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A scam artist, believed to be living in Spain, has been downloading pictures and details of classic Corvettes from dealer and club websites, then posting these cars for sale on eBay. Any prospective buyer receives a brief e-mail "explaining" how the car belonged to his deceased father and he cannot afford to keep the car in Portugal (Spain, Germany, etc.) and will sell the car for a price way below market value if you will wire a deposit of US$3000...then pay the balance after the car has been received in the US. Apparently several people have actually fallen for this scam. No country has cornered the market on crooks, we all get our fair share; but the Internet has provided a much larger playing field. Please spead the word about this Corvette scam!
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Re: Beware of eBay scams.
This scam is not limited to just Vettes, I inquired about an ATV over the weekend and got the same basic email, but the peron was in Poland. I wrote a lengthy email to ebay regarding this scam over the weekend and have forwarded the a couple of these emails over to ebay customer service. I suggest that anyone who runs into this scam also contact ebay so they get the message. Who ever this is and it's probably not just one person, needs to be caught. Besides the fact that this person(s) are trying to extort money, they are stealing peoples identity to do it.. As I wrote in my email to eBay, this really hurts eBay's integrity in the long run if they don't do a better job monitoring and clamping down on these type of frauds people will lose trust in the system. -
So my '52 coupe is NOT on the way???? *NM*
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Nor my '83 convertible??
GeezerComment
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I'm not worried, I sent the full amount *NM*
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eBay scams and websites
Good morning folks: Several comments about fraud on the Internet. While it may make you feel good to advise eBay about scams, they give only lip service to your report. They can reject a future posting form the same seller, but how do they know if the scammer uses a new name/e-mail address the next day. The sheer magnitude of eBay is so staggering, (eBay trivia: 35,000 pieces of sports memorabilia are sold every 24 hours!), that the strategy is to put up as many warnings as possible and encourage buyers to beware,buut beyond that, they are not about to attempt to police the world of scam artist and dumb buyers. Factually, there is not a lot they can do anyway. They are nothing more than a glorified newspaper that puts buyer with seller and like a want-ad section, are not party to the transaction unless they are knowingly aiding in the scam. Don't even think about getting any legal support out of eastern European countries, it isn't going to happen. If you are not real Internet savy, and I include myself in this group, you may not relaize that a e-mail address has no bearing on where you are. You can be sitting in Chicago with a Russian, Polish, Spainish AND a U.S. e-mail address. There is no way to know where the scammers are located. And, you can establish a dozen new e-mail addresses every 24 hours. In the final analysis, anything you purchase over the Internet is a "buyer beware" experience.Comment
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eBay would get more sympathy if
they would crack down on the rest of the junk going on. Deadbeat bidders and sellers who are not ethical. But they don't. I've had several bidders buy an item and use the old excuse of "family emergency" to say they can't pay for it, yet they are bidding on many other items, some the same type, and bidding AFTER they say they can't buy mine.
In the auctions at the shows, they say that the bidders WILL pay. If not today, they will within a short time regardless. There are no deadbeat bidders.
eBay could do the same and it would improve it a hundredfold.
And I've bought stuff that they basically just lie about. But if they are a power seller and have several hundred items sold, eBay sides with them and allows them to collect a few negatives along the way.
If eBay would clean up those problems, probably most would not be so upset about the scam artists stealing identities and posting fraud auctions. But the way it is now, it appears to just fall into eBay's normal mode of operation.Comment
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Somebody was selling slaves on eBay last week...
I'm NOT kidding, so I think eBay has more to worry about than fraudulent auto parts or ficle buyers.Comment
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Re: eBay would get more sympathy if
Mike - I tend to agree with your thoughts. Thanks, DennisComment
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