Ebay Beware!

[Whitney6484]

I had my dress up on ebay and some guy in London emailed me and wanted to do an outside deal where he sends me 1k + shipping + a lot of extra money, and asked me to please Western Union the extra money to his girlfriend in London who needs help with school. (As he is in no position to handle/send cash at the moment.) Weird huh? To make things more fishy, he has 0 feedback, nothing. My dress was on with a starting bid of $700, 0 bids, and a buy it now of $1000. There are no bids on it yet and he is too stupid to bid $700.. as he jumped on sending me $1,000. Anyway, I have heard of similar stories where the check is bad but if he gets away with it, then his "girlfriend" will receive a lot of free, fraudulent money! Sucks because I was so happy that I had sold my dress, felt a huge sigh of relief, just to find out I almost got s***med-- hard!!! :mad: SSsoo BEWARE!!!

[heatha981]

I had my dress up on ebay and some guy in London emailed me and wanted to do an outside deal where he sends me 1k + shipping + a lot of extra money, and asked me to please Western Union the extra money to his girlfriend in London who needs help with school. (As he is in no position to handle/send cash at the moment.) Weird huh? To make things more fishy, he has 0 feedback, nothing. My dress was on with a starting bid of $700, 0 bids, and a buy it now of $1000. There are no bids on it yet and he is too stupid to bid $700.. as he jumped on sending me $1,000. Anyway, I have heard of similar stories where the check is bad but if he gets away with it, then his "girlfriend" will receive a lot of free, fraudulent money! Sucks because I was so happy that I had sold my dress, felt a huge sigh of relief, just to find out I almost got s***med-- hard!!! :mad: SSsoo BEWARE!!!


I had the same thing happen to me but once I started to question the guy through email he said he was all set. Its horrible that he does this!

[kyzmit]

Yeah... that's really fishy... I mean...
1. Why does this *dude* want a wedding dress?
2. Why can't he send her money if he can send it to you?
3. What idiot pays an extra $300 for anything?!?

[SOM Z28]

A friend of mine got s***med like this over selling a car. Fortunately, it wasn't much money. But no matter how much money it is, it always stings to know you got screwed.

[Whitney6484]

How I started getting suspicious is because my co-worker knows of someone who got s***med like this thru buying a car. I emailed the guy back and told his I am a little bit weary of the situation, and he ***e back saying he is a "good God Fearing man." Anyone can say that but I guess I will wait for the check and ensure that it is legit and clears, and go from there! Still SO weird.

[radar]

I've bought stuff on ebay once and all she took was check or money order, so i sent her a check and she deposited it then waited for a little while to make sure that it cleared. It wasn't for big money, but i didn't mind her waiting to check to see if it would go through.

[kyth]

First, I never sell off ebay. You lose ebays fraud protection. Second, this is a s***. Be very careful. Honestly, I would back out now and report him to ebay for soliciting an off ebay purchase and send his email to their security team. As for your dress, I think the main problem you will have selling it on ebay is your feedback. Selling through an ebay trading assistant will probably help. Trading Assistants (http://pages.ebay.com/tahub/index.html) As you can see, his s*** is one that is well known and uses western union because you have no fraud protection through western union.

The Fake Overpayment
A con artist buys an $800 ring from a seller, but indicates that he "accidentally" paid $1800. The s***mer points out his "oversight" and asks the seller to wire him the $1,000 via Western Union. A common part of this ploy are statements like, "I misunderstood you, my English is not very good," Baldwin said.

The payment turns out to be some form of fraud, so when the seller sends the $1,000, he's out both the ring and the money. Western Union payments are completely untraceable and unrecoverable, she said. "Never return overpayment via Western Union."

Funny Money
"Even money orders can be counterfeit," Steiner said. "What sellers don't understand is that just because three days later it's cleared, that doesn't guarantee that six weeks later the bank isn't going to take the money out of your account because they found it's a counterfeit check."

This counterfeit s*** often goes hand-in-hand with the overpayment s***, she said. "The overpay is a red flag [but] people really fall for this stuff."

Quotes are from this site (http://www.britain.tv/entertainment_shopping_protection_against_auction_ fraud.shtml)

[Whitney6484]

Wow! Both of these are exactly what is happening here! Even after being suspicious, I almost got pulled back in! Soo.. it is plain and clear that this is what is going on! So, it could take weeks to ensure that this is not fraudulent? Do you know if I could express my worries and they could speed up the process? This is exactly what is going on here.. so I feel fortunate to have been informed. Thanks so much! I would have hated to have lost my dress, etc!!

[kyzmit]

First, I never sell off ebay. You lose ebays fraud protection. Second, this is a s***. Be very careful. Honestly, I would back out now and report him to ebay for soliciting an off ebay purchase and send his email to their security team. ...

I know it's unrelated, but another word of warning about ebay and other online stores... *never* purchase computer software or anything like that from ebay... I get so many calls and e-mails from people who bought our program and said it ***e in the original box and wasn't opened (more likely was resealed) and all kinds of crap like that and they can't register it because it's already registered to someone else. Then when they try to contact the people they say to call us and get a new CD Key, which we sometimes do, but because we feel bad for the shmucks, not becuase we're actually allowed to! If we don't, the seller doesn't return the money, and ebay apparently doesn't have any way to help them... they basically say to call us. I've had people calling from all around the world becuase of the same stupid CD Keys that are documented as being gray marketed!

[jt2lang]

Wow! Both of these are exactly what is happening here! Even after being suspicious, I almost got pulled back in! Soo.. it is plain and clear that this is what is going on! So, it could take weeks to ensure that this is not fraudulent? Do you know if I could express my worries and they could speed up the process? This is exactly what is going on here.. so I feel fortunate to have been informed. Thanks so much! I would have hated to have lost my dress, etc!!
The only way to speed up the process would be to report him to EBAY and maybe the police.
DO NOT CASH HIS CHECK. There is no way this will turn out good for you if you do try to continue the purchase. Please be safe and cancel the transaction.

Good luck!

[reecey]

the only way to speed it up is for you to tell him that you can't do this and to have him open a paypal account with his checking account. If he wont' do that, you KNOW its a s***. You definitely don't want to do this off ebay - you're gonna get burned. It can take 6 or 8 weeks to find out that a check is counterfeit. It can take even longer to find out that the check is stolen.

[kyth]

Just wanted to add this about stolen credit cards and the use of paypal accounts. If he does open a paypal account, make sure that it is tied to a checking account and not just a credit card. And please, cancel the off ebay transaction. Tell him if he wants the dress, he'll have to bid or pay the buyout. This is definitely a s***.

Fraudulent Credit Card
If a seller sends off goods after accepting a fraudulent or stolen credit card, that seller may be out of luck. Sellers whose business is established enough to have their own merchant credit card account can verify card numbers. But sellers using PayPal -- like many eBay sellers -- are more vulnerable to this.

eBay, through its PayPal seller protection program, offers a critical safeguard for these sellers: It helps protect sellers from credit card chargebacks due to fraud.

eBay's Durzy notes that if sellers follow the guidelines, they will not be liable for purchases made with fraudulent credit cards.

Steiner, however, said that sellers have to "make sure you're doing everything, down to crossing your T's and dotting your I's when you send something." Sellers must read the agreement in its entirety. If a seller can't prove they followed the agreement down to the letter, "the consumer can get their money, and PayPal charges the seller a processing fee," Steiner said.

[Whitney6484]

I can't believe how easy it is for these people to con!! I basically told the guy off and feel much better! I have reported it to eBay and hopefully they will take care of it. He said he has sent the check and I almost hope he does, just so I can go on with helping to prosecute him!
Thanks for helping to keep me informed!!!
<3Whitney!