One close call, methinks...
Mar. 1st, 2002 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpWhile I was in Texas, Galina bid on an eBay offering titled "LIQUIDATION-WHOLESALE ELECTRONICS! $19,000!" She bid $1000, which did not meet the reserve price, but I put the whole thing out of my mind when someone else bid $1450 on the auction.
I then get a note from the offeror, telling me that the person who won the auction was, basically, a loser, and that he'd be willing to sell the lot to me for what I had bid, and would even throw in the shipping charges.
For a moment, I was pretty happy, but then something took hold (common sense?) and before sending off the money, I took a closer look at what I was getting into.
A look at the offering page on eBay showed the seller was "Not a registered user." In eBay-ese, this means either the seller's account was yanked by The Powers That Be, or that the seller yanked his own account after the auction ended.
A look at the bidding history showed at least three other people (besides the eventual "winner," whose bid didn't crack the reserve, either) who bid more than I did. I began to wonder why they hadn't snapped at the chance to buy the merchandise.
A look at the seller's feedback showed a net of 34 positive ratings, all within the past month. The twenty most recent positive ratings came from people who were also no longer registered eBay users, and there was no net feedback at all for the 20 people combined. A random sampling of the auctions these people were involved in showed that pretty much all of them used eBay's "Buy It Now!" feature to acquire 10 CD-Ws for 99 cents (plus $5 for shipping and packaging).
I smelled a rat. (...and I feel a little like Inspector Clouseau typing that.)
Needless to say, I decided not to take the seller up on his offer. Pretty much everything I dug up pointed to this being a scam. Good thing I took the time to check.
Cheers...
I then get a note from the offeror, telling me that the person who won the auction was, basically, a loser, and that he'd be willing to sell the lot to me for what I had bid, and would even throw in the shipping charges.
For a moment, I was pretty happy, but then something took hold (common sense?) and before sending off the money, I took a closer look at what I was getting into.
A look at the offering page on eBay showed the seller was "Not a registered user." In eBay-ese, this means either the seller's account was yanked by The Powers That Be, or that the seller yanked his own account after the auction ended.
A look at the bidding history showed at least three other people (besides the eventual "winner," whose bid didn't crack the reserve, either) who bid more than I did. I began to wonder why they hadn't snapped at the chance to buy the merchandise.
A look at the seller's feedback showed a net of 34 positive ratings, all within the past month. The twenty most recent positive ratings came from people who were also no longer registered eBay users, and there was no net feedback at all for the 20 people combined. A random sampling of the auctions these people were involved in showed that pretty much all of them used eBay's "Buy It Now!" feature to acquire 10 CD-Ws for 99 cents (plus $5 for shipping and packaging).
I smelled a rat. (...and I feel a little like Inspector Clouseau typing that.)
Needless to say, I decided not to take the seller up on his offer. Pretty much everything I dug up pointed to this being a scam. Good thing I took the time to check.
Cheers...
