-Mercedes-SLK-200-Kompressor...m
If you want to look for some more there are plenty of others. Sorry moderators I have yet to learn how to use tiny ULs.
Other than some kind of criminal activity I can't see the sense of these adverts, prehapps someone would enlighten me?
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They have hacked an account. The give-away phrase is "I cannot get in touch with you if you use the "Ask seller a question" option, so please e-mail me directly.My eBay contact is currently unavailable because i've reached the e-mail storage limit and i wouldn't be able to answer any of your questions"
There's no limit on Ebay messages.
You email him, he tells you to Western Union transfer the money, and puff, it's gone, and no car!
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Both sellers have no buyer feedback.
Interesting comment about no Email via Ebay.
So what is the scam?
1 You turn up with the cash and get mugged on some innocent persons driveway?
2 Or you turn up at the owners house (on holiday?), handover your cash for a duplicate set of keys, and drive away with documents to be sent on. You have the use of the car until the owner returns and reports it stolen?
Any other suggestions?
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pmh (was peter)
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The sellers will try all the tricks to get you to pay in advance before you ever get near the non-existant vehicle. They are almost certainly in Nigeria.
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You have to wonder if even the stupidest person in the world would get taken in (why make the cars so ludicrously cheap?)?
I find it very annoying that eBay can't pick these things up - they could start by banning email addresses in listings.
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So what is the scam?
Various deposits from multiple "preapproved" users, shipping agent fees, delivery fees etc
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[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
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I'd have thought some scammer has hijacked someones account, does'nt want you to contact the right full owner hence email directly etc. The clio has a feedback score of 227, 99.6 %, the name on the account is unchanged. I've seen a few of these and they disappear after a few days, even from completed listing searches, I presume when ebay finds out.
Its a jungle out there. ;-)
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They always have really short listing times aswel, most are a 1 day sale.
Notice the Clio has just been washed, possibly a mobile valeter type company supplying pictures to these sellers for a small fee???
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mk124, click on this link to make tiny Uls instantly
tinyurl.com/
m
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190036229714
Above is the original (genuine?) listing that they've robbed for the scam. Note photo of the car with the numberplate showing has been removed and replaced with a duplicate.
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190036229714 Above is the original (genuine?) listing that they've robbed for the scam. Note photo of the car with the numberplate showing has been removed and replaced with a duplicate.
No it's not - that's the same item number as in the scam link.
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Ebay seller is selling this very cheap car as well.
Strange he doesn't know the date of 1st reg. on this beauty either??
tinyurl.com/nnhks
m
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Heres a good one, buy it now for 2p!
snipurl.com/xij4
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>> 190036229714 >> >> Above is the original (genuine?) listing that they've robbed for the >> scam. Note photo of the car with the numberplate showing has >> been removed and replaced with a duplicate. >> No it's not - that's the same item number as in the scam link.
You're right of course, copied and pasted the wrong item number! Doh :-(
270030332615
Is the one I meant to post :-)
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Unlikely to be a Nigerian scammer, the descriptions generally have too much english street cred without the errors . More like Essex talk. Perhaps English overseas degrees are getting better.
Interesting, all the ids that they have hacked appear to have almost 100% feedbacks but as buyers only. Any ideas?
Anybody got the time to take on one of the scammers?
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pmh (was peter)
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The best thing to do is contact eBay and report it.
Here is the link to directly report the hijacked account (eBay don't make it easy to get to!!!) Click on 'Email us' which will bring up the 'Report another member?s account as stolen' form
pages.ebay.co.uk/help/contact_us/_base/result_5_3_...l
or
Contact the scammer and insist on payment on collection.........or ask if he's willing to post it to Nigeria.
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Its been reported that someone has developed some software to build an ebay reputation. The account buys and sells only automated deals, thijngs like ebooks etc with low bin prices handled automatically. Scammer sits back while the account grows then throws in the big scam.
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That's interesting but said scammer would still have to complete purchases in order to gain feedback wouldn't they?
What most do at the moment is phishing - sending out mass emails to everyone pretending to be eBay (or banks etc) and asking for you to sign in via links to confirm who you are. Bingo. Account name and password.
Only ever sign in directly at the website - never via a link in an email. Ever.
I still find it amazing that even ebayers with high feedback still fall for phishing.
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Here's another one
190036232812
Which is a copy of a completed listing
130027471323
Just swapped pictures around, no need to speak English
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... The best thing to do is contact eBay and report it.
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enoughalready:
i don't have an ebay account, otherwise i would do it. why don't you do it?
incidentally, recently there was the story linked from "the register" on here about someone being mugged in dagenham after trying to buy a car from a scammer on ebay. someone here posted the link to the original item on ebay. my friend sent the details to the journalist at "the register", and they replied to say that they had sent on the details to dagenham cid.
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"enoughalready:
i don't have an ebay account, otherwise i would do it. why don't you do it?"
I did.
Thought it good to supply the report details so everyone can easily get access to it easily in the future.
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"Heres a good one, buy it now for 2p!"
sorry to be thick, but how does this one work (as a scam)? Will thousands of people paypal their 2ps to the seller? Or is it a way to hijack your account?
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Phil
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Ebay don't allow you to join using a free webmail address such as yahoo, without filing direct debit and credit card details which themselves are verified. So they probably joined with someone else's proper email address, and want you to use the yahoo one instead of the one registered to the account.
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Funny this topic should come up!
A couple of months ago my own e-bay account was actually hacked by one of these scammers who was attempting to 'sell' a VW Touran using my e-bay account. The car concerned had a Glass's guide value of around £12000, and was on a 'buy it now' of just £4000! What these con artists do is copy another (genuine) e-bayers advert and sell using the ID of another e-bayer (in this case me). They had put the item on a one day auction, presumeably to minimize the chances of me noticing my account had been hijacked. And yes, they wanted the would be purchaser to pay by money transfer of some sort.
First thing I knew of it was when I received a 'change of e-mail notifiaction' from e-bay which I had not authorised. In the meantime, I had somehow received an e-mail from an e-bayer interested in buying this vehicle. You will all be amazed to hear that he said he would be willing to pay the buy it now price of £4000 if the car was HPI clear! (now any car that has a retail value of £12000 and is being offered for just a third of its value has every right to be a cat C or D, I'm sure you will all agree). I managed to find this guys phone number by checking aganist his user ID to see if he had any items for sale, which he did. Beleave it or not he was selling his own Touran for £12000! (So this dimwit thought he could actually sell his for full money and buy a perfect identical example for 8 grand less!!! - some people really just don't have a clue do they? This was clearly a too good to be true offer). So I informed him of what had happened and suggested to him that he does not bid.
Next I reported this matter to e-bay, who to their credit were excllent and took the matter very seriously indeed. I had to use the 'live web chat' facility which they have set up especially for these matters. Via this you are talking to one of e-bay's security people in Canada, who then telephoned me on the phone number I registered with e-bay to confirm who I am.
As a result, I had to change passwords etc that I use on e-bay. My advice to anyone that notices one of these adverts, is definately report it to e-bay as soon as you spot it, as you could well be helping the person whose account has been hacked as well as the customer about to be ripped off.
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Anyone else notice the 'seller' has listed the SLK and Mini Convertible as 4-wheel drive in the safety features?
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