How does this scam work?

Quoted message said:

This Ebay item has some of the signs of a scam, but the feedback
looks legit. Anyone know how this is being worked?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2226&item=6949993111&rd=1

Its a scam, run a mile. He has listed 381 top end bikes at the same
time. When you e-mail they will tell you they have exactly the bike you
want (size, colour, make) at an unbelievable price. Only you have to
send them cash or wire Western Union or somesuch. Guess what, your money
disappears and the bike never appears.

http://www.bikebiz.co.uk/daily-news/article.php?id=5223

Run a mile

Tony

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

This Ebay item has some of the signs of a scam, but the feedback looks
legit. Anyone know how this is being worked?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2226&item=6949993111&rd=1

Seeing as it has now been removed, I have no idea!
--
Mark (MSA)
______________________________________________
Remember, half the people you know are below average

E Bay have withdrawn the item -- they obviously think it is a scam too.

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

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

This Ebay item has some of the signs of a scam, but the feedback
looks legit. Anyone know how this is being worked?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2226&item=6949993111&rd=1

The feedback looked legit. I wondered how that was done. A hijacked
account I suppose. Perhaps a phisherman got a bite.

Quoted message said:

This Ebay item has some of the signs of a scam, but the feedback looks
legit. Anyone know how this is being worked?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2226&item=6949993111&rd=1

Similar?
http://www.thehippy.net/nucleus/index.php?itemid=27

hippy

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

Quoted message said:

The feedback looked legit. I wondered how that was done. A hijacked
account I suppose. Perhaps a phisherman got a bite.

I assume this was the Litepseed for £1?

in years to come ebay is going to be up there with pyramid selling as a joke
from the past; sorry to appear cynical but the only thing I ever sold on it
was privately after it ended and most of what have I bought was faulty or
the wrong colour.

Quoted message said:

This Ebay item has some of the signs of a scam, but the feedback looks
legit. Anyone know how this is being worked?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2226&item=6949993111&rd=1

Not very well - as it seems Ebay has already pulled it!

julesh

MartinM said:

I assume this was the Litepseed for £1?

in years to come ebay is going to be up there with pyramid selling as a joke
from the past; sorry to appear cynical but the only thing I ever sold on it
was privately after it ended and most of what have I bought was faulty or
the wrong colour.

Uh.. it's up to you to check the colour of the item and anything that
doesn't work should be listed as such or you can get your money back.
I use ebay to sell and buy and it works fine for me.

hippy

MartinM said:

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

Quoted message said:

The feedback looked legit. I wondered how that was done. A hijacked
account I suppose. Perhaps a phisherman got a bite.

I assume this was the Litepseed for £1?

in years to come ebay is going to be up there with pyramid selling as a joke
from the past; sorry to appear cynical but the only thing I ever sold on it
was privately after it ended and most of what have I bought was faulty or
the wrong colour.

I've only ever bought one thing from ebay; a rather nicely upgraded and
well cared for tandem. No problems.

MSA said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

This Ebay item has some of the signs of a scam, but the feedback
looks legit. Anyone know how this is being worked?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2226&item=6949993111&rd=1

Seeing as it has now been removed, I have no idea!

Prolly because I reported it last night. The other 380 bikes he was
advertising should have gone also.

If you see more of these keep them coming as Ebay do seem to react
quickly to genuine fraud reports.

Tony

"Not Responding" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

MartinM said:

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

Quoted message said:

The feedback looked legit. I wondered how that was done. A hijacked
account I suppose. Perhaps a phisherman got a bite.

I assume this was the Litepseed for £1?

in years to come ebay is going to be up there with pyramid selling as a

joke

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

from the past; sorry to appear cynical but the only thing I ever sold on

it

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

was privately after it ended and most of what have I bought was faulty

or

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

the wrong colour.

I've only ever bought one thing from ebay; a rather nicely upgraded and
well cared for tandem. No problems.

I don't doubt that there are bargains, but scams and rip offs put a lot of
people off.

I also received a mobile 'phone cover which had no stamp on it, and the
excess postage was more than the item.

I find the best thing to do is enter your maximum bid then forget about it,
come back later to see if you have won (almost never IMX)

MartinM said:

I also received a mobile 'phone cover which had no stamp on it, and the
excess postage was more than the item.

If the postage cost isn't listed, run away. AFAIK sellers don't pay the
eBay fees on the postage, so "sell it cheap and charge lots for p&p" is
a popular scammette.

Quoted message said:

I find the best thing to do is enter your maximum bid then forget about it,
come back later to see if you have won (almost never IMX)

Maybe, but the best way to get a bargain is to put the item(s) on your
watch list, and go for it at (literally) the last minute.

FWIW I've recently had some very good experiences buying bike parts
and tools on eBay.

--
jc

Remove the -not from email

"Jeremy Collins" wrote

Quoted message said:

If the postage cost isn't listed, run away. AFAIK sellers don't pay the
eBay fees on the postage, so "sell it cheap and charge lots for p&p" is
a popular scammette.

the P/P was listed, they just forgot to put a stamp on (20p when they
charged £1.50) a right PITA to have to go up to the sorting office. And when
I got it the cover was nothing like the colour in the photo. Oh well, it's
bust now.
I did get the postage back (another trip to bank to pay the cheque in)

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I find the best thing to do is enter your maximum bid then forget about

it,

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

come back later to see if you have won (almost never IMX)

Maybe, but the best way to get a bargain is to put the item(s) on your
watch list, and go for it at (literally) the last minute.

trouble with that is you end up wanting it so much that you may go over what
your max was in the first place. Also all the auto bids often beat you to
it.

Jeremy Collins said:

Maybe, but the best way to get a bargain is to put the item(s) on
your watch list, and go for it at (literally) the last minute.

This is known as sniping. You don't have to do it manually - you can
use software such as Auction Sentry to do it for you. Set up the snipe
and leave your computer running while you go to bed, work, or out for a
ride. There are also web based services that will snipe for you if you
don't want to leave your computer on. For many items the serious
bidding doesn't start until the last minute. With rare books, for
example, which I sometimes buy and sell, it's not uncommon to see
nothing for 10 days, then 3 or 4 bids from dealers or collectors in the
last 20 seconds.

We've had this discussion before. Any minute now James Annan will pop
up and say, "But that is illogical, Captain."

He's right. If everyone bid rationally sniping would work against you,
but in practice a significant number of people do not bid rationally.
Instead of deciding their maximum price and bidding once they react to
previous bids, often paying far more for an item than it's worth.
Sniping makes it difficult for them to respond to your bid.

--
Dave...

"dkahn400" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Jeremy Collins said:

Maybe, but the best way to get a bargain is to put the item(s) on
your watch list, and go for it at (literally) the last minute.

This is known as sniping. You don't have to do it manually - you can
use software such as Auction Sentry to do it for you. Set up the snipe
and leave your computer running while you go to bed, work, or out for a
ride. There are also web based services that will snipe for you if you
don't want to leave your computer on. For many items the serious
bidding doesn't start until the last minute. With rare books, for
example, which I sometimes buy and sell, it's not uncommon to see
nothing for 10 days, then 3 or 4 bids from dealers or collectors in the
last 20 seconds.

We've had this discussion before. Any minute now James Annan will pop
up and say, "But that is illogical, Captain."

He's right. If everyone bid rationally sniping would work against you,
but in practice a significant number of people do not bid rationally.
Instead of deciding their maximum price and bidding once they react to
previous bids, often paying far more for an item than it's worth.
Sniping makes it difficult for them to respond to your bid.

I've heard of these programmes (UK sp), why are they any better than the
usual ebay "enter your maximum bid"?
I thought that just automatically incremented anyone else's bid by the
minimum amount until your maximum was reached.

Response to MartinM:

Quoted message said:

I've heard of these programmes (UK sp), why are they any better than the
usual ebay "enter your maximum bid"?

This is the way I see it.

There's a nice book on offer. I look at it and say "Well, the going rate
for these is £6, but I'd quite like this, so I'll offer £8 - I don't want
to go higher than that."

I enter £8 as my maximum; the price at the moment is £4, so I'm max
bidder at £4.50 or whatever.

Someone else enters £9 as their max bid. I get an email telling me, and
have to make up my mind whether I want to pay more than I'd intended. I
decide I *do* [this is the irrational bit ;-)], because after all this
book doesn't come up often, and it's only a quid or so; so I enter £10,
and win.

Compare and contrast with sniping: I bid £8 as before, and am the high
bidder. Five seconds before the auction ends, somebody bungs in a bid
for £9; I don't get a chance to reconsider, and lose the item.

It could be argued that I should decide rationally on a max price I'll
pay, and stick to it; but the world doesn't work like that. As I see it,
sniping works because it allows the underbidder like me no chance to
change their mind.

As the example implies, sniping is most relevant with objects of
indeterminate value, like rare books, rather than readily available
items; not much point in sniping an off-the-shelf bike bit.

--
Mark, UK.

"Common sense, to most people, is nothing more than their own
opinions."

in message <[email hidden]>,

(') said:

This Ebay item has some of the signs of a scam, but the feedback looks
legit. Anyone know how this is being worked?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=2226&item=6949993111&rd=1

(i) by phishing, you obtain the password of a genuine ebay customer with
good feedback

(ii) you list high value items with a request that bidders contact you
at an address other than that registered to the ebay account before
bidding (this way you know who they are and have an email address for
them) (this address should be a throw-away address on a free server
like hotmail, as you're going to have to abandon it sooner or later)

(iii) at the end of auction you email the winning bidder and ask them to
send the cheque to you at your accommodation address, not the one
registered to the ebay account

(iv) you cash the cheque and walk away whistling.

There are various variations on this, of course. You may invite the
bidder to deal with you off-ebay 'to save the commission fees',
although many people are wise to that one now.

It's also possible to build up accounts with good feedback by using them
to buy a number of small-value items over time, but phishing is simpler
and cheaper. Of course, you can't use an account for very long - sooner
or later someone's going to report you to ebay and you'll lose that
account (but it's very difficult to track it to you since none of the
emails went through the ebay system).

The individual accounts, of course, come and go, but the same apparent
scammers keep operating for a long time. For example, the person or
gang I think of as 'the Cannondale fraudster' has been listing new
high-value Cannondales with adverts very similar to the Trek advert
described in this thread at a rate of about a dozen a week for at least
eighteen months now. The adverts are very similar and clearly the
system is highly templated and automated. Presumably it 'works', and
presumably they get away with it, because they keep doing it.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Age equals angst multiplied by the speed of fright squared.
;; the Worlock

in message <[email hidden]>, hippy

(') said:

MartinM said:

I assume this was the Litepseed for £1?

in years to come ebay is going to be up there with pyramid selling as
a joke from the past; sorry to appear cynical but the only thing I
ever sold on it was privately after it ended and most of what have I
bought was faulty or the wrong colour.

Uh.. it's up to you to check the colour of the item and anything that
doesn't work should be listed as such or you can get your money back.
I use ebay to sell and buy and it works fine for me.

Ditto. I've had a lot of bargains, and only one slight disappointment.
It's fine if you're careful, but caveat emptor.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

Anagram: I'm soon broke.

Mark McNeill said:

Response to MartinM:

Quoted message said:

I've heard of these programmes (UK sp), why are they any better
than the usual ebay "enter your maximum bid"?

This is the way I see it.

There's a nice book on offer. I look at it and say "Well, the going
rate for these is £6, but I'd quite like this, so I'll offer £8 - I
don't want to go higher than that."

I enter £8 as my maximum; the price at the moment is £4, so I'm max

Quoted message said:

bidder at £4.50 or whatever.

Someone else enters £9 as their max bid. I get an email telling me,
and have to make up my mind whether I want to pay more than I'd
intended. I decide I *do* [this is the irrational bit ;-)], because
after all this book doesn't come up often, and it's only a quid or
so; so I enter £10, and win.

Compare and contrast with sniping: I bid £8 as before, and am the
high bidder. Five seconds before the auction ends, somebody bungs
in a bid for £9; I don't get a chance to reconsider, and lose the
item.

That's exactly it.

Quoted message said:

It could be argued that I should decide rationally on a max price
I'll pay, and stick to it; but the world doesn't work like that.
As I see it, sniping works because it allows the underbidder like
me no chance to change their mind.

Some people's bidding strategy is even worse than that. They decide
they want an item then bid in single bid increments until they are top
dog. If someone else outbids them they repeat the process. The only way
to shut out someone like that is by sniping.

Quoted message said:

As the example implies, sniping is most relevant with objects of
indeterminate value, like rare books, rather than readily available
items; not much point in sniping an off-the-shelf bike bit.

You'd be surprised how many off-the-shelf items, or even used items, go
for above the retail price.

Sniping also works for highish value items that come up fairly
frequently. For example, say you are after a particular computer chip.
You look through the auction histories and see that on average the
final price is £40. About once every 4 weeks someone pays as much as
£60 or as little as £20. It's possible to get one for £20, and that
is therefore your maximum bid. You set up snipes for £20 in every
auction that comes up and sit back. On average you will win an auction
after 2 weeks. Cancel your pending snipes. The more sophisticated
programs can do this for you automatically.

--
Dave...