New Scam on Ebay Buyers- Beware!

Irish Flute
1

Hi all,
I recieved a second chance offer on a Prowse flute that I had bid on and lost. It said that the seller was offering it to me for 100 pounds, the flute closed for 650 pounds! I thought it was a little off… :boggle:
Ebay comfirmed that it is a new scam or spoof email, phishing for information and suckers that will send money for bogus claims!
Another C&Fer was sent a similar email offering the Wylde flute that Andrew just won for $850 USD for a reduced rate of $650 USD Tisk, tisk…:swear:
(Edited as I got the price of Andrews flute wrong..) :blush:

2

Yep, a tricky scam indeed! Thanks for the heads up, Jon. I would’ve felt doubly horrible getting scammed on a flute that ALSO required heaps of work..

3

There’s a concertina website where members post warnings about eBay scams on a weekly basis.

I find that it’s fun to take these scammers messages and post them on 419Eater.com. It’s a website where people make a hobby out of driving these lowlifes out of their skull.

Dave

4

So, how are these scammers gathering the info on who to contact for a specific item? How are they utilizing ebay to gather this information? Any ideas?

5

They are just looking at the bid history, and seeing who bid on the item. Then sending a email to the person. The question is, how are the getting the email address?

6

Probably through Ebay’s own system..you can click a “contact this member” button and post an email to someone through Ebay.

7

I know about that, but then it would also be posted in my “message center” in Ebay, this was through my email, which is not available to the contact person. (at least I didn’t think so.)
Ebay is getting so dangerous that everyone should avoid it but me… :smiling_imp:

8

Hmmm…checking on the ebay site (via ‘My ebay’) and getting a prospective buyer’s link (i.e. someone who didn’t win the particular bid) you can click on “Contact member”. Here ebay has a warning about such email solicitations to buy. However, it does appear that ebay will send a copy of correspondence to the prospective buyer’s email address. I guess one could inform ebay of a specific incidence of this type of abuse/fraud but it’s anyone’s guess whether ebay would follow up on it.