( 
)
Seems of late, ebay is bringing all the worms out of the skirting board to scam people. I'll split this into two parts the first is about external ebay sites/links.
PART 1 : WANT IT NOWS AND EXTERNAL EBAYER LINKS
I've placed a want it now for an item and within about 2-3 hours I got a reply from an anonymous ebayer ID and a link to a web address, so i decided to investigate the link and firefox told me instantly that it was a 'hot' link, i.e. it was declared a fraud site and a known one at that. The site shows the ebay log in page with a second option to register, so they get you on two counts, if you register they get EVERY part of your personal ID (very clever scammers) and in the very least they get your ebay id and logon details, note that they would always go looking for people who have good standing and have an account that you'd suddenly find items appear for sale and next to no time BANG! you've got negatives for items not sent and a knock on the door from the fraud squad...
not nice !!! However, i logged in with some choice comments, so they got the message and left it at that, so if you use the want it now, its easy pickings for them to scma people who are guillable enough (not me!). I shan't give the site details to protect other ebayers, needless to say its been reported. Ebay need to get a grip on the ability to post anonymous ebay id's.
PART 2
NIGERIA , A FRAUDSTERS PARADISE AND NEVER, EVER SEND ANYTHING, NOT EVEN A USED TOOTHBRUSH.
**NEWSFLASH**
It has been reported to me today 8th September 2008 that the fraudsters are using an account that starts with dammylawrence320** and then numbers and digits, so you can do a search under ebay 'find a member' be aware of these accounts, they will ALWAYS show a zero feedback. Use goofbay.com to find out what the stupid mutu's are bidding on, or have won. The accounts will usually be in either USA, Canada, or Germany, and they will ALWAYS ask you to ship to Nigeria, then the game's up.
I've been looking through the forums and i can't believe the amount of people who are willing to ship/buy from Nigeria. This is the hottest place for fraud on the planet, everyone is at it, from ministries to the customs officials who bribe the recipients of parcels and goodies (going on the basis that the crooks don't steal the parcels first as they hit the airport freight dept).
Avoid Nigeria at all costs, ive never shipped there (nor would I) and I'd never consider buying from there, why do you think there isn't an ebay site for Nigeria, my god, we'd all be up in arms over it, it's the only way to clamp down on fraud. Rule of thumb is to NEVER EVER deal with Nigeria - it just is not worth all the hassle, from the offers to send payments via Western Union or Moneygrams (which will be copied and scanned and sent to you in an email to tell you it's on the way and can you ship the goods now, from the cheque for more than the items worth, and will you send the item and the balance). It's surprising the amount of people who are so trusting to these professional thieves, crooks and sharks, they are to be avoided like a does of the clap at all costs. Every word and promise they make is an empty one made up of well rehearsed lines, and the amount of people that have lost life savings and homes in the past because of the Nigeria 419 scam is appalling. So never deal with Nigeria or in fact most of Africa, perhaps South Africa is a bit better but crime is rife there too, so it's scammers are us all round.
The bottom line is this, use the forums, see who's been done by the latest scams and learn from their mistakes in the hope that you won't repeat them.
The thing with Nigeria is that they're not after your grandad's toby jug or granny's jewellery, no, they're after 'bling' and bling is Laptops, MP3 players, Mobile Phones (usually the latest triband) and PSP (Playstation Portable) Plus if they could manage it PS3 or possibly XBOX 360's but PSPs are easier commodities to ship, anything with a high value is what they go for. The way they manage to scam people is that they will hack a dormant account or have friends who have one, of late one account was unused for 5 years, had one feedback and then all of a sudden one weekend in September suddenly started buying like they' just won the pools, one seller suspected something was up when they were asked after bidding had ended to ship to Nigeria, if ebay had a nigeria site it would be a scammers paradise, so they have to use UK accounts in order to fence the goods they want. The scam works like this, they'll bid, and bid and bid until they win the item at whatever cost, PSP for 1,200 quid? SOLD! Mobile phone with a retail value of 180 quid for 700? SOLD!
Only a foolish (and greedy) seller would be taken in by this ruse and that's how they work, they think that over here ebay sellers are as thick and as stupid as they all look, not to mention illiterate when it comes to sending 'official communications'. Once bidding ends, you'll get an email from either gmail, yahoo, or hotmail, free emails always never assigned emails like vodafone or orange, but virtually untraceable mails.
They'll include a false paypal document that has some links to the help pages of the real Paypal site, but nothing else, at this stage if you havent' already checked your paypal account, you'll find that there is no money and never will be, you'll lose the item and never get paid, plus you're paying shipping costs.
They never use an account thats seen recent use unless its a UK operation 'cut and run' seller account, usually for high end gfx cards and dell laptops, loads of pictures of lappys and cards, but the trading history of kids clothes and socks, SHOULD make a buyer wonder, why all of a sudden laptops? The dead givewaway on the fraud seller accounts is that they will always ask for a direct bank transfer, then they're long gone. Of late four people got scammed for over a grand in one sitting and ALL paid as directed by bank transfer, of course they had no insurance for loss as they didn't pay via paypal (nor could they) and should have walked away. As the old saying goes 'a fool and his money are easily parted' this should be the byword of eBay!
Here's an example of a (badly) worded Paypal email i got from someone else who saw straight through the scam, each and every time the format will be roughly the same, paypal links, mis-spelt names and addresses and always a shipping address in capitals to LAGOS, NIGERIA, because of course, they don't want you to mis-ship their hard earned loot do they?
Note all the mis-spelt words, 'costomercares' instead of 'customercare' and so on ...
This account has since been shut down as they scum sucker concerned was bidding on about 50 auctions, at the last count before i got them nailed I worked out there would have been well over 15,000 grands worth of stuff going to the lucky 'bidder'. Not now it aint !!
A COPY OF A REAL SCAMMER EMAIL IS BELOW, SOME IMPORTANT POINTS HAVE BEEN DELETED FOR SECURITY, BUT THE FORMAT WILL BE ROUGHLY THE SAME, REGARDLESS OF WHEN OR WHERE THEY SEND IT. THEY'RE TOO DAMN STUPID TO CHANGE THE NAMES OR INDEED THE TEXT. NOTICE ALL THE SPELLING MISTAKES, WHICH MAKE IT ALL THE MORE HILARIOUS THAT THEY THINK YOU'LL FALL FOR IT !! :)
From: service@paypal.co.uk
To: ebayer@hotmail.com
Sent: xxxxxx, September xx, 2007 1:24 AM
Subject: Lawrence Dammy has just sent you an Auction Payment of 147.00GBP with PayPal For An Ebay Item (Routing Code: C826-L003-Q999-T5365)
Dear [ebayer ID],
This email confirms that Lawrence Dammy has sent you 147.00GBP with PayPal for an ebay item
________________________________________
To complete this payment, you must ship the item to the shipping address given to you by the buyer and provide us with the shipment tracking number to costomercares@usa.com for verification within 48hours so that we can credit your PayPal account. Accept or deny it within 10 days.
If you do not accept or deny this payment within 10 days, it will be cancelled and the funds will be returned to Lawrence Dammy's account.
View the details of this transaction online
Lawrence Dammy, is a Verified buyer.
Buyer Email:lawrencedammy122@yahoo.com
________________________________________
Payment Details
Purchased From: a-seller
Seller Email: seller@hotmail.com
Transaction ID: 3xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Case #: PP-091-962-222
Current status: Payment pending
eBay Item # eBay Item Title Quantity Price Total
2xxxxxxxxxxx
Sony PSP Value Pack + 4 Games + 2 Movies (No Reserve) 1 117.00GBP 117.00GBP
Shipping & Handling via ROYALMAIL (INTERNATIONAL SIGNED FOR):
(includes any seller handling fees) 30.00GBP
Shipping Insurance : 00.00GBP
Total: 147.00GBP
This payment is pending because it was sent in a currency in which you do not currently hold a balance.Get back to us with the Shipment Tracking details so that we can verify that the item has been shipped and transfer the funds deducted from the buyer's PayPal account to your account............. If you have any question or you want to send the Shipment Tracking details to us at : costomercares@usa.com You can also send the Shipment Tracking details to the buyer if you want.
***PLEASE NOTE***
THE BUYER OF THIS ITEM HAS REQUESTED THIS ITEM TO BE SHIPPED TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS BELOW BUYER SHIPPING INFORMATION:
Shipping Method : Royalmail International Signed For.
OMOTOSHO GBENGA
23 AWOLOWO WAY
IKEJA
LAGOS STATE
NIGERIA
23401.
Confirmed
PLEASE NOTE*** FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE PAYPAL ACCOUNT YOUR PAYMENT WILL BE DELIVERED TO YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS AS SOON AS WE HAVE RECEIVED A TRACKING NUMBER FOR SHIPMENT VERIFICATION.
If you have paypal account your funds will be transfered to: ebayer@hotmail.com If you do not have paypal account your payment will be delivered to the Underlisted Address:
POSTAL ADDRESS:
[ebayers address would be here]
------------------------------------------
Dates Issue xx Sep, 2007.
------------------------------------------
Please respond within the next 24hrs.
The "official" PayPal corporate offices are at:
Centennial Hall 128
1000 S. Franklin Kirksville, MO 63501
Thank you for using paypal ® .
We look forward serving your online auction payment needs in the future.
Sincerely,
Gene Braint
Paypal Customer Care,
Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team
PAY PAL PAYMENT VERIFIED
________________________________________
With PayPal, you always shop without sharing your financial information.
Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team
PayPal Email ID PP260
Some example accounts used by 'Lawrence Dammy' and his mutu buddies !
PART 1 : WANT IT NOWS AND EXTERNAL EBAYER LINKS
I've placed a want it now for an item and within about 2-3 hours I got a reply from an anonymous ebayer ID and a link to a web address, so i decided to investigate the link and firefox told me instantly that it was a 'hot' link, i.e. it was declared a fraud site and a known one at that. The site shows the ebay log in page with a second option to register, so they get you on two counts, if you register they get EVERY part of your personal ID (very clever scammers) and in the very least they get your ebay id and logon details, note that they would always go looking for people who have good standing and have an account that you'd suddenly find items appear for sale and next to no time BANG! you've got negatives for items not sent and a knock on the door from the fraud squad...
not nice !!! However, i logged in with some choice comments, so they got the message and left it at that, so if you use the want it now, its easy pickings for them to scma people who are guillable enough (not me!). I shan't give the site details to protect other ebayers, needless to say its been reported. Ebay need to get a grip on the ability to post anonymous ebay id's.
PART 2
NIGERIA , A FRAUDSTERS PARADISE AND NEVER, EVER SEND ANYTHING, NOT EVEN A USED TOOTHBRUSH.
**NEWSFLASH**
It has been reported to me today 8th September 2008 that the fraudsters are using an account that starts with dammylawrence320** and then numbers and digits, so you can do a search under ebay 'find a member' be aware of these accounts, they will ALWAYS show a zero feedback. Use goofbay.com to find out what the stupid mutu's are bidding on, or have won. The accounts will usually be in either USA, Canada, or Germany, and they will ALWAYS ask you to ship to Nigeria, then the game's up.
I've been looking through the forums and i can't believe the amount of people who are willing to ship/buy from Nigeria. This is the hottest place for fraud on the planet, everyone is at it, from ministries to the customs officials who bribe the recipients of parcels and goodies (going on the basis that the crooks don't steal the parcels first as they hit the airport freight dept).
Avoid Nigeria at all costs, ive never shipped there (nor would I) and I'd never consider buying from there, why do you think there isn't an ebay site for Nigeria, my god, we'd all be up in arms over it, it's the only way to clamp down on fraud. Rule of thumb is to NEVER EVER deal with Nigeria - it just is not worth all the hassle, from the offers to send payments via Western Union or Moneygrams (which will be copied and scanned and sent to you in an email to tell you it's on the way and can you ship the goods now, from the cheque for more than the items worth, and will you send the item and the balance). It's surprising the amount of people who are so trusting to these professional thieves, crooks and sharks, they are to be avoided like a does of the clap at all costs. Every word and promise they make is an empty one made up of well rehearsed lines, and the amount of people that have lost life savings and homes in the past because of the Nigeria 419 scam is appalling. So never deal with Nigeria or in fact most of Africa, perhaps South Africa is a bit better but crime is rife there too, so it's scammers are us all round.
The bottom line is this, use the forums, see who's been done by the latest scams and learn from their mistakes in the hope that you won't repeat them.
The thing with Nigeria is that they're not after your grandad's toby jug or granny's jewellery, no, they're after 'bling' and bling is Laptops, MP3 players, Mobile Phones (usually the latest triband) and PSP (Playstation Portable) Plus if they could manage it PS3 or possibly XBOX 360's but PSPs are easier commodities to ship, anything with a high value is what they go for. The way they manage to scam people is that they will hack a dormant account or have friends who have one, of late one account was unused for 5 years, had one feedback and then all of a sudden one weekend in September suddenly started buying like they' just won the pools, one seller suspected something was up when they were asked after bidding had ended to ship to Nigeria, if ebay had a nigeria site it would be a scammers paradise, so they have to use UK accounts in order to fence the goods they want. The scam works like this, they'll bid, and bid and bid until they win the item at whatever cost, PSP for 1,200 quid? SOLD! Mobile phone with a retail value of 180 quid for 700? SOLD!
Only a foolish (and greedy) seller would be taken in by this ruse and that's how they work, they think that over here ebay sellers are as thick and as stupid as they all look, not to mention illiterate when it comes to sending 'official communications'. Once bidding ends, you'll get an email from either gmail, yahoo, or hotmail, free emails always never assigned emails like vodafone or orange, but virtually untraceable mails.
They'll include a false paypal document that has some links to the help pages of the real Paypal site, but nothing else, at this stage if you havent' already checked your paypal account, you'll find that there is no money and never will be, you'll lose the item and never get paid, plus you're paying shipping costs.
They never use an account thats seen recent use unless its a UK operation 'cut and run' seller account, usually for high end gfx cards and dell laptops, loads of pictures of lappys and cards, but the trading history of kids clothes and socks, SHOULD make a buyer wonder, why all of a sudden laptops? The dead givewaway on the fraud seller accounts is that they will always ask for a direct bank transfer, then they're long gone. Of late four people got scammed for over a grand in one sitting and ALL paid as directed by bank transfer, of course they had no insurance for loss as they didn't pay via paypal (nor could they) and should have walked away. As the old saying goes 'a fool and his money are easily parted' this should be the byword of eBay!
Here's an example of a (badly) worded Paypal email i got from someone else who saw straight through the scam, each and every time the format will be roughly the same, paypal links, mis-spelt names and addresses and always a shipping address in capitals to LAGOS, NIGERIA, because of course, they don't want you to mis-ship their hard earned loot do they?
Note all the mis-spelt words, 'costomercares' instead of 'customercare' and so on ...
This account has since been shut down as they scum sucker concerned was bidding on about 50 auctions, at the last count before i got them nailed I worked out there would have been well over 15,000 grands worth of stuff going to the lucky 'bidder'. Not now it aint !!
A COPY OF A REAL SCAMMER EMAIL IS BELOW, SOME IMPORTANT POINTS HAVE BEEN DELETED FOR SECURITY, BUT THE FORMAT WILL BE ROUGHLY THE SAME, REGARDLESS OF WHEN OR WHERE THEY SEND IT. THEY'RE TOO DAMN STUPID TO CHANGE THE NAMES OR INDEED THE TEXT. NOTICE ALL THE SPELLING MISTAKES, WHICH MAKE IT ALL THE MORE HILARIOUS THAT THEY THINK YOU'LL FALL FOR IT !! :)
From: service@paypal.co.uk
To: ebayer@hotmail.com
Sent: xxxxxx, September xx, 2007 1:24 AM
Subject: Lawrence Dammy has just sent you an Auction Payment of 147.00GBP with PayPal For An Ebay Item (Routing Code: C826-L003-Q999-T5365)
Dear [ebayer ID],
This email confirms that Lawrence Dammy has sent you 147.00GBP with PayPal for an ebay item
________________________________________
To complete this payment, you must ship the item to the shipping address given to you by the buyer and provide us with the shipment tracking number to costomercares@usa.com for verification within 48hours so that we can credit your PayPal account. Accept or deny it within 10 days.
If you do not accept or deny this payment within 10 days, it will be cancelled and the funds will be returned to Lawrence Dammy's account.
View the details of this transaction online
Lawrence Dammy, is a Verified buyer.
Buyer Email:lawrencedammy122@yahoo.com
________________________________________
Payment Details
Purchased From: a-seller
Seller Email: seller@hotmail.com
Transaction ID: 3xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Case #: PP-091-962-222
Current status: Payment pending
eBay Item # eBay Item Title Quantity Price Total
2xxxxxxxxxxx
Sony PSP Value Pack + 4 Games + 2 Movies (No Reserve) 1 117.00GBP 117.00GBP
Shipping & Handling via ROYALMAIL (INTERNATIONAL SIGNED FOR):
(includes any seller handling fees) 30.00GBP
Shipping Insurance : 00.00GBP
Total: 147.00GBP
This payment is pending because it was sent in a currency in which you do not currently hold a balance.Get back to us with the Shipment Tracking details so that we can verify that the item has been shipped and transfer the funds deducted from the buyer's PayPal account to your account............. If you have any question or you want to send the Shipment Tracking details to us at : costomercares@usa.com You can also send the Shipment Tracking details to the buyer if you want.
***PLEASE NOTE***
THE BUYER OF THIS ITEM HAS REQUESTED THIS ITEM TO BE SHIPPED TO THE FOLLOWING ADDRESS BELOW BUYER SHIPPING INFORMATION:
Shipping Method : Royalmail International Signed For.
OMOTOSHO GBENGA
23 AWOLOWO WAY
IKEJA
LAGOS STATE
NIGERIA
23401.
Confirmed
PLEASE NOTE*** FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE PAYPAL ACCOUNT YOUR PAYMENT WILL BE DELIVERED TO YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS AS SOON AS WE HAVE RECEIVED A TRACKING NUMBER FOR SHIPMENT VERIFICATION.
If you have paypal account your funds will be transfered to: ebayer@hotmail.com If you do not have paypal account your payment will be delivered to the Underlisted Address:
POSTAL ADDRESS:
[ebayers address would be here]
------------------------------------------
Dates Issue xx Sep, 2007.
------------------------------------------
Please respond within the next 24hrs.
The "official" PayPal corporate offices are at:
Centennial Hall 128
1000 S. Franklin Kirksville, MO 63501
Thank you for using paypal ® .
We look forward serving your online auction payment needs in the future.
Sincerely,
Gene Braint
Paypal Customer Care,
Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team
PAY PAL PAYMENT VERIFIED
________________________________________
With PayPal, you always shop without sharing your financial information.
Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team
PayPal Email ID PP260
Some example accounts used by 'Lawrence Dammy' and his mutu buddies !
Guide created: 09/09/07 (updated 03/10/08)
Thank you for voting. If your vote meets our 
