Vancouver-area ebay scammer warning

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pbb99
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Vancouver-area ebay scammer warning

Post by pbb99 » Thu Nov 19, 2015 10:10 pm

This post is partly a warning about one of the things an ebay scammer might do out there, and partly just telling the story of my recent Lego-selling misadventure.

I recently decided to sell a few Lego sets, mostly to fund buying other sets that I wanted more, plus my closet is getting pretty darn full. So I posted ads on Craigslist, looking to sell locally before trying out Bricklink or Ebay. One set sold pretty quickly, but then it slowed down with the usual people asking if the sets were still available, then disappearing. I then got most of the way towards arranging a trade for another set, but the guy wanted to finish working things out by phone. So I gave him my number. Then he suddenly turned all threatening, said I was trying to scam him, that he was going to make me bleed, that kind of stuff.

So I filed a police report. Their advice was to ignore him, but to contact them again if his initially mild threats turned into direct physical threats. They did, so another police report went in. I had already tried to explain to the guy I had no clue what he was talking about because I've never posted anything on ebay. Finally the guy's exceptionally slow brain rumbled to life and he processed my explanation of how it couldn't be me.

His problem was he thought I was selling something on Craigslist at the same time that I was selling it on ebay, but after accepting the offer, not actually shipping it. He sent me the ebay listing in question. Someone in another suburb of Vancouver was taking my Craigslist ads and copying them word for word into ebay Buy-it-Now/Make-an-Offer auctions. Exact same text, exact same picture. The only difference was he was asking only about half the price, which being way under the value shown on Bricklink, got instant attention. That should have been a red flag for Mr Einstein, but nope, he made an offer which of course got accepted. Another red flag, this ebay seller had 0 feedback.

So finally, after I politely explained what a total dumbass he was to respond to that ebay auction and how he can actually figure out what is legitimate, he totally calmed down. He sent me more ebay auctions and it turns out I was not the only one having Craigslist ads used for ebay scams. I reported the ebay seller and the guy was able to get his money back from Paypal pretty fast, which leaves me wondering how the scammer actually planned to get away with this. All told, a disconcerting couple days, plus now my new friend has a police report to his name!

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legohunter
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Re: Vancouver-area ebay scammer warning

Post by legohunter » Fri Nov 20, 2015 1:37 am

Thank you for taking time to share your experience. I used to sell my extra box sets and minifigures at craigslist to support this hobby. Luckly, I never had such problem and most of the transactions were smooth. From now on, I will be paying attention to my sale ad which could possibly be posted at ebay.

Obviously, the buyer was not alert that "the deal was too good to believe" and he did not checked the seller's rating at ebay. On the other hand, this buyer was too emotion by threatening you and put himself in trouble. Instead, the buyer could simply resolve the issue by contacting ebay/paypal and get his money back.

Anyway, I still consider trading thru craigslist is safe. Seller takes money from buyer, and buyer gets the item from seller directly hand to hand. Of course, make sure meeting at public place or you may get robbed.

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Re: Vancouver-area ebay scammer warning

Post by lego the hutt » Thu Dec 10, 2015 4:29 pm

I just contacted someone on craigslist and I remembered this thread and your warning.

They have a ton of sets for sale. All NIB. They have pictures of 5-10 each NIB of many of the force awakens sets. Some modulars, UCS and other DTC sets etc. No prices are listed so I sent them a message asking for a price list. They said they need to put a list together but most are 50% off retail.

Besides the "to good to be true" price, I noticed the background in most of the pictures is different (granted the same blanket is in a couple of them), I guess they could be different rooms in the house...but there is also differences in picture quality from picture to picture.

I did a google image search to see if I could turn up the pictures from somewhere else but I didn't get any matches. I also did a quick ebay search of some of the sets and didn't see any pictures that matched there either (though they would have come up in my image search originally if they had been there).

Once my image search didn't turn up anything my next thought was, maybe they are stolen and he wants to unload them quickly? I am very up to date on Lego prices and sales. There is no way this person could be making money selling these sets at 50% off retail. There have been no instances anywhere on the web of these sets being sold for 1/2 off or more since they have been released in most cases.

I'm going to inquire further. Just thought I'd post this here. I won't get ripped off. Maybe I'll give a future update on the situation if anything unfolds.

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Re: Vancouver-area ebay scammer warning

Post by StClair » Thu Dec 10, 2015 5:57 pm

yikes! Glad you made it through that. Thanks for sharing. I try my best t include a small post-it with my user name handwritten on it in the corner of every photograph that I take for ebay. Even then though I'm sure someone could edit it out if they wanted.

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Re: Vancouver-area ebay scammer warning

Post by lego the hutt » Sun Dec 13, 2015 2:35 pm

Just an update, sometime in the last 2 days the listing was flagged for removal. I wonder what happened? Someone probably allowed themselves to be ripped off.

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