Why is this scam everywhere on eBay....

[Benengo]

And why are eBay not doing anything about it?



They always seem to have the same format. One stock photo of a car (usually rarer cars or something a little different) then a second photo giving out the contact details. It’s everywhere at the moment and I’m getting fed up of reporting countless examples. Please watch out!

[FA57REN]

It frequently occurs with photographic equipment too.

To answer your question, they don't allow it as indicated by the drop-down selection "contact information in listing" but it'd be difficult to prevent without blocking genuine listings too. They do seem to scan for e-mail addresses in the description but as a result those have now moved I to images.

[Cliftonite]

The prices currently all seem to be in the format £x,600.

[Joe5y]

I fully get what the scam is either. Can someone explain please

[aka_kerrly]

Joe5y said:

I fully get what the scam is either. Can someone explain please

Stupid person on eBay sees a car for half its normal price, sends email to random Gmail account, is told to transfer money direct an not involve eBay. No car, no money, no come back.

[lornemalvo]

sick of these, Ebay is becoming unusable. When I see them, I put in a ridiculously high bid to mess them about

[V8RX7]

I've been reporting them and notice that it takes ages for them to remove them and that they will remove just the reported ad rather than all the seller's ads

Fed up, I called them today and had a numpty telling me that they couldn't just delete them, that they had to investigate...

I pointed out the the "seller" was selling OVER 2000 CARS all with one photo and no real description.

I suggested that they either need to limit the amount of ads someone can upload or to allow us to "ignore" named sellers in our search results.

I suspect by co incidence the 2000 ads were deleted within 10 mins however within 4 hours another "seller" is selling 1000

[V8RX7]

lornemalvo said:

sick of these, Ebay is becoming unusable. When I see them, I put in a ridiculously high bid to mess them about

I have been doing this too however now they limit you to "buying" a maximum of one item

[Camelot1971]

Joe5y said:

I fully get what the scam is either. Can someone explain please

You are the prime target.

[Riley Blue]

I search almost daily for Riley Biarritz, a rare pre-war saloon. If it's listed, it's always fraudulent, like this one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1931-Riley-9-Biarritz-s...

[Benengo]

Riley Blue said:

I search almost daily for Riley Biarritz, a rare pre-war saloon. If it's listed, it's always fraudulent, like this one: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1931-Riley-9-Biarritz-s...

This happens to me too... odd that they often target quite specialist/enthusiast cars so well!

[shouldbworking]

Benengo said:

This happens to me too... odd that they often target quite specialist/enthusiast cars so well!

Not that odd when you think about it - people get caught in the 'wow ones for sale at last! i must get it before it gets sold' and in their rush to purchase neglect their usual checks.

[Gojira]

Camelot1971 said:

Joe5y said:

I fully get what the scam is either. Can someone explain please

You are the prime target.

That's really helpful, isn't it....

[Drclarke]

It’s the greedy praying on the stupid.

[Butter Face]

Our company eBay got hacked and 25 scam listings added. From 8.47pm to 10.30 this morning we had almost 80 messages from people saying ‘can I come and buy those

Beggars belief.

[GOATever]

Duck test.

[vtchequers]

I once sold a Sony PlayStation 3 on the bay after having to relist because the winning bidders bay had been hacked.
I got the message from the bay almost as soon as the first listing had ended, which suggests they must have bots looking out for suspicious activity?
I also got a message from "the winner" asking me to post it to an address in France.

[Benengo]

Facebook seems to have a load of these scams too:





Same text on all of them, even same spelling mistakes.... not sure I can see what the scam is though other than the item not existing!

[NickGRhodes]

vtchequers said:

I once sold a Sony PlayStation 3 on the bay after having to relist because the winning bidders bay had been hacked.
I got the message from the bay almost as soon as the first listing had ended, which suggests they must have bots looking out for suspicious activity?
I also got a message from "the winner" asking me to post it to an address in France.

Yes, they do. I once tried to sell some software (boxed retail) and mistakenly the auction was identified and was automatically removed, I got an instant refund. They said they could do nothing about it and had no way correct the filters/bots used for my specific case.

[Patrick-Peter]

These ads want you to email them so they email you back which when you open it locks your PC with that ransom thingy. Mate runs a PC repair business and frequently has to get the virus ransom off loads of dim bat people who's fallen into the trap.