Monday, November 26, 2007

The eBay Scamster

Twice in the past month I have attempted to sell an old digital camera on eBay only to fall prey to a scamster! The pattern has been the same; in the first few days of the auction there were no bids. About three days before the auction closes, someone bid the minimum amount followed by a seconds bid the following day that raised the amount by a few dollars. Then in the auction’s closing hours, the bidding went wild! In this auction the bids went from about $12.52 to $68.00 in less than an hour. Believe me, no five year-old point and shoot camera is worth sixty-eight bucks, no way!

When the auction has closed, I immediately received an email from a yemi wale, who incidentally was not the party placing the bid, requesting the following:

(Actual Text From yemi wale’s email)

How are you today.I'm the winner of your great item,I'm sending the item to my son as a christmas gift in west Africa (Nigeria) so for the shipping,and i willlike you to make the shipment via (Global Express International EMS)for the shipping and i will add extra $100 with the total cost of the itemand arrange for the payment as soon as possible through pay pal,soplease kindly help to ship the item to him cos i would have love tosend it my self but i am busy with my special assignment here inAustralia on behalf of my company in the US, so here is my son'sshipping address below. NAME :: Adesanwo Adeyemi ADDRESS :: 109 Akinola Street Orogun Ojoo CITY :: Ibadan STATE:: Oyo State COUNTRY :: Nigeria ZIPCODE ::23402

Yea, sure; I’ll be happy to send my old camera to your son in Nigeria while you are busy in Australia! Mr. Wale, to you I offer the following suggestion: email you son and tell him to bring a big lunch with him to the post office because he'll be waiting there a while!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

He just try to scam me too! Same person bidding from an account in France. Changed his mailing address to the one you have. I just got one of their e-mails saying that they are taking legal action because I didn't mail the item. Forwarded to paypal and they confirm is a scam.