Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Anyone got cheated in eBay before?

Okay just a thought.

This is a scam no doubt.

To the OP, don't be upset, as this has happened to my mom more than once. I do not know if your going to be able to get your money back.

Really in truly though, use Ebay with caution. I would only buy from someone with a good reputation, and even then, I would use a secure payment method as paypal. If he doesn't accept paypal, he is not real. 99% of sellers accept paypal.

Also, someone mentioned that you can contact the local police. Save yourself the effort, because chances are the guy just gave you fake information to reassure you while he takes your money.
 
Simply checking that the seller has positive feedback means nothing if it's a hijacked account.

What's the protection if he used his real name and bank account? You can open and close bank accounts in minutes. Real name - sure, its useful to you if you want to start a civil court action. (Good luck on getting collection on a judgement two years from now) Course, you don;t have his real address. That'll be a problem serving him with papers.

Some people genuinely don't care if they have a $^&@ reputation. Which removes the only societal pressure on them to do the right thing.
 
I'm in the UK too. Where are you based? How much did you send him?

As it was for a macbook pro, I'm guessing it was probably around £800-£1000.

That's a fair amount of money, and the police would probably be interested.

I don't know what it's like in the USA / Canada, but here in the UK, you need to provide a fair bit of identification to open a bank account.

Of course, the scammer might have set up something strange that looks to you like a bank account, but isn't what we UK people recognise as a regular bank account.

It would help if you could identify which bank he is with. What's the sort code? (this identifies which bank handles the money, it won't identify him)

I have bought a few second hand laptops, and personally, I NEVER buy without looking at it first. I only buy local, where I can go over and look at it, identify defects, haggle for discounts, check it's authentic etc, before handing over my money. A good indicator on ebay that it's real is if they offer it for local pickup.

If you have to buy long distance, which you shouldn't have to do for common items like mac laptops, sending a message asking if you can come over to pick up can be a good way to check it's real.
 
RedTomato said:
I'm in the UK too. Where are you based? How much did you send him?

As it was for a macbook pro, I'm guessing it was probably around £800-£1000.

That's a fair amount of money, and the police would probably be interested.

I don't know what it's like in the USA / Canada, but here in the UK, you need to provide a fair bit of identification to open a bank account.

Of course, the scammer might have set up something strange that looks to you like a bank account, but isn't what we UK people recognise as a regular bank account.

It would help if you could identify which bank he is with. What's the sort code? (this identifies which bank handles the money, it won't identify him)

I have bought a few second hand laptops, and personally, I NEVER buy without looking at it first. I only buy local, where I can go over and look at it, identify defects, haggle for discounts, check it's authentic etc, before handing over my money. A good indicator on ebay that it's real is if they offer it for local pickup.

If you have to buy long distance, which you shouldn't have to do for common items like mac laptops, sending a message asking if you can come over to pick up can be a good way to check it's real.
Click to expand...

I am in London, he's outside London. Paid £1300! :(
Yeah, just checked with the bank that they can't do anything. His account is active though. So he should not be a conman. Just need to be patience. I have his full name and I think the police will be able to track him down. But the bank manager said that there's no need for them to get involved as the police will be able to hunt him down with the information database that the police has.

Well, time to hope that CCTV and all the government spying on the citizens conspiracy are really true so we can nab him if he's really a fraud...

Lesson from this experience is priceless... (ya am a stupid fool...dam...i must be a disgrace of my family)
 
And if the MBP does arrive??

It will. Have a positive attitude. Just be prepared to bust this guy properly if it doesnt and get your money back, but i hope it does arrive, just so it saves you the trouble of going thru police.
 
zainjetha said:
And if the MBP does arrive??

It will. Have a positive attitude. Just be prepared to bust this guy properly if it doesnt and get your money back, but i hope it does arrive, just so it saves you the trouble of going thru police.
Click to expand...

Thank you.

He's not taking my call now. Typical.
 
If he's relisted the MBP on ebay, maybe you could use a different identity and send a message saying:

- you want to buy it and can you can come over and pick it up after paying?
 
RedTomato said:
If he's relisted the MBP on ebay, maybe you could use a different identity and send a message saying:

- you want to buy it and can you can come over and pick it up after paying?
Click to expand...

He's not relisting it anymore. Best Friday I ever had.
 
Son of Matrix said:
I am in London, he's outside London. Paid £1300! :(

Lesson from this experience is priceless... (ya am a stupid fool...dam...i must be a disgrace of my family)
Click to expand...

An expensive lesson. Can you explain, so others don't make the same mistake, WHY you'd send such a HUGE amount of money to someone you don't know for a product you haven't received yet?

Think of it this way: If it had been the other way around and you were an ebay seller, would you send your MBP to someone who hasn't sent you the money yet? I don't think so.

I guess you must be really rich to just waste money like this :p
 
closeupman said:
An expensive lesson. Can you explain, so others don't make the same mistake, WHY you'd send such a HUGE amount of money to someone you don't know for a product you haven't received yet?

Think of it this way: If it had been the other way around and you were an ebay seller, would you send your MBP to someone who hasn't sent you the money yet? I don't think so.

I guess you must be really rich to just waste money like this :p
Click to expand...

You're not trying to help other people by getting an explanation, you're just rubbing it in. The guy made a dumb mistake by putting too much trust in the other party because it was on eBay, that's all.
 
jackc said:
You're not trying to help other people by getting an explanation, you're just rubbing it in. The guy made a dumb mistake by putting too much trust in the other party because it was on eBay, that's all.
Click to expand...

No, if I wanted to rub it in, I could say a WHOLE lot more. Other people have made this mistake, and more I'm sure will in the future. I wanted him to share his thought process on WHY he'd send over a thousand pounds to an unknown person, just because he had a name and bank account. As stated before you can open or close a bank account at will. Yes, he may be able to go after him, but it will most likely cost more than what he already sent.
 
jackc said:
You're not trying to help other people by getting an explanation, you're just rubbing it in. The guy made a dumb mistake by putting too much trust in the other party because it was on eBay, that's all.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's correct. Thanks. The main reason I am posting on this website is to help people aware of one of the various scams that can be done over the ebay. In a way, at least my money will help other people to avoid potential scammers. Every post like this will directly or indirectly help someone. Scammers are so brave these days.

The only reason for all this mess is provided by jackc, I couldn't be more elequoent.

What goes around comes around. Never thought this would happen to me. Anyway, will give him one more chance on Monday, then if I don't have prove that it's been delivered, then it's either banking the money back to my account OR filing a police report. Hopefully some one here can help me on what are the probabilities of the police in UK nabbing that guy...

Have a good weekend guys! :D
 
closeupman said:
No, if I wanted to rub it in, I could say a WHOLE lot more. Other people have made this mistake, and more I'm sure will in the future. I wanted him to share his thought process on WHY he'd send over a thousand pounds to an unknown person, just because he had a name and bank account. As stated before you can open or close a bank account at will. Yes, he may be able to go after him, but it will most likely cost more than what he already sent.
Click to expand...

:D ok since you insist. Thought process as follows:-
1) Mac too expensive.
2) Want to save a few 100 pounds. (Greed)
3) Look at ebay for bargains. (Stupid)
4) Excited over good bargain. (Stupid)
5) Bid (Stupid)
6) Didn't put a lower limit on how much discount I should get. Just a few hundred pounds. (Stupid plus Greed)
7) Seeing that he has a real name and a real bank account number and with UK banks imposing strict rules on opening an account, I would be safe. (Yet to be proven, I can't find anything about this on the web, so I will be experience this myself)

oh yeah, never buy something expensive when you are having problems with your girlfriend, so my mind may be deluded and not 100%. She broke up with me yesterday, not due to this problem as she didn't know, but on hindsight, maybe she can clearly see my stupidity and left early. haha

oh yeah, before you buy anything from ebay, you should post here and seek advice from the gurus here first.
 
Son of Matrix said:
i went to the bank and bank into his account. I have his name and his account number. I don't think a scammer will give me his real name right?? And also I think the bank in UK will have proper checking on their customer right??
Click to expand...

I was a victim of similar scam and done the same stupid thing.
Read the links below. Report your case to the police. Even if they caught the criminal they get away. At least you did your best you could.
http://comantics.com/
http://forums.gumtree.com/about136852.html

Good luck to you!. I share your pain!
 
flipperanubi said:
I'm confused....

I've never heard of anyone getting scammed on ebay before. Does that happen?
Click to expand...

That's what this post is for. Highlighting problem. There are scams involving people misusing paypal, money gram and western union. Suffice to say, there are scams everywhere over the internet!

Take care!
 
Son of Matrix said:
That's what this post is for. Highlighting problem. There are scams involving people misusing paypal, money gram and western union. Suffice to say, there are scams everywhere over the internet!
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think certain things are flags, and certain kinds of products are also frequent targets ...

- Any non-Paypal payment method, as mentioned, is almost a dead giveaway for a scam.

- Macbook Pros seem for some reason to be a scammer favorite. There seem to be a disproportionate number of stories related to various attempts at fraud or non-payment on MBPs.

- Certain items have a big knock-off market. Video games and designer clothes and accessories are particularly bad in this area. I've bought one or two pieces of designer clothing on eBay, but I rather assume they're knock-off... it's pretty rare, unfortunately, that these sales actually involve legitimate merchandise, and eBay does little or nothing about it.
 
While I have never been cheated, I limit the $ amount of my purchases. This way, if something does happen, I'm not out a huge amount of money. The most expensive thing I ever bought was a $250 Furby several years ago for my daughter.
 
I hope you get your purchase. But, if you don't I always shop auctions with this train of thought: If it sounds too good to be true it usually is.

For instance people see "brand new" Macs on eBay all the time for prices that are several hundred less than Amazon or MacMall. That doesn't register well for me because if they were "brand new" they could be sold for much more without problems.

If it sounds too good to be true it usually is.
 
RedTomato said:
.....I don't know what it's like in the USA / Canada, but here in the UK, you need to provide a fair bit of identification to open a bank account.....
Click to expand...

you have to provide identification over here too......but seriously, it's not hard to make or get fake identification. In this case it may not even matter though.

What does the OP have to prove that his deposit was for an ebay purchase in the first place, or that it's all part of a scam? How's he going to prove some law has been broken?
 
so did you get the product afterall or was it a complete scam overall? you should post his ebay user id and any and all information you have of the person to put them out there for everyone to know what's going on. you should pay with your credit card next time so you can file a chargeback in a case like this if it were to happen again.
 
It might get delivered this morning otherwise keep calling the guy and offer to pick it up? Is the guy picking up his phone? Keep pestering him until he does. Try to suggest meeting him at a public place which is accessible by Underground and arrange for the handover there...

I really hope this is not a scam, persevere until you get a response from the guy..
 
flipperanubi said:
I'm confused....

I've never heard of anyone getting scammed on ebay before. Does that happen?
Click to expand...

I hope you're kidding. Theres quite a few scammers on Ebay and Craigslist. I use PayPal for everything I buy on ebay and use my credit card. If I have any problems (item not received) I file a dispute with my credit card company and receive a refund pronto, end of story.
 
Tomorrow is the next business day so hopefully Son of Matrix will have some luck.. I know its unlikely... But lets see...

If S.O.M decides he wishes to contact police, would he be able to recover his funds?

Best of Luck S.O.M, and hope you are able to recover your funds with ease, an d that police are co-operative. Excuse the idiots on the forum who wish to be rude and forget the fact that 1300GBP is a large sum of money to lose.
 
  • Like
Reactions: tcho100
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back