Hi there. Just a review to warn all fellow LEGITIMATE ebayers of a trend that has appeared recently! Even if this does not concern you please take the time to read as it could happen to you.

I am looking to start selling cars on eBay, so over the last two days i have found one DEFINATE spoof & another today which I think could be the same.

Spoof  1# I emailed a guy advertising a 2005 Mazda RX8 Coupe Low Price! It was a classified listing and this car would supposedly be mine for the very cheap price of £4995. I cannot remember his Ebay username but straight after I told him i was interested it was suddenly removed from listings. After some correspondence he told me he was currently living in Scotland but the car was at the london shipping company, he also assured me the terms of sale would be...

A) The car would be delivered to my door and i would have 15 days to trial it and as long as I had done no more than 200 miles he would give me a full refund.

B) I would not have to transfer any funds until after I recieved the car.

C) The car had been in "no accidents or had any defects"

I thought it sounded too good to be true! So i gave him my address, phone number etc, thankfully no bank details. And asked him the following questions for peace of mind...

a) The registration of the car so i could run a HPI check

b) The name and telephone of the shipping company so I could check it was actually there.

c) His full name, address and a landline telephone for him so i could contact him.

d) A written contract signed and dated by himself.

He soon emailed back but with none of the details I had requested and was now asking for the payment up front. I became a bit suspicious but decide to go ahead. Then I recieved an invoice from eBay... Apparently!

The first thing i noticed, (for those who have MSN Messenger), is that when you recieve an e-mail from eBay, "Ebay" should always come up in the information box on the bottom-left of the screen. I then proceeded to open the email and discovered that all of the links where to Ebay France?? And also it didn't quite look as is should but was still very convincing. The thing that really made me question the honesty of this guy was the email address it had come from ( supposedly ebay ). You have to look carefully as when in your Inbox it does look genuine. But the address was Ebay, at, Security-support-centre.com. Also, their were some flaws in their sentences which could just be mistakes, but watch out for it anyway. i.e. "Thank you for contact me about car"

So i checked all my other genuine emails from ebay and all emails from them were always,for example, member@ebay.co.uk or secondchanceoffer@ebay.co.uk. If it was a legitimate invoice from eBay why had it come from Security Support Centre!?! Furthermore he was asking me to do an Instant Money transfer using MoneyGram which Ebay have banned as it unsafe, hard to trace and very often not recoverable. I forwarded the invoice on to spoof@ebay.co.uk and the said they would get back to me soon, they did and it was indeed a scam to con £5000 out of me. I really would have liked to know who that guy was but eBay advised me to do the following...

• Delete all emails to and from him
• Do not open any attatchments, that I hadn't already
• And do not have any further contact.

However, they also say it is possible for them to hack into your computer even if you haven't downloaded anything. So if you do ever encounter a similar situation, scan your PC and update the level of security in Internet Options to keep your personal information secure.

I've deleted all emails now but i still have some information...

His name was apparently: Simon Thornton

He lived in Scotland and the car (2005 Mazda RX8) was at a shipping company in London.

The email address he was using was Thornton45simon at yahoo.com

The second person I emailed last night which I am not 100% sure about but seems all to familiar was an eBay member with the name Kattichdaniel, who has no feedback and has registered very recently. He is advertising a VW Golf R32 Impecable Condition for the bargain price of £7000. On the listing it states the car is in Hayes, Middlesex but upon emailing him and asking for the registration number, i recieved this reply...

Hello,

First of all I want to thank you for contact me and your interest in my car. My wife was recently promoted so we had to move in Duisburg, Germany. We took the car with us, but I can't drive it here because cars from here are with the steering wheel on left, and this it have the steering wheel on right so for me this car is useless.
The car is bought from UK and is made for UK market. The price I want to obtain for it is £7,000. The car is like new, completely working, no accident or any known defects.
All the manuals and the original documentation are written in eight languages. The car will be delivered from Germany and I will take care of all shipping and insurance charges.
The shipping will take between 5-7 days to arrive at your door. You won't have to pay for customs or any additional taxes when it will arrive in your country.
We will use Ebay's Secure Payment Center to handle the funds.
Also you will have 10 days to see it, test it and inspect it, and if you will not keep it, they will refund you all your money.
If you agree with these terms, please reply me and I will be more than glad to provide you with further information how to purchase the car asap.

Cheers!
Daniel

Again, same use of words, no questions answered, same coincedence that the car happens to be somewhere else, same "Ebay's Secure Payment Centre", and the same promise that if I don't like the car i can have a full refund! This one however had had attachments sent which I am too scared to open! I forwarded this one to ebay also, and am still awaiting a reply.

The email address it came from is KattichDaniel at yahoo.com and the car is still listed on Ebay so it could infact be genuine. Therefore i'm going to reply and see what happens, I will keep you updated.

I know this isn't the most comprehensive or well-worded guide but I hope it might help someone if they find themselves in the same position as I have. Although, i got out before it was too late others might not be so lucky and that is a lot of money to spend on something that will never "arrive at your door". The purpose of this isn't to scare people from purchasing cars or anything else on ebay, as i'm sure 99% of ebayers on here are genuine and honest people, but you will always find that 1% that try to take advantage of others on a useful site like this. And its sad that in the 2 days i've been scouting for cars I've come across two potential fraudsters! So remember, if something looks Too Good To be True! It probably is!

PLEASE NOTE: This guide is only to protect others and not to slander anyone or anyones faith in Ebay. Ebays a great website and I've no doubt it does its best to protect its members from people like this. So thanks Ebay!