Do you recognize this bike shop?

Dave Wilson said:

There's a bunch of listings on eBay right now that have all the
hallmarks of a scam. No feedback, lots of identical listings, stock
photos, no PayPal or credit card, bad English, etc. Hmm, I just
checked the link I was going to paste in, and the auction has
disappeared from eBay.

Anyway, I emailed them asking if they had any pictures of the bike,
and I got back a stock reply that just screamed "scam". But the reply
included a link to their website.

http://www.akron-bike.com/

The name above the shop picture is poorly photo-shopped.Definite scam.
Whois shows:
[whois.easyspace.com]
Registrant:
Mr Derek S Riewe
2608 Llano Encantado NW
Albuquerque
NM
87120
Domain Name: AKRON-BIKE.COM
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
"Mr Derek S Riewe"
Phone: 2547635589
Fax:
Technical Contact, Registrar:
"Mr Easyspace Hostmaster"
Phone: +44 1932 350 097

I dont know if the name belongs to Easyspace, or who has registered.
Definitely one to avoid.
Alan.

--
To reply by e-mail, change the ' + ' to 'plus'.
http://www.dvatc.co.uk - Off-road cycling in the North Midlands.

Dave Wilson said:

There's a bunch of listings on eBay right now that have all the
hallmarks of a scam. No feedback, lots of identical listings, stock
photos, no PayPal or credit card, bad English, etc. Hmm, I just
checked the link I was going to paste in, and the auction has
disappeared from eBay.

Anyway, I emailed them asking if they had any pictures of the bike,
and I got back a stock reply that just screamed "scam". But the reply
included a link to their website.

http://www.akron-bike.com/

The English and writing style on the site are just like the email and
eBay listing. My guess is they just took the three photos of a bike
shop and built a fake site around them. So my question is: do you
recognize the bike shop? The only clues are the "515" address on the
front of the building. They did actually go to the trouble of using a
515 address in the contacts section of the website.

just idly curious,
Dave
www.davewilson.cc

seems like a scam to me. It looks like the bike shop name was made in MS
paint.

--

Let the bridges I burn light my way...

Dave Wilson said:

There's a bunch of listings on eBay right now that have all the
hallmarks of a scam. No feedback, lots of identical listings, stock
photos, no PayPal or credit card, bad English, etc. Hmm, I just
checked the link I was going to paste in, and the auction has
disappeared from eBay.

Anyway, I emailed them asking if they had any pictures of the bike,
and I got back a stock reply that just screamed "scam". But the reply
included a link to their website.

http://www.akron-bike.com/

The English and writing style on the site are just like the email and
eBay listing. My guess is they just took the three photos of a bike
shop and built a fake site around them. So my question is: do you
recognize the bike shop? The only clues are the "515" address on the
front of the building. They did actually go to the trouble of using a
515 address in the contacts section of the website.

just idly curious,
Dave
www.davewilson.cc

The pictures of the inside have different types of flooring. Almost
looks like they took the pictures at different bike shops. Also, the lay
out of the windows on the interior picture does not match the way the
windows look on the exterior.

--

Let the bridges I burn light my way...

A.Lee said:

Dave Wilson said:

There's a bunch of listings on eBay right now that have all the
hallmarks of a scam. No feedback, lots of identical listings, stock
photos, no PayPal or credit card, bad English, etc. Hmm, I just
checked the link I was going to paste in, and the auction has
disappeared from eBay.

Anyway, I emailed them asking if they had any pictures of the bike,
and I got back a stock reply that just screamed "scam". But the
reply included a link to their website.

http://www.akron-bike.com/

The name above the shop picture is poorly photo-shopped.Definite scam.
Whois shows:
[whois.easyspace.com]
Registrant:
Mr Derek S Riewe
2608 Llano Encantado NW
Albuquerque
NM
87120
Domain Name: AKRON-BIKE.COM
Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
"Mr Derek S Riewe"
Phone: 2547635589
Fax:
Technical Contact, Registrar:
"Mr Easyspace Hostmaster"
Phone: +44 1932 350 097

I dont know if the name belongs to Easyspace, or who has registered.
Definitely one to avoid.
Alan.

Agreed. TOTAL ripoff.

No listing for that phone number on the reverse listings
No listing for that bike shop in San Diego.
I'm /in/ San Diego and 1) have never heard of it, and 2) it doesn't look
like a building near the Gaslamp Quarter (where that address is)
Even the /address/ on the building looks like a bad Photoshop job.

If you want to contact the Admin Contact for akron-bike.com, try Mr. Riewe
at 505-831-5693

Be afraid . . . be /very/ afraid.

Dave Wilson said:

There's a bunch of listings on eBay right now that have all the
hallmarks of a scam. No feedback, lots of identical listings, stock
photos, no PayPal or credit card, bad English, etc. Hmm, I just
checked the link I was going to paste in, and the auction has
disappeared from eBay.

Anyway, I emailed them asking if they had any pictures of the bike,
and I got back a stock reply that just screamed "scam". But the reply
included a link to their website.

http://www.akron-bike.com/

The English and writing style on the site are just like the email and
eBay listing. My guess is they just took the three photos of a bike
shop and built a fake site around them. So my question is: do you
recognize the bike shop? The only clues are the "515" address on the
front of the building. They did actually go to the trouble of using a
515 address in the contacts section of the website.

just idly curious,
Dave
www.davewilson.cc

The '515' and the blue "Akron bike" on yellow seem photoshop artifacts
to me.
No doubt the site looks pretty suspicious.

Here what whois http://www.whois.org/whois.cgi2?d=akron-bike.com tells:

WHOIS information for akron-bike.com:

[whois.easyspace.com]
Registrant:
Mr Derek S Riewe
2608 Llano Encantado NW
Albuquerque
NM
87120
US

Domain Name: AKRON-BIKE.COM

Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
"Mr Derek S Riewe"
Phone: 2547635589
Fax:
Technical Contact, Registrar:
"Mr Easyspace Hostmaster"
Phone: +44 1932 350 097
Fax: +44 1932 350 222

Record last updated on 2004-11-01.
Record expires on 2006-11-01.
Record created on 2004-11-01.

Domain servers in listed order:

NS1.EASYPOST.COM 216.167.71.20
NS3.EASYPOST.COM 216.167.71.24

Wasatch5k said:

Dave Wilson said:

There's a bunch of listings on eBay right now that have all the
hallmarks of a scam. No feedback, lots of identical listings, stock
photos, no PayPal or credit card, bad English, etc. Hmm, I just
checked the link I was going to paste in, and the auction has
disappeared from eBay.

Anyway, I emailed them asking if they had any pictures of the bike,
and I got back a stock reply that just screamed "scam". But the
reply included a link to their website.

http://www.akron-bike.com/

The English and writing style on the site are just like the email and
eBay listing. My guess is they just took the three photos of a bike
shop and built a fake site around them. So my question is: do you
recognize the bike shop? The only clues are the "515" address on the
front of the building. They did actually go to the trouble of using
a 515 address in the contacts section of the website.

just idly curious,
Dave
www.davewilson.cc

The pictures of the inside have different types of flooring. Almost
looks like they took the pictures at different bike shops. Also, the
lay out of the windows on the interior picture does not match the way
the windows look on the exterior.

Also there is no listing in any directory for an Akron Bike Shop in San
Diego.

(Dave Wilson) said:

http://www.akron-bike.com/

Appears to be phony.

WHOIS shows that this domain was registered through Easyspace on
1 Nov 2004. The purported registrant is Mr Derek S Riewe of
Albuquerque, NM, although the phone number given has a Texas
area code and a prefix that doesn't seem to exist.

The "About Us" page says they opened in Feb 2002, yet dexonline.com
shows no results for "Akron Bike Shop" or variations thereof in San
Diego, CA. Google comes up pretty slim as well. And the "Akron
Bike" sign on the storefront looks a bit fishy.

Gaslamp Plaza Suites is within spittin' distance of the alleged
street address. I called them and they said there is no such bike
shop and that they've received several calls about it in the past
week.

Caveat emptor.

--
Michael Fuhr
http://www.fuhr.org/~mfuhr/

(Dave Wilson) said:

http://www.akron-bike.com/

Appears to be phony.

WHOIS shows that this domain was registered through Easyspace on
1 Nov 2004. The purported registrant is Mr Derek S Riewe of
Albuquerque, NM, although the phone number given has a Texas
area code and a prefix that doesn't seem to exist.

The "About Us" page says they opened in Feb 2002, yet dexonline.com
shows no results for "Akron Bike Shop" or variations thereof in San
Diego, CA. Google comes up pretty slim as well. And the "Akron
Bike" sign on the storefront looks a bit fishy.

Gaslamp Plaza Suites is within spittin' distance of the alleged
street address. I called them and they said there is no such bike
shop and that they've received several calls about it in the past
week.

Caveat emptor.

--
Michael Fuhr
http://www.fuhr.org/~mfuhr/

They must be running other scams and didn't even bother to change the
meta tags in the html for the site. This is from the website header:

<meta name="description" content="Next generation technologies for your
home or business.">
<meta name="keywords" content="plasma, plasmas, monitors, monitor,
display, nec, panasonic, philips, hitachi, siemens, pioneer, samsung,
sharp, lg, kodak, lcd, digital, phones, cordless, phone, flat screen,
projection, hdtv, high definition, tv, ">
<meta name="copyright" content="Copyright &copy; 2002
Future-Electronics">
<meta name="author" content="Future-Electronics">

"Dave Wilson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

There's a bunch of listings on eBay right now that have all the
hallmarks of a scam. No feedback, lots of identical listings, stock
photos, no PayPal or credit card, bad English, etc. Hmm, I just
checked the link I was going to paste in, and the auction has
disappeared from eBay.

Anyway, I emailed them asking if they had any pictures of the bike,
and I got back a stock reply that just screamed "scam". But the reply
included a link to their website.

http://www.akron-bike.com/

The English and writing style on the site are just like the email and
eBay listing. My guess is they just took the three photos of a bike
shop and built a fake site around them. So my question is: do you
recognize the bike shop? The only clues are the "515" address on the
front of the building. They did actually go to the trouble of using a
515 address in the contacts section of the website.

just idly curious,
Dave
www.davewilson.cc

And the big email address on the page [email hidden] actually goes to
a juno.com mail account

Dave Wilson said:

No feedback, lots of identical listings, stock
photos, no PayPal or credit card, bad English, etc.

Any of these things would keep me from bidding -- even the bad English.

eBay is actually quite good about following up fraud reports, that is, if anyone
bothers to report it. Posting here is good, but forwarding this thread to eBay
is really the way to deal with it.

Matt O.

The three photos appear to be of different buildings. The sign looks
fake and the shadow isn't right.

"zulutime" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

The three photos appear to be of different buildings. The sign looks
fake and the shadow isn't right.

web site looks very similiar to this one http://www.scorpionbike.com/

(Dave Wilson) said:

There's a bunch of listings on eBay right now that have all the
hallmarks of a scam. No feedback, lots of identical listings, stock
photos, no PayPal or credit card, bad English, etc. Hmm, I just
checked the link I was going to paste in, and the auction has
disappeared from eBay.

Anyway, I emailed them asking if they had any pictures of the bike,
and I got back a stock reply that just screamed "scam". But the reply
included a link to their website.

http://www.akron-bike.com/

The English and writing style on the site are just like the email and
eBay listing. My guess is they just took the three photos of a bike
shop and built a fake site around them. So my question is: do you
recognize the bike shop? The only clues are the "515" address on the
front of the building. They did actually go to the trouble of using a
515 address in the contacts section of the website.

just idly curious,
Dave
www.davewilson.cc

There was a recent report on my local craigs list that someone saw the
bike they were trying to sell on craigs list up for auction on ebay!
Someone took the craigs list photos and text and used them on ebay. A
reverse of the typical scam.

Dan Daniel said:

There was a recent report on my local craigs list that someone saw the
bike they were trying to sell on craigs list up for auction on ebay!
Someone took the craigs list photos and text and used them on ebay. A
reverse of the typical scam.

In the past couple of years, I recall at least one incident in which a
poster here was advising that a bike which was listed on eBay had to
be a scam; the photos of the bike and some supporting materials had
been lifted from both his listing of the bike and from his employer's
website, if I remember correctly.

I've spotted a couple of obvious scams on eBay myself, and have turned
them in to the eBay investigation folks promptly when I did.

My rule of thumb: It's probably a scam if a listing is shown as
"bidder identities protected" when there is no reason for that to be
the case, the items up for bid are expensive, and the seller meets any
of the following criteria:

- Feedback level very low, or lots of feedback but it's all as a
buyer and the most recent is many months ago.
- User identity recently changed, and feedback (as seller or buyer)
is all more than a few months old.
- Much or all of the feedback is from users whose only or principle
feedback is from a common group of users (i.e., a bunch of false
idenities created just to pump up the feedback on each other.)

I have seen all of these warning sign patterns on sales which were
ended by eBay, and have seen them as well on sales that later turned
out to be fraud cases.
--
Typoes are a feature, not a bug.
Some gardening required to reply via email.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

Dave Wilson said:

There's a bunch of listings on eBay right now that have all the
hallmarks of a scam. No feedback, lots of identical listings, stock
photos, no PayPal or credit card, bad English, etc. Hmm, I just
checked the link I was going to paste in, and the auction has
disappeared from eBay.

I saw those while trolling through the Bianchis yesterday.

They're bogus.

The clue is that they won't accept bids, they want you to call
and make a deal directly.

That's against eBay's rules.

But they disappeared before I could even page through to
the contact form to report the violation.

So I'm not going to worry about them.

--Blair
"Have baseball bat, will keep sellers honest."

They sure list a lot of bikes.

http://tinyurl.com/67qqp

Dave Wilson said:

There's a bunch of listings on eBay right now that have all the
hallmarks of a scam. No feedback, lots of identical listings, stock
photos, no PayPal or credit card, bad English, etc. Hmm, I just
checked the link I was going to paste in, and the auction has
disappeared from eBay.

Anyway, I emailed them asking if they had any pictures of the bike,
and I got back a stock reply that just screamed "scam". But the reply
included a link to their website.

http://www.akron-bike.com/

The English and writing style on the site are just like the email and
eBay listing. My guess is they just took the three photos of a bike
shop and built a fake site around them. So my question is: do you
recognize the bike shop? The only clues are the "515" address on the
front of the building. They did actually go to the trouble of using a
515 address in the contacts section of the website.

just idly curious,
Dave
www.davewilson.cc

There are no buildings that look like this at that address. This is
downtown where there are only multi-sotry buildings. In fact, I recall
this building is at least five stories tall and houses San Diego
Hardware. Also the area code is bogus.

Scams must pay off for someone to put this much energy into it.

Dan said:

They sure list a lot of bikes.

http://tinyurl.com/67qqp

Yep. The current akron-bike username is less than a day old.
--
Phil, Squid-in-Training