I usually try to stay away from items that are hersea and only publish items that I can refer you to via a URL. But once in a while you get some info that sounds legit and worthy of posting.
Before I post the article I want to say that I have used Ebay quite a bit and have had mixed results with truely getting burned only once so burned that I posted a URL in my negatives comments. Anyway this guy brings out some good points in which protect yourself.
GeekNews
Extracted from a Private Newsletter:
Last week I got serious about looking for a Notebook and finally settled on the IBM A31P as being about what I wanted. My first stop was at eBay and after snooping around a bit I found several A31Ps on sale. The first one just happened to be in the final stages of auction so I watched it for a while and then, just before the auction ended, I put in a low ball bid for $1700. Well, I won the auction beating out someone else with an identical bid by 1:08. That was great I figured – I can get the notebook for just slightly over 1/2 price! Then the reality began to sink in – I couldn’t get ANY response from the seller, eBay sent them a couple emails and I sent two with absolutely no response. Then I got an email from another eBay cutomer telling me it was a scam and to watch out. He had already been burned. Shortly after that another one came through telling me that he had wanted to buy but couldn’t get any answer to his
emails and wondering how I did.
I emailed him and told him that I thought I had “won” but now wasn’t sure anymore but I gave him some of the details anyhow. Shortly thereafter, he sent another note saying the seller had contacted him by phone telling him that I had backed out of the deal and asking if he was “still interested?” They discussed this a little bit and all was going well; he was given the bank name and account # to send the money to, when he insisted in talking with the bank manager and having him check the computer and give him a report on it. He said that at that point the phone went dead. That was three days before his note to me. So apparently there are people out there that will send large sums of $$$ to a blind box and hope for the best. That kinda soured me on eBay and
made me real skittish about doing business through them for anything over a few bucks.
I sent a two page email to eBay explaining this situation and asking for their help and guidance. I have HEARD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING from eBay to date.
My advice is: NEVER NEVER NEVER buy anything online without using your credit card unless it’s so inexpensive you can afford the loss.
Credit card is the ONLY protection from those scams. A LOT of people are collecting money on Ebay and other online auctions for stuff they are pretending to sell. Ebay won’t do a thing except maybe ban the seller if enough people complain and by then the seller has a new id and is running another scam.