Ebay Scam

[Judge Smails]

Anybody see the Ebay listing for the Yellow NAS 110 last week? Very strange, seller was trying to sell it for $11,500. Here is the email text from the seller:

You are the only approved buyer for this LAND ROVER DEFENDER. Your details have been forwarded on to the eBay Motors Customer Department and I think that you have been informed by them about the details of this transaction. Now, in order for me to ship the car to you and go forward with this deal, you must complete the payment process exactly as you have been instructed by eBay Motors.

I personally advise you that when you will go to the Money Gram office to send the money, tell to the Money Gram agent that you send the money for a friend of yours because they will charge you more money if you tell them that you will send the money for an eBay auction.

As soon as I receive the confirmation from eBay that you have made the payment, I will have the car sent to you and you will receive it in about 2 days. If you are no more interested in purchasing this car from me, please let me know ASAP because I have another 2 clients waiting for this item but I need your agreement to sell it to someone else.


This is followed by two spoof emails from Ebay Motors. Complete with spelling errors.

Remember kids, the moral of the story is,if it sounds to good to be true, it won't be leaking oil on your driveway

[jhmover]

Just the price alone should be a clue this retard is up to no good.

[Judge Smails]

Follow up: Now I am just messing with him. I sent the following:
What is your phone number? You are 45 minutes away from me. I could be there in the morning and we can do business face to face. I could pay you the full amount right then. We wouldn't need to go through all these other steps.

Now his reply comes:
I have a new job in Honolulu, Hawaii actually and will not be there to hand it over or something like that. You send the amount deposit(in our case $2,960) to an eBay Motors, eBay will confirm me that you have made the payment. I will ship you the car so you can test drive the car.. Please let me know if you are still interested

[Art Vigil]

How funny, I got one last week also.
It started when I saw a red '97 D90ST with 17K miles on ebay with a buy it now price of $8000. I knew immediately that it was a scam or serious mistake, but my curiosity got the better of me.
The ebay ad stated that all bidders must be pre-approved by the seller, so I played along and sent an email request to be approved to bid.
Needless to say, the ad disappeared in a couple of hours but shortly thereafter I received the following email:

Hello ,

First you have to know that my car (1997 Land Rover Defender) is 100% working and looking perfect, no flaws or dents, no scratches or any kind of damage, no flood or wrecked and it is an US clear title, no engine problems, the interior looks great.The auction has been ended early for a "buyer" and it looks like he failed for a Ioan, so in order to be the buyer of this great car you must have cash available.

The bottom price for this car is $8,000.00 with cost for delivery included. About the car location is in Yukon(Canada) I will be able to ship the car any where in U.S. Shipping will be done by Autos Marlink Co. and the car will arrive in about 8-10 days to your door. The car will be insured at the shipping company for the transport.I already have the car on shipping co. posession along with ALL doc ready to GO so will be no local pick up available.

For our protection, the payment will be made through eBay Motors. The most important thing in all my activities is that I am affiliated at eBay Motors vehicle purchase program and I have a Purchase Protection Account for 20,000.00 and I assume you know what this means.

If you are realy interested and have the money available for this purchase reply me and I will send you more details regarding this program "eBay Motors"

Sincerely.
~Julie Taffah~

After that I emailed "Julie" and told her that I had the funds available and to give me a call to discuss payment options. Then I received the following:

I don't have a phone right now as my cell phone wasn't getting reception worth a darn out here so we cancelled them. I have a cable modem though and check my e-mail very regularly

As per my first email I mentioned that I want to use eBay for this transaction. I am affiliated at eBay Motors vehicle purchase program and I have a Purchase Protection Account for $20,000.00. Here it's how eBay Motors process works;

In order to complete this deal payment of $8,000.00 must be sent to eBay, as soon as they receive the payment will notify me to start with delivery. After you receive the car you must contact eBay with your approval so they can relese the payment to me in full. Payment is going to be sent by bank transfer.

*NOTE - eBay will not relese the payment to me without your approval. If the car is not in same condition as i said you will ship the car back to me at my cost and eBay will send you a full refund.

Now, if you're serious about this and want to move forward, I would need your eBay User ID, shipping address, your full name and contact phone # to start the eBay transaction.

I sent one more email but haven't heard back...
'97 D90 for $8K - right.
~Art Vigil

[Judge Smails]

That is definitely the same person. The name used this time was Emily Encino.

This is one of the spoof Ebay emails:



Thank you for taking the time to write eBay with your concerns. My name is John , and I'm pleased to be of further assistance to you

Yes I already spoked with the seller and was agree to accept $2900 like deposit for the vehicle. The seller has removed the vehicle from eBay because as we understand he had an agrement with a potential buyer but anyway your transaction can be made trouh eBay Motors. If you agree with the deposit let us know to instruct you for the deposit.





John S.

Respectfully,
Customer Support (Trust and Safety Department)
eBay Inc


That makes a Nigerian look like an English Major.

[RoverChic]

Uggg!! I hate these SCAMMERS!! Report both of them to EBAY before someone gets TAKEN!!!

[sodirty]

hehe. i wonder how much these guys make doing this shit.

[smileyq]

Man these guys really piss me off. I can't stand people that try to take advantage of people who are a bit less lets say aware of scams like this. We need to find him and beat his @$$!

[acornhoek]

Nice 110........if it weren't for the polished door hinges I'd send him the money....

[lucasd2002]

another great evil-bay story

[Den]

Judging by the sentence construction and poor use of punctuation and conjugation, I assume that the scammers are not natural English speakers. (Though this does not imply that those who have excellent command of the language are exempt from criminal inclination!)

Their reluctance to use voice communications (someone should have suggested Skype to the individual with a cable modem) means that they are probably not US or Canadian citizens operating from US soil.

That said, is there anyone out there who might hazard a guess at where these scammers might come from.

[JungleRR]

wow.. what scary stuff!

[Judge Smails]

This nut was using AOL so I couldn't trace the IP address in his email, but a couple years ago this buy was running a ponzi scheme on Ebay selling video cameras. I bought one and realized that I had been taken for $600. I started contacting others that had bid on his auctions and found they too never got their cameras...from his IP address on the emails he sent me I traced it to his ISP which was a hospital in Houston...some more Googling of his user name, I figured he was a helicopter pilot. So he had to be the medivac pilot for that hospital...I tried calling him at his work with no luck, but then tried his boss and told them if they didn't want the FBI showing up to have this guy call me. 10 minutes later, my phone rings with the guy claiming some stole his identity, *rolls eyes* but he'd send me my money back anyways and the other ten people their money back too....


Hey JungleRR, what year is your Dormie? I used to have a 62....

[RoverChic]

Originally Posted by JungleRR

wow.. what scary stuff!

Off topic but, I love your signature line Jungle! Too cool!

[TN-LR3]

see this is why we have handgun permits
On craigslist someone wanted to buy my guitar, but they had a very weird way of doing the transaction, he sends me 3000 after he gets the guitar and then i take 1000 of it and pay the courier that comes and gets it? I sent an email back sayin i get the money first and if it clears with the bank we do a transaction. Then he said he was a holy man and all that crap, and I urged him to meet face to face. He said he traveled alot and couldn't do it, but i kept saying he has to come down and pay me first then he gets the guitar. Then he said he'd give the money to the courier service and they pay me and get the goods. I emailed him back saying if this a scam I currently have handgun permit registered too two large caliber pistols(even though I don't) and i never got another email.