Warning: Beware ebay
- Thread starter Wisp
- Start date
- Status
XC Pictorial
Senior Member
Such scams are always around.
Thats why i dont use Ebay..
Thats why i dont use Ebay..
eBay Is Safe.... Don't Worry Guys... But Scams Do Exist ANYWHERE.... Not Only Online...
Let Me Share Some "pointers" With You Guys..
1. When You Are Selling.... NEVER Say Yes To Someone Who Want To Pay You Tru Western Union Money Transfer. I Have Lost $1500 This Way.... They Have People Workin Inside I Guess.... Western Union Will Actually Send You An Invoice For The Payment...With An Authentic Western Union Email Add ....But You Wont Get Anything At The End Of The Day..
2. They Will Usually Use Dumb Nicks And Email... And Their Email Account Is Usually A Gmail Account Or Yahoo Account...
3. When They Give You The Shipping Address.... It Dosent Exist Actually.... If You Check Google Map... It Will Show Up In The Middle Of Nowhere... By The Side Of Some Jungle...
4. They Will Usually Pay For The Shipping.... And They Use FEDEX....When You Send Your Items.... They Will Re - Route It Somewhere Else Somewhere In The Middle Of The Journey...
5. After All Is Said And Done... Even If You Report To The Police... They Will Just Keep Your Report As A record And Nothing Will Be Done.... At Least That Is What Happen To Me...
6. Oh Yah.... And These Scammers.... They Dont Speak English To Well.... And They Will Most Likely Communicate With You On MSN Messenger.... And They Will Also Pretend To Be Very Religious...
7. Last But Not Least.... TheyWork In Groups.... One Of Them Actually Confessed To Me... After I Knew He Was Scammin.... But Too Late...Package Sent.... He Said They Work In Groups.... He Said He Was From Some African Country **No Offence To Africans, This Is What They Told Me. I'm No Rascist.. So Chill**
And The Funny Part Is That He Actually Apologized... He Said He Lives In Poverty And Had To Do It.... That Was The Last I Heard Of Him...
8. Prefer To Receive Payment Via Paypal Guys.... Its Safer That Way... Money Will Reach You First... Then You Send The Package For Shipping..
9. If Your'e A Buyer.... Check His Ratings... See If Its From Genuine Buyers Or Sellers... These Scammers Usually Give Themselves Ratings....
10. The Best Thing To Do Is.... Deal Locally... Only Purchase Items From Overseas If It's Hard To Find Locally Or It's Really Cheap.... If Your'e A Seller... Go LOCAL.... Only Ship Item Worldwide If Its Cheap Or Light...E.g Clothing And Stuff Which Are Easy To Pack And Light...
That's It Guys.... Hope You Find My Thread Informative.....
Happy Shopping.
Cheers!
Let Me Share Some "pointers" With You Guys..
1. When You Are Selling.... NEVER Say Yes To Someone Who Want To Pay You Tru Western Union Money Transfer. I Have Lost $1500 This Way.... They Have People Workin Inside I Guess.... Western Union Will Actually Send You An Invoice For The Payment...With An Authentic Western Union Email Add ....But You Wont Get Anything At The End Of The Day..
2. They Will Usually Use Dumb Nicks And Email... And Their Email Account Is Usually A Gmail Account Or Yahoo Account...
3. When They Give You The Shipping Address.... It Dosent Exist Actually.... If You Check Google Map... It Will Show Up In The Middle Of Nowhere... By The Side Of Some Jungle...
4. They Will Usually Pay For The Shipping.... And They Use FEDEX....When You Send Your Items.... They Will Re - Route It Somewhere Else Somewhere In The Middle Of The Journey...
5. After All Is Said And Done... Even If You Report To The Police... They Will Just Keep Your Report As A record And Nothing Will Be Done.... At Least That Is What Happen To Me...
6. Oh Yah.... And These Scammers.... They Dont Speak English To Well.... And They Will Most Likely Communicate With You On MSN Messenger.... And They Will Also Pretend To Be Very Religious...
7. Last But Not Least.... TheyWork In Groups.... One Of Them Actually Confessed To Me... After I Knew He Was Scammin.... But Too Late...Package Sent.... He Said They Work In Groups.... He Said He Was From Some African Country **No Offence To Africans, This Is What They Told Me. I'm No Rascist.. So Chill**
And The Funny Part Is That He Actually Apologized... He Said He Lives In Poverty And Had To Do It.... That Was The Last I Heard Of Him...
8. Prefer To Receive Payment Via Paypal Guys.... Its Safer That Way... Money Will Reach You First... Then You Send The Package For Shipping..
9. If Your'e A Buyer.... Check His Ratings... See If Its From Genuine Buyers Or Sellers... These Scammers Usually Give Themselves Ratings....
10. The Best Thing To Do Is.... Deal Locally... Only Purchase Items From Overseas If It's Hard To Find Locally Or It's Really Cheap.... If Your'e A Seller... Go LOCAL.... Only Ship Item Worldwide If Its Cheap Or Light...E.g Clothing And Stuff Which Are Easy To Pack And Light...
That's It Guys.... Hope You Find My Thread Informative.....
Happy Shopping.
Cheers!
re: ebay
The points above are all valid.
As a seller, if someone wants to pay using western union ... I hold off on the shipping... I don't ship anything until I have cash in-hand. That has worked well so far. ... never feel pressured to ship something, just make it clear that if this is the payment method preferred there will be inconveniences for the buyer.
For example, I levied a US$20 surcharge on a sale to a Korean guy one time because he wanted to use WU moneyorder. But the truth is that my bank does charge more to process a moneyorder, and it takes 6 weeks. So the buyer waited 8-12 weeks for his item...
but he did not want to use paypal so what-to-do.
Abject poverty? I'm not so sure ... if they have recurrent access to a computer and internet. one time... in one week I had 2-3 African buyers use "Buy-it-now" and then gave ridiculous payment/shipping instructions. That obviously cost me the inconvenience of re-listing, and the cost of relisting.
so... sometimes in my auctions I have not hesitated to state " I do not welcome bids from Africans." ... Honestly, I don't care who it offends .. its not personal, its business.
And no one has complained about American sellers who have pretty much done the same thing to people in this part of the world for a long time... Malaysians, Indonesians ... and in some cases - yes, actually spelled out as not wanting bids from Singapore (the most recent one I saw is last week).
I don't see why anyone has the right to take the moral high-ground about it being discriminatory so long as their preference is not stated in an offensive manner.
Further to this.... I have bought from all over the world ... incl. the US, China, Germany, Russian, the Ukraine, Romania, Hungary etc. etc. .... and the only time I got 'taken' was ironically, not on ebay... by an American guy claiming to be religious. Worse yet, he had been up till then... a respected member of a forum we all participated in.
Of all the sellers around the world I've dealt with... I have found that language aside, I have found the most sincere sellers to be from the ex-soviet bloc (russia, ukraine) and europe (germany). They may not be as polite as those from the US, but when one understands their culture... sometimes they actually come across as more sincere.
The points above are all valid.
As a seller, if someone wants to pay using western union ... I hold off on the shipping... I don't ship anything until I have cash in-hand. That has worked well so far. ... never feel pressured to ship something, just make it clear that if this is the payment method preferred there will be inconveniences for the buyer.
For example, I levied a US$20 surcharge on a sale to a Korean guy one time because he wanted to use WU moneyorder. But the truth is that my bank does charge more to process a moneyorder, and it takes 6 weeks. So the buyer waited 8-12 weeks for his item...
but he did not want to use paypal so what-to-do.
Abject poverty? I'm not so sure ... if they have recurrent access to a computer and internet. one time... in one week I had 2-3 African buyers use "Buy-it-now" and then gave ridiculous payment/shipping instructions. That obviously cost me the inconvenience of re-listing, and the cost of relisting.
so... sometimes in my auctions I have not hesitated to state " I do not welcome bids from Africans." ... Honestly, I don't care who it offends .. its not personal, its business.
And no one has complained about American sellers who have pretty much done the same thing to people in this part of the world for a long time... Malaysians, Indonesians ... and in some cases - yes, actually spelled out as not wanting bids from Singapore (the most recent one I saw is last week).
I don't see why anyone has the right to take the moral high-ground about it being discriminatory so long as their preference is not stated in an offensive manner.
Further to this.... I have bought from all over the world ... incl. the US, China, Germany, Russian, the Ukraine, Romania, Hungary etc. etc. .... and the only time I got 'taken' was ironically, not on ebay... by an American guy claiming to be religious. Worse yet, he had been up till then... a respected member of a forum we all participated in.
Of all the sellers around the world I've dealt with... I have found that language aside, I have found the most sincere sellers to be from the ex-soviet bloc (russia, ukraine) and europe (germany). They may not be as polite as those from the US, but when one understands their culture... sometimes they actually come across as more sincere.
kenele
Senior Member
Yeah, had a couple of experience even from reliable ebaystore. Claim item is sent out and when item haven't arrived 'act blur' ask you to wait and after the 10 weeks grace period to complain is up. Says that they cannot help you. To add to the insult, even give you a Bad Feedback.
hongjone
Senior Member
Not only that, it happens in the yahoo! auctions too. Once someone wanted to buy my camera at quite a high price, then what I've asked for... She wanted me to ship overseas, and she's willing to pay for the shipment too. But I think it's too good to be true, hence I ignored the offer.
Therefore, the points mentioned above are valid, and if you find the deal too good to be true, then it's probably not. :bsmilie: Beware... Try to deal locally, must always get hands on the cash/goods first.
Therefore, the points mentioned above are valid, and if you find the deal too good to be true, then it's probably not. :bsmilie: Beware... Try to deal locally, must always get hands on the cash/goods first.
This is becoming an ebay thread :bsmilie: ... maybe should move to kopitiam.
Note the scam on feedbacks ... I've seen 99.9% favorable ratings on dealers with thousands of ratings, and guess what, a lot of them are on auctions that closed at $0.01 or $0.09. And they're on ridiculous things like a small part, cable, etc.
Problem is that they could amass all those feedbacks, wait a while, then the listing will be gone from the system, so you have no idea if the feedback/item were genuine. Perhaps the way to combat this is to be suspicious if there's no activity for a long time.
Note the scam on feedbacks ... I've seen 99.9% favorable ratings on dealers with thousands of ratings, and guess what, a lot of them are on auctions that closed at $0.01 or $0.09. And they're on ridiculous things like a small part, cable, etc.
Problem is that they could amass all those feedbacks, wait a while, then the listing will be gone from the system, so you have no idea if the feedback/item were genuine. Perhaps the way to combat this is to be suspicious if there's no activity for a long time.
nottipiglet
New Member
Ebay is a marketplace. If you go to any marketplace, expect some scammers here and there. I is up to you to pick out the scams from the real deals.
I have bought sevaral stuff from Ebay. It's an expecially good place to buy Canon lenses. IMHO, Canon Singapore is the worst tyrant here. They sell Canon lenses at exhorbitant prices... some 20% in excess of those in the USA. And in the US, the vendors have a higher margin, so you can imagine.
Oracle's prices come close to those in the US, because he parallel imports them and make a small spread.
For example, I bought a Canon EF 35mm f/2 with hood for only $320 with shipping recently, from a nice guy in the US who didn't like the lens. This was all done through Ebay.
If you talk about scammers... maybe you can check out places like Lucky Plaza... full of scammers there. I was scammed once, but that's another story.
I have bought sevaral stuff from Ebay. It's an expecially good place to buy Canon lenses. IMHO, Canon Singapore is the worst tyrant here. They sell Canon lenses at exhorbitant prices... some 20% in excess of those in the USA. And in the US, the vendors have a higher margin, so you can imagine.
Oracle's prices come close to those in the US, because he parallel imports them and make a small spread.
For example, I bought a Canon EF 35mm f/2 with hood for only $320 with shipping recently, from a nice guy in the US who didn't like the lens. This was all done through Ebay.
If you talk about scammers... maybe you can check out places like Lucky Plaza... full of scammers there. I was scammed once, but that's another story.
I have both bought and sold high value items on ebay without problems.
When receiving payment do not accept emailed receipts or anything else for that matter except hard cash, i.e. when you have the money in your hand or you can check that it is in your bank account then send the goods.
When buying, try where possible to ensure the purchase has at least a degree of insurance, like paying via credit card or using Paypal where payment is insured up to a certain amount ($US1000 IIRC).
Just use your common sense and never fall for someone pleading for you to help them.
When receiving payment do not accept emailed receipts or anything else for that matter except hard cash, i.e. when you have the money in your hand or you can check that it is in your bank account then send the goods.
When buying, try where possible to ensure the purchase has at least a degree of insurance, like paying via credit card or using Paypal where payment is insured up to a certain amount ($US1000 IIRC).
Just use your common sense and never fall for someone pleading for you to help them.
- Status
Similar threads
