Is this an eBay scam!?

mjmcneese

mjmcneese

Veteran
I'm selling my old MacBook on eBay, and I get this eBay message from a potential seller wanting me to end the auction early for him. Here's what he said:

"I would be agreeable with the price of US $1,000 as long as you would reserve the laptop for me on Monday. Actually, I was wondering if you can also quote me shipping to the Philippines using USPS Global Express Mail (EMS) and I would be more than willing to settle the cost. I plan to buy the laptop as a birthday gift for my daughter who is a student in Manila."

$1000 is more than I expected to get out of this thing, but I'm just concerned about any risks that I'm taking with this guy. He's only got three feedbacks from 10/04-on. He lives in UT (or that's what eBay says), and he wants to ship to the Phillipines.

Thoughts?
 
im selling my G5 on ebay too, and my friend wanted to buy it and i said too late its gone to auction, so he's bid on this item and , then he gets this email from someone else saying that he owns the G5, and he's leaving to go overseas, and he's taking the G5 off the auction, but if you want to buy it, send him the money at a discounted rate and you can have it...scammm...WTF
 
I've gotten dozens of those jerks on ebay. Tell them to bid like everyone else if they want it. If you want to be polite, say, "Thank you so much for your interest. I have made it a personal policy not to end auctions early. I will ship it after the auction ends and the funds have been transfered into my account. Thank you again, and happy bidding!"
 
Help me out here...how do they scam you if they are trying to BUY the item? If they don't send you the money, you don't send the item, right? I don't get it...
 
They will perusuade you to send them the item while the money they send you is held by a "3rd party" who are to release the money to you once the item is reacived by the scammer.
Of course the "money" is never released and the "3rd party" (also the scammer) dissapears.

Here's a great story that's been posted on 'user before too: http://www.p-p-p-powerbook.com/

- Mikko
 
It is usually on bigger ticket items like electronics and cameras. If you are selling something that big, you can almost count on getting a scam attempt. Stay away from any non-ebay channels, and wait til you money is in hand.
 
Hahahaha! Am I the only person that has neither bought nor sold on e-bay? :Drogar-BigGrin(DBG)
 
I listed a cheapo consumer cam on eBay a couple years ago and got the same offer (to end it early) from some guy overseas...I never would have considered it except that he paypal-ed me the money (a few hundred dollars) almost immediately. I guess that should have been a red flag right there :)

Of course he'd used a stolen credit card, so Paypal reclaimed the money a couple days later, the day after I shipped the darn thing to him. I felt like an idiot.

As Dubya says, fool me once...............shame on......shame on........... you........you fool me you can't get fooled again.
 
I've gotten the same kind of offers on craigslist. It usually involves a gift for a daughter in another country, and often the author of the emails has very bad english.
 
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