eBAY Prius SCAM ?

I find this pretty difficult to believe. At first look, I guessed that this is a car from the hurricane-ravaged area of the Southern US.

Buyers beware!

http://www.consumerreports.org/main/detail...D=1130526501248

 

they have so many posts like this. This is not a new thing. I reported about 39 posts selling powerbooks this way and they all have been removed, but ebay does nothing about preventing this kind of posts so I quit reporting them

 

That VIN number looks bogus: jtjhw31ux60019150
Don't they start JTDKB22U?

A free Google search of the VIN shows that it belongs to a 2006 Lexus RX400H:
http://used-cars.autos.yahoo.com/used-cars...-used-cars.html

 

there was another scammer lately, that i actually inquired on (via eBay) that turned out scam, and eBay abruptly ended the auction. I still received an e-mail offering to sell it to me for some amazingly low figure. eBay never contacted me to warn me the auction had been fake - i was surprised.

the really wierd part? the person was on AOL with their screen name maybe a month afterwards.

 

Feeling grumpy today, I sent this message to eBay Motors cust. svc.

I suggest you examine the particulars of the auction 4585766881 to determine if it is another fraud. I assume you are aware of typical selling prices of these vehicles. You may also recognize that the VIN provided is not that of a Prius. I have sent myself a copy of this email, and would appreciate hearing how this matter is resolved. Thanks for protecting eBay's reputation.

 

Oh man, that's just one of SIX bogus Prius sales set up by that douche bag!

I believe this bogus sale is part of a bigger scam involving a guy from Greece and multiple phony escrow sites that are set up to look like "Square Trade" (he may be switching to copying buysafe.com now). The claim to not be able to receive email through Ebay was used in previous bogus auctions.

Take a look at this thread in Ebay forums: http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jspa?thr...0092754&start=0

What's sad is, if you look through the posts on the Ebay forums, many less clueful people have been taken for hundreds or thousands of dollars. It wasn't until after they wired thousands of dollars via Western Union to someone in a foreign country that they got suspicious.

Someone send him an email and pretend to be interested. I could use a laugh.

 

hmm a 6 cylinder Prius... that should be worth something...

 

I sent the scammer a request for more information. This should be good... :lol:

 

And all six Prius's he has for sale have the same VIN (not a Prius VIN)... SCAMMER

 

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/28...m.ap/index.html

Pulled from yesterday's news

 

The ebay listing has apparently been pulled now. Also posted on the page is a warning not to trade using Western Union or prepaid credit cards. I missed the original post, but it looks as tho ebay caught on and took care of it.

 

they always say that when they remove a posting, but what's the chance that others will see it? If you didn't see this post before you would never notice the message stating that you shouldn't use WU. They should have this message right on the main page.
Someone notified them about this post, they would never catch on their own

 

I think e-bay relies a lot on users to notify them of fraudulent posts. I, and I think another PC user, notified them and the listing was gone the next day.

I know they react because I've notified them about other inappropriate posts and they were pulled very quickly.

 

Hee hee - I got an email from the scammer. It is the same guy telling the "I recently moved to Greece..." story. Email header examination says that he's accessing NetZero web email through a host in the Netherlands, but I can't tell any more than that. He's hesitant to tell me the name of his phony escrow site so I'll send him some phony contact information - and then get it shut down once I have the site name. Anyone got a good phony address to send him? I used the name of a character from the sci-fi show "Stargate SG-1" to contact him, so maybe my address should be Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station.

Email headers (untd.com provides services for NetZero):

 

"I will send the car having written on it 'gift' so you won't have to pay any additional taxes."

Tax evasion...call the feds

 

I use ebay both to buy and sell stuff. It really should be looked at as a giant flea market. Caveat Emptor. They have millions of listings. Please don't expect them to be able to screen them all. OF COURSE they depend on the shoppers to point out fraud. How could they POSSIBLY inform everyone of scams.

I LOVE what ebay provides.....I am willing to take the inherent risks involved.

 

Okay, I sent the scammer an email telling him I wanted to buy the car and got this back:

The machine in the Netherlands which is accessing NetZero's web email appears to just be an ssh relay, possibly compromised.

Unfortunately, the only scam I can pull on this scammer is to get him to reveal his phony escrow site, and then shut it down. If he was the buyer I could send him an empty box, value it at a few hundred dollars for customs, and then make him pay import duty on it.

Some people on Ebay believe this scammer to be Romanian, not Greek.