Three weeks ago I bid for and lost out to on an auction for a 928. Three days latter I recieved an email from "Ebay" stating that the car was available due to the original winning bidder backing out. All I needed to do was log into my account with the link they so kindly provided to complete the transaction. Being suppesious I sent an email to both the buyer and ebay, both were unaware of the car being held at an ebay distrubution center. Always be careful when using ebay, especially on big ticket items.

 

Hey, believe me I'm all ears. It looks like a scam I agree! I looked at the Western Union site and would not send money thru them. I've emailed the seller about a friend going to look at the car, paying thru paypal via ebay motors and about the false website to see if they will reply. Funny they mentioned in one of the emails today that they were out of state today!!

Still haven't heard back from eBay on the auction, they are looking into it. I don't expect to hear back from the *SELLER*.

Thanks,
Glenn

 

No, it doesn't "look" like a scam, it IS a scam. I trust you are just emailing the seller for amusement purposes. Otherwise you are wasting your time.

Just to be clear, there's nothing wrong with Western Union for sending money to PEOPLE YOU KNOW WELL, like your mom, son or daughter. I've used it twice in my life and it worked well. It's just totally ill-advised for anonymous transactions like this, even if it is to some supposed eBay transaction center.

 

There are no eBay reps. Western Union is the easiest way to steal big money on eBay.

 

Western Union is a good way around the mail fraud issues of sending money by U S postal service and helps keep the Feds from pursuing that crime. The bad guys LOVE E-bay never has it been SO EASY to scam so many for so much money with so little risk of ever getting caught or prosecuted. The FREE SHIPPING is a dead give-away that it is a scam since that would be a lot of money to say Florida or San Diego yet little to Detroit obviusly shipping does NOT matter since they DO NOT INTEND to ship anything ! Often E-bay sales get pulled early when the actual owner of the car sees HIS car being offered for sale by someone else and contacts E-bay

 

You're screwed if you continute ... it's a fraud.

BTDT

 

Didn't do it, confronted the "seller" and haven't heard back. No word back from eBay, sounds like they won't reply anytime soon. Thanks for all the help!!

Glenn

 

eBay is unpredictable. They have some system for figuring what they will pursue and what they won't but I don't understand it. I've reported minor things with moderate documentations and they ripped them down immediately. I've reported more heinous cases with what I thought was excellent documentation and they didn't act.

It's buyer beware, just like everywhere else. This is such an obvious scam, it is purely your overwhelming hope to get a steal of a deal that drove you to ignore the signs. I don't mean that critically. eBay has that effect on people. There are some very good deals on eBay, so somehow you think any apparent good deal is fine. It's eBay! The worlds largest marketplace.

I love eBay and use it a lot to buy and sell, but I use the same precautions I would use elsewhere. If someone called me and said they had a super nice low mile S4 that they would ship to me for free, just wire them $5K, I would bust their eardrum hanging up the phone. That doesn't mean there aren't some screaming deals out there. I have several friends that bought real nice 928s way below market recently. It's still pretty rare and something you probably want to handle face-to-face or with no money transacted until you have seen the car, inspected it, etc. I bought my 89 on eBay but did not give the seller a dime until I drove and inspected the car. Those eBay dealers that want a deposit aren't getting one from me.