I thought I’d share a recent experience so that others are aware of things going on through the internet.
I’m always scrounging around the internet, some times even looking for opportunities. I happened to sign up with a site called freelancer.com and suddenly my mail box was filled with emails from them, listing newly listed opportunities. Most times, I simply scanned through the list, found nothing interesting and deleted it.
Then last Friday, something caught my eye. It was somebody advertising for help selling through ebay. I clicked on the link and read the ad.
The first flag went up when I noted that he added his contact information in the body of the add, not once but 6 times and getting around the site policy by using ‘at’ instead of ‘@’ and ‘dot’ instead of a ‘.’. I’ve seen that many times in various places and although I’m aware they’re not supposed to do that, I got curious and sent the guy an email asking for more information.
He informed me that he had a warehouse full of product but didn’t know much about ebay and needed help. He said that he would provide all the listing information, I would then sell the products, collect the money in my paypal and after he provided a tracking number to prove shipment, I would then send him his money, minus my fee and the ebay fees.
Well now that sounds ok….right? We both decided to start Monday. Monday morning (this morning) he sent 3 separate listings in 3 separate emails along with an email informing me he had sent them.
Looking at his profile, the night before, on that site, I noticed his location mentioned Ohio but nothing more, so when I looked at the first listing he sent and noticed it said ’shipped from CA’, another flag went up. His warehouse? His products?
Then I looked more carefully at the pictures in that first email and noted that it was of a laptop propped on arm of an easy chair in somebody’s home. The second email had a pic of what looked almost for real. The third had a generic pic, obviously taken from the dealers site. Another flag went up.
I immediately went back to his profile but something strange had happened. Instead of ‘Ohio’ as a location, there was only what seemed to be a town name. hmmmm
Before I’d take another step I visited ebay and went into the help forums. Only when I finally ventured into the forums especially for the ‘traders’, did I finally find some kind of reference to this situation. When the question was presented about selling other people’s products, sight unseen, there were numerous responses saying ‘not! only if the product is in your possession’, things like that.
Then I read where people are doing this, getting someone else to use their ebay account to sell electronics then winning the bid, themselves using a fake credit card, then reporting the product as not received so that they can get a refund. In the meantime, you’ve sent the product owner his money. Woah!!!! Stop right there. Man, was I close to stepping into a hornets nest?
I first sent an email to him stating that after much consideration, I would not list his items unless they were in my possession. I also apologized in the event he was legitimate and that if he could find a way for us to do this legitimately, I’d be glad to help. His reply was short and sweet, telling me not to waste people’s time. hmm Kind of sounds guilty to me.
So then I went back to the site and reported on a couple of his ads, all of which break the terms. What can I say? I was a bad girl from the get-go for not having done that the minute I saw it but with 3 bids on the project, all sounding legitimate, I fell for it. Now I’m wondering who those bidders really are.
So there’s my recent adventure. I thought I’d better write about it, informing others of some of the scams going on in this crazy cyber world.
Welcome 
