I have been hoping ebay would put some kind of warning out about the scams going on but Id thought Id post this here after seeing a post about buying on ebay here. Hopefully it will save some people unneeded losses.
BEWARE buying on ebay, ESPECIALLY Alienware Area-51m and Dell Inspiron XPS notebooks. Somehow crackers/scammers are getting access to reputable sellers accounts. They then list one of the above mentioned notebooks(very likely there are other things, but these are the ones I have proof are being scammed with) and they list them with desireable features and extras and advertise an insanely low price. You would think its too good to be true, but these sellers have high feedback so you trust them to be legit, the thing is as I mentioned, its a scammer that somehow gained access to another users account.
The BIGGEST indication its a scammer, is that the listing is open to pre approved bidders only. What this does is forces you to contact the seller/scammer where he can trick you away from ebay and into unsafe easily scammable grounds. You may not think much of it because the user has a good ebay reputation. The scammer will then ignore your questions and requests to use a safer method than you might have asked to use. He will also most likely mention that he is somewhere outside the US. These symptoms are a HUGE indication he is trying to scam you. Report the seller to ebay immediately if you see the signs I mention.
Something else to be VERY careful with is SquareTrade(im pretty sure thats the name). The seller/scammer will email them and you may get a email from them saying they know about the transaction and the seller has a deposit for the ammount you will be paying in their SquareTrade account and if something goes wrong you get the money. It is very likely this is not the scammers money and they might run with your money and the real seller gets victimised.
Please trust what I am saying, I lost $1000 to a scammer because I thought I could trust him because he was a reputable seller, and he even called me. I have been scanning ebay every day or so and finding tonns of these things that are obviously scamms. The messed up thing is that I email them acting interested and I get people wanting to try to scam me. After about 20 emails back(getting fast responses from the scammer) and fourth trying to get them to even recognise I want them to use safer methods or answer my questions I finally call them a scammer and dont get a single email back from them. Very sure sign something is wrong.
The last proof I will mention is that approx 2 days ago I found a very nice iXPS for the same exact price as the Alienware I got scammed out of. I emailed the guy through ebay and got the EXACT same VERY LENGTHY response as I did when I emailed about the notebook I got scammed out of. It was formatted exactly the same and mentions the same exact location as the other one. However the username was different. I also recieved an email from the real owner of an account selling an alienware saying he didnt list it and I was communicating through email with the guy who supposedly listed it.
Please be careful guys, I hope this didnt turn into a huge lengthy rant. I just dont want others to be scammed as I was, the loss really hurts.
-Liquid
BEWARE buying on ebay, ESPECIALLY Alienware Area-51m and Dell Inspiron XPS notebooks. Somehow crackers/scammers are getting access to reputable sellers accounts. They then list one of the above mentioned notebooks(very likely there are other things, but these are the ones I have proof are being scammed with) and they list them with desireable features and extras and advertise an insanely low price. You would think its too good to be true, but these sellers have high feedback so you trust them to be legit, the thing is as I mentioned, its a scammer that somehow gained access to another users account.
The BIGGEST indication its a scammer, is that the listing is open to pre approved bidders only. What this does is forces you to contact the seller/scammer where he can trick you away from ebay and into unsafe easily scammable grounds. You may not think much of it because the user has a good ebay reputation. The scammer will then ignore your questions and requests to use a safer method than you might have asked to use. He will also most likely mention that he is somewhere outside the US. These symptoms are a HUGE indication he is trying to scam you. Report the seller to ebay immediately if you see the signs I mention.
Something else to be VERY careful with is SquareTrade(im pretty sure thats the name). The seller/scammer will email them and you may get a email from them saying they know about the transaction and the seller has a deposit for the ammount you will be paying in their SquareTrade account and if something goes wrong you get the money. It is very likely this is not the scammers money and they might run with your money and the real seller gets victimised.
Please trust what I am saying, I lost $1000 to a scammer because I thought I could trust him because he was a reputable seller, and he even called me. I have been scanning ebay every day or so and finding tonns of these things that are obviously scamms. The messed up thing is that I email them acting interested and I get people wanting to try to scam me. After about 20 emails back(getting fast responses from the scammer) and fourth trying to get them to even recognise I want them to use safer methods or answer my questions I finally call them a scammer and dont get a single email back from them. Very sure sign something is wrong.
The last proof I will mention is that approx 2 days ago I found a very nice iXPS for the same exact price as the Alienware I got scammed out of. I emailed the guy through ebay and got the EXACT same VERY LENGTHY response as I did when I emailed about the notebook I got scammed out of. It was formatted exactly the same and mentions the same exact location as the other one. However the username was different. I also recieved an email from the real owner of an account selling an alienware saying he didnt list it and I was communicating through email with the guy who supposedly listed it.
Please be careful guys, I hope this didnt turn into a huge lengthy rant. I just dont want others to be scammed as I was, the loss really hurts.
-Liquid
