Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Why is this too good to be true?
- Thread starter BlueCynicalMoon
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Y'know, one of the reasons that these scammers use such obviously bogus deals is probably to weed it down to the most desperate and gullible people, not to make it look more realistic.
After all, would you rather waste a week on a careful legit-looking auction that's *still* going to get called as fraud by sharp-eyed buyers who didn't ignore it outright ("Wait... the price is realistic, but they want me to wire transfer money to Uzbekistan at the last minute? I don't think so."), or toss up an absurd deal for a day and get only the most gullible folks jumping on it (and outside eBay, at that, so one auction can draw multiple leads) before it gets pulled?
After all, bogus or hijacked accounts are a dime a dozen, and it's not the getting caught these guys are worried about--they're largely immune to that. Like with spam these auctions aren't carefully targeted frauds, they're designed to bilk suckers as rapidly as possible, and to do that you need coverage and hyperbole, not carefully crafted scams.
The people being more careful you don't notice until you hear about them in the news (like a fellow in my town who was arrested this week for shafting people in 5 different states on high-ticket Baseball card sales on eBay).
After all, would you rather waste a week on a careful legit-looking auction that's *still* going to get called as fraud by sharp-eyed buyers who didn't ignore it outright ("Wait... the price is realistic, but they want me to wire transfer money to Uzbekistan at the last minute? I don't think so."), or toss up an absurd deal for a day and get only the most gullible folks jumping on it (and outside eBay, at that, so one auction can draw multiple leads) before it gets pulled?
After all, bogus or hijacked accounts are a dime a dozen, and it's not the getting caught these guys are worried about--they're largely immune to that. Like with spam these auctions aren't carefully targeted frauds, they're designed to bilk suckers as rapidly as possible, and to do that you need coverage and hyperbole, not carefully crafted scams.
The people being more careful you don't notice until you hear about them in the news (like a fellow in my town who was arrested this week for shafting people in 5 different states on high-ticket Baseball card sales on eBay).
