06/18/2007

How to Spot Ebay Fraud

Rule number 1 for eBay scams: Do not believe anything that anyone says that claims to be from the country Nigeria! If someone says they are from Nigeria or asks you to ship something out to Nigeria, 99% of time it is an eBay scam. Things to look out for when dealing with these kinds of eBay scams include:

  • The eBay fraud will usually make up a long elaborated story on why you should ship this out to Nigeria as fast as possible. For example, the first Nigerian eBay scam artist that I encountered asked me to ship out a play station 2 a.s.a.p. because it was his grandfathers birthday. He even asked me if I would be kind enough to go out and buy his grandfather a birthday card and include it with the gift! Long elaborate stories are usually the first thing these eBay scam artists will include in their eBay email to you.
  • The next thing the eBay fraud will do is throw a ridiculous price that they are willing to pay out there for you. They will ask you to just stop that auction and tell you that if you do, they will pay you a considerable amount of money for your product. $400 dollars for your play station 2 may seem nice, but as always if something is too good to be true, it usually is.
  • Usually the eBay fraud will send you an email promising to pay you once you have already shipped the item out, and then of course never following through.
  • Usually the eBay fraud will ask you to ship out the item as fast as possible for some odd reason, but then they are still “willing" to pay the same amount if it takes you longer to ship the item out.
  • One day listings: Scammers will use a one day listing to quickly gain money while their account has some good feedback, the account may be stolen. Avoid any one day auction listings
  • No History: Scammers will either have a stolen eBay account or use one of theirs and sell cheap items to get a feedback score high, check to see if they have sold big ticket items before. If they never have i would take that as a warning that it could be a fraud.
  • Selling multiple items: Most scammers will try to get the most out of their eBay account so they may list many of the same type of auctions, nearly all of them will be big ticket items. If a seller has listed 10x Xbox 360's it is most likley a scam
  • Payment method: Scammers will try to use a fake escrow services and force you to use cash transfers e.g. Western Union

21:30 Posted in Shopping | Permalink | Email this