EBAY - be very careful

[etccarmageddon]

On Sunday I saw a bloke selling top up cards for mobile phones at a discount - I sent him a question and got a reply so almost purchased as it appeared to be genuine. but I was suspicious why someone would sell £20 top ups for £14! checked his account yesterday and it was locked down and loads of neg comments re his account being hijacked.

I've been looking for a new mobile - I almost bid on but then reported 4 entries yesterday for 2 users where the sellers looked suspicious - loads of positive comments but almost no feedback in the last 6 months except for a few small purchases. Also the seller says in the ad 'dont contact me via ask a seller a question as I wont reply - email me at ....'. And their spelling was iffy! 2 were cancelled within an hour by ebay! the other 2 I cant find this morning so am pretty sure have also been caught.

Last night we eventually bid on a phone which looked like a genuine sale and lost out on it but this morning ebay emailed me to say someone had hijacked the user account so the item had been cancelled from the auction and the user was being investigated. Worth noting that during the bidding process I asked the seller 2 questions via ebay but got no replys!

so just a warning of my experiences. everything I've been tempted to bid on this week has been a con! be careful.

[skyblueheroes]

Good advice, but if you're sensible and do a bit of research on the seller etc then you should be okay.

Don't forget that a very high percentage of people who use ebay are probably respectable people. The site is let down by the minority who abuse it.

[Bifta]

Originally Posted by skyblueheroes

Good advice, but if you're sensible and do a bit of research on the seller etc then you should be okay.

Don't forget that a very high percentage of people who use ebay are probably respectable people. The site is let down by the minority who abuse it.

You can research all you like, if a reputable sellers account has been hijacked then you're relying on either Ebay telling you about it or by finding out when your item doesn't arrive.

[banjo]

It would be interesting to find out how many people have been scammed or items not being delivered ?

[Halcyon]

Yeah most people who do get their accounts hijacked are those that get E-mails telling them to re-confirm their membership and get redirected to a ebay lookalike page that fishes all their details.

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by Bifta

You can research all you like, if a reputable sellers account has been hijacked then you're relying on either Ebay telling you about it or by finding out when your item doesn't arrive.

yes indeedy. just won a phone last night after closing quite a good number of accounts in the last week due to me reporting all iffy listings.

so I win a phone worth £400 for £90 but am suspicious as the ask a seller a question gets me no replys and the ebay account address is in a different location to the item plus the ebay account name isn't something wierd. plus the account address just says 'london'. also in the listing it had a 'contact me on xxxxx@yahoo.com' which didn't match the email address on the ebay account contact details.

so I reported it to ebay and this morning get yet another email telling me the account was compromised and the auction has been removed etc.

I felt more relieved that disappointed.
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Originally Posted by banjo

It would be interesting to find out how many people have been scammed or items not being delivered ?

every bloody advert I've been interested in in the last week for this new phone has been a scam!