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Dead-Nuts-Zero · April 20, 2006, 01:16 PM

I stumbled upon an Ebay seller selling $6,000 item brand new delivered for about 1,800.00. I dug around and found another seller doing about the same deal, and then yet another seller, all with different addresses and ebay ID. Being too good to be true, I decided to scan all of Ebay to see what else I could find on these Nuts. Well...there were others too. The common link to these were that that they were from another country, listing US addresses. They were selling items that were in the US, ready to be shipped. I then offered to pick up the item as it was a motor bike of 500 lbs. etc. I kindly asked where to locate the item, all by sending several email questions. After finding the other sellers, I asked about a relationship. They were in no way related or connected to one another, and had no scam or fraud intentions. They didn't want me asking questions and then no more replies. To shorten the story here, one other common link was that the background in all the photo's were all the same. Same garage doors with dents and rust in the same spots and the same trees were in the background etc. But yet all in different states. Truth was, they were same people doing a shipping scam as they had to ship them through Customs and there would be a huge delay in getting them into the US (they already told me they were here to begin with).

I never had any intention of making a purchase, but could not help myself do anything but expose these dill toes. I catagorized all of my investigative proof and sent to Ebay security. I got an email back within two hours that every one of these sellers were suspended on the spot, and thanking me for exposing them. They were launching a full fraud investigation. I even had updates from the Fraud unit.

I later tried to locate these auctions sites and seller profiles etc. with the info I had saved, (recorded all addresses and links etc.) but no sign of them anywhere. Ebay did a great job of putting them out of business. Pooffff....they were gone from Ebay!

Only problem I had was getting the info reported to Ebay. They (at that time) had no way of conducting a phone conversation. Every bit of detail had to go by emails.

I say this... if you see something that looks sour, turn them into the Fraud Dep't and they will suspend them until they can determine if it's fraud or not. A 17 dollar knife is not like 6 thousand dollars of BS, but if the attempt to defraud is there, they are just as important.

The knife deal is different because there seems to be an attempt to work out the problems. With the motor bike auctions, they were selling with no intentions of shipping because the item was only a photo.

The seller of the knife should have sent you a new knife of grater value (free without shipping charges) and maybe this exposure could have been avoided.

Thanks to the forum for allowing us to share this info.

April 20, 2006, 01:16 PM	#47
Dead-Nuts-Zero Senior Member Join Date: August 26, 2004 Posts: 579	I stumbled upon an Ebay seller selling $6,000 item brand new delivered for about 1,800.00. I dug around and found another seller doing about the same deal, and then yet another seller, all with different addresses and ebay ID. Being too good to be true, I decided to scan all of Ebay to see what else I could find on these Nuts. Well...there were others too. The common link to these were that that they were from another country, listing US addresses. They were selling items that were in the US, ready to be shipped. I then offered to pick up the item as it was a motor bike of 500 lbs. etc. I kindly asked where to locate the item, all by sending several email questions. After finding the other sellers, I asked about a relationship. They were in no way related or connected to one another, and had no scam or fraud intentions. They didn't want me asking questions and then no more replies. To shorten the story here, one other common link was that the background in all the photo's were all the same. Same garage doors with dents and rust in the same spots and the same trees were in the background etc. But yet all in different states. Truth was, they were same people doing a shipping scam as they had to ship them through Customs and there would be a huge delay in getting them into the US (they already told me they were here to begin with). I never had any intention of making a purchase, but could not help myself do anything but expose these dill toes. I catagorized all of my investigative proof and sent to Ebay security. I got an email back within two hours that every one of these sellers were suspended on the spot, and thanking me for exposing them. They were launching a full fraud investigation. I even had updates from the Fraud unit. I later tried to locate these auctions sites and seller profiles etc. with the info I had saved, (recorded all addresses and links etc.) but no sign of them anywhere. Ebay did a great job of putting them out of business. Pooffff....they were gone from Ebay! Only problem I had was getting the info reported to Ebay. They (at that time) had no way of conducting a phone conversation. Every bit of detail had to go by emails. I say this... if you see something that looks sour, turn them into the Fraud Dep't and they will suspend them until they can determine if it's fraud or not. A 17 dollar knife is not like 6 thousand dollars of BS, but if the attempt to defraud is there, they are just as important. The knife deal is different because there seems to be an attempt to work out the problems. With the motor bike auctions, they were selling with no intentions of shipping because the item was only a photo. The seller of the knife should have sent you a new knife of grater value (free without shipping charges) and maybe this exposure could have been avoided. Thanks to the forum for allowing us to share this info. __________________ . . BANG------------ >>> !