So this Peter chap made a hugely inflated bid to get the price so out of hand that no one “not in the know” can’t be scammed by this? Very cool.
I susspect the high bidder is on some sort of crusade against what he/she sees as obvious scams.
Yeah, I think we’ve figured out this case pretty much exactly. However, another thing that happens from time to time is “nuclear bidding”. That is, when someone wants something so much that they put in a ridiculously high bid to “make sure” that they get it (without having to check back). You see this sometimes when another person makes a nuclear bid and the two automatically battle it out. It’ll be some $100 item up at $10,000.
The bids are rarely honored and just end up being retracted with negative feedback.
I just want to know why the seller’s Chinese-English dictionary has “disamenity” in it.
I don’t have any.
I wonder, is Ebay okay with these “message board” listings? I want to report another scam item and I don’t know if I should link to that page.
For some reason the high bid is only $56 now.
The seller is cancelling the bids.
Yes, as others have pointed out, there are some people who are self appointed ‘vigilantes’ who try to spoil scam sales.
The only reason I know the phrase ‘vigilante’ is because a few years ago I was buying up software on EBay and spotted numerous obvious fraudsters.
EBay’s fraud line seems to run a competition in getting the word ‘vigilant’ in their inane Email responses to people pointing out scams.
- Very juvenile
The times they jumped were when I gave them proof of ‘shilling’ (vendor bidding on own sale under another guise) and vendors trying to take sales private - ‘portal sales’
- in those cases they moved like lightning
- but straightforward fraud - they just mock you
It is a lot quicker and less frustrating setting up a fake ID and outbidding
- Emailing other bidders and warning them gets some grateful replies (and spots shills)
- communicating with EBay just raises ones blood pressure
I can’t quite understand why these vigilantes wouldn’t set up a snipe to ensure that the auction closes with their nuclear bid.
Argent Towers On the link you sent the price is $31 GBP with 7 bids. The 2 high bids have been canceled:
peterd6463 ( 101Feedback score is 100 to 499) Cancelled: GBP 5,000.00
Explanation: ??? Bid: Jul-17-06 10:46:05 PDT
Cancelled: Jul-19-06 14:49:12 PDT
chinkblitz ( -1 ) Cancelled: GBP 5,400.00
Explanation: ??? Bid: Jul-18-06 06:16:09 PDT
Cancelled: Jul-19-06 14:48:34 PDT
Perhaps there were just some wize-ass kids who bid it up just for fun.
But if it’s really a block of crack or something, I can think of a good reason to post it on ebay - money laundering. You have a record of selling and shipping a item, and can realize the income.
That would make sense.
I suppose the way they currently do it draws more attention to the scammers though.
That high bid and the negative attention from the ‘vigilante’ listing probably works better than a last second snipe, long term.
No, it’s really a guitar auction, but the seller has no guitar for sale and thus it’s just a scam. The bid by chinkblitz is a dude who has made it his job to bid on those scam auctions at ridiculous prices and then default. Thus, no one else is taken in.
Really, scams by dudes in mainland China are very common- you also see a lot of them selling samurai swords, Ming vases, and so forth. EBay has to know this is a major source of scams but for some reason they do nothing.
Tish tish. No matter. Well, stout yeoman, four ounces of Caerphilly, if you please.
eBay has low motive to do anything. They’ve covered themselves legally with just about anything, so if someone is scamming, they claim that “they are just providing the means to trade.” Ultimately, it’s up to you, the buyer, to shake everything out.
A few years ago, I caught a guy shill bidding on his own products. I happened to win the auction, and it only cost me a few bucks, but since the buyer was selling a bunch of the same item (I was new to eBay and didn’t realize this until the auction was over), I started to look at who bid on the items. In almost all of his/her auctions, there was the same bidder. This bidder only won items from this seller, always left positive feedback, and never won anything else from any other seller.
Oh, and in the profiles of these two different accounts, they for some listed their location. The same small town in the same state.
So I put all of this info together and sent it to eBay. I heard nothing. I’ve kept track of the original username, and look it up from time to time. He/She is now a PowerSeller. That’s big money to eBay.
What I took from this is that eBay says they don’t like shill bidding (and it is against their rules), but why would they care? They get their money anyway. If the shill bidder wins and it’s a low cost item, the shill might just pay the ebay fee for a winning bid. Or, a person like me bids above the shill bid, and they get a higher price for their item. Again, eBay wins. eBay already gets money for the listing, so they win all the way around.
To actually get eBay to move on anything is rare. I’ve never seen it. I like the vigilante system only because it’s doing what eBay should be doing and doesn’t.
I don’t do eBay very much anymore, simply because I don’t want to spend the time trying to figure out if the person is a scammer or not. I only go there for very low priced items where the scam probability is low.
You see these ultra high bids quite a lot on certain product lines, things like Bang & Olusen hifi.
I have seen speakers that should cost around $15000 and the ‘seller’ has no reserve, which is impossible, how many folk would even countenance selling an item of such a value and not have some sort of lower price limit.
You’ll see some bidders will call themselves something like ‘itsascam’ or ‘runawayscreaming’ and a bid of some ridiculous amount.
Common ways to spot the scammers are that the item is located somewhere differant from the seller, or that they will only take money transfers - EBAY has finally banned Western Union transfers as these were a favourite vehicle for the scammer.
Anything where the sleer includes their email address, which will always be from a free provider, these are always scams.
Often they will say something like ’ do not use the “contact seller” as I don’t use this email any more’ or something like that, such accounts are usually phished and they don’t want you to ask a question using the EBAY system as it will alert the original owner of the account.
Things like private feedback, or one day auctions are a biggie, as are things where the scammer is selling something that is utterly differant from what they normally sell, eg a bookseller suddenly selling motorbikes, is a sign that this might be a hijacked account.
Scammers will hijack a dormant account, so you may see a large gap between transactions, or you may see lots of very low value items that have been bought and sold previously.
There are so many things and its just a case of using common sense, but one good way to weed them out is just to ask if you can collect from the seller and pay cash on collection, scammers will always have an excuse not to do this, and it doesn’t matter that you live a thousand miles away, the scammer doesn’t know that.
Well to be fair, I wouldn’t go for this if I were the seller.
Why not? There’s no chance of the goods being lost or damaged in transit, which is a big plus.
Jayrot
Maybe you would not go for it, but its no big shakes to me, I wouldn’t buy and there is always someone else selling the same thing who would be prepared to accept cash on delivery, after all, COD has been the preferred way of operating for millennia.
I would lose nothing, and you would have to find another buyer, but what happens is that I ask the question through EBAY and it gets listed on the auction, so if you state you would not accept COD, then all other potential bidders would see this, and ask themselves the obvious questions.
If you’re lucky, then you’d end up with either a mug punter - which is the reason scammers try to operate on EBAY - or you’ll get a far lower price as anyone bidding would realise they might be taking a chance.
This is no problem on low value items, but if it were something that you might expect to get a few hundred bucks, you might not achieve the sort of price that the item is worth.
Any seller with an ounce of nous would look at the feedback of someone making such an enquiry and make a judgement based on that, are you really telling me that you would refuse COD from a bidder that has 100% positive feedback and has bought a couple hundred items of $100 upwards and has made purchases in the recent past ?
If you would not say yes to such a person, why would such a person want to do business with you ?
It’s, um, a bit runny, I’m afraid.