Sadly there are a lot of people using eBay to "sell" items that they don`t even own, with the sole purpose of conning you out of your hard earned cash.

There are no hard and fast rules how to point out a scammer,  but hopefully the pointers below should help you spot a suspicious seller.

• 1.  Check their feedback - obviously if they have a heap of recent negative feedback then that`s a bad sign.  Also use their feedback to see what they have previously bought or sold - it`s easy to inflate a feedback score using other bogus eBay accounts or by buying or selling 1P or 1 Cent items by the dozen.

• 2. Payment options - If they state they only accept Western Union or Cash, then personally I wouldn`t touch it - neither of these items are traceable and there`s no comeback for you. With PayPal you are protected.

• 3. Sellers History - Check what they`ve sold previously - If they`ve sold hardly anything before, but suddenly have a pile of new Laptops, Ipods, SatNavs and the like this should set off alarm bells.

• 4. Crazy Prices - If something is on a Buy-It-Now far cheaper than the going rate and seems too good to be true,  then the chances are it`s a scam - everyone wants to get a good rate for the items they sell, and would not be able to undersell by a large amount.

• 5. Location - At the top Right it gives sellers information - it will tell you where the person registered with ebay ie Registered with ebay Germany,  now check the ITEM location - is it the same?  Often people using hijacked accounts forget this and put the item location of where they are IE China or whatever.  This is nt always the case though as some people dropship - IE sell stuff then get it imported from a foreign country.

• 6. Email Address - If they state in the auction that their eBay registered EMail address is not working for any reason and to contact them on another then this is more than likely a hijacked eBay account - They don`t want to highlight the fact to the accounts real owner.

• 7. Specifications - Are they correct?  I was going to buy my wife a U2 Ipod and noticed some dodgy auctions offering 60GB U2 Ipods - there`s no such thing!  it was simply some made up specifications trying to authenticate the dodgy auction.

• 8. Ask Questions - Why can`t you accept PayPal? Can you tell me more about the item etc etc Scammers probably won`t reply - they don`t want to enter into conversation, they just want your money.

• 9. Pictures - Do the pictures look like promotional ones from the web? If so they probably are - A "seller" can`t take a picture of something they don`t have in the first place.

• 10. Ask if you can collect -  a "seller" with nothing to sell will fob you off with excuses.

And Finally, READ the auction text CAREFULLY - you may think you`re buying a X-Box 360 when you`re actually bidding on a link to get them "cheap"   read every last piece of text the buyer has typed - it could save you a fortune!

I`m sure there are many other scams out there, but the list above should hopefully help you along the way to avoid being seperated from your cash.

I wish you safe and happy Bidding!