Registered: Dec 2004
Location: Beringia
Posts: 5209

I'm driving to work this morning, and the guy I car pool with starts telling me a story about "Tom" the dude that sits in the next cube over from him. Tom recently bid on high ticket item on ebay. The bid got up over 5k USD. Tom stopped bidding at just under this amount. Obviously, he lost the auction.
Well, the next day, Tom gets an e-mail from the seller's cousin. That's right, I'll say it again, the seller's cousin. As the story goes, the seller is the one with the ebay account, so he does all the auctioning for the family. The 'cousin' says that the winner of the auction backed out and he wants to offer the item to Tom for the amount of his final bid. Tom goes for it, the email back and forth, and eventually Tom up and wires the guy 5k, via Western Union. Days pass the item never arrives. Tom contacts the seller, who, much to no one but Tom's surprise, has no cousin. He has already sent the item to the winner of the auction. Ebay can't help. The money transfer is untraceable.

As I hear the story, I'm thinking scam as soon as that first email enters the narrative. Apparently, so were Tom's friends and co-workers. People told him not to wire the money. The guy that told me the story urged him to set up an escrow account.
Tom laughed at them, called them paranoid and wired the money.
Tom is an educated, forty-something professional.



Wtf? How could someone be so clueless, espescially in late 2004? It's not like ebay scams are new.

I'm thinking this could be a good way to identify candidates for involuntary sterilization.

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location: b0ulder
Posts: 5126

The coolest eBay scam I've ever seen was a legit auction with a login form at the bottom that stated the user was not logged into the site. The submitted login was being sent to a yahoo account for thieves to pedal their scam auctions later. It was very nicely done. Had I not been alerted to it before hand I might have passed right over it, knowing that I was already logged on.

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: in colorado somewhere!
Posts: 25658

I wanted to drive semi's years ago and applied for a truck driving school. For financing,they offered a few options and one option that would give out grants.
I called them thinking the school must have approved them. They asked for $350.00 processing fee and I would get my grant. I asked for my rate of interest and they said 3%,nothing more. I asked to talk to their supervisor. He came on and I asked for a return number I can call back and an actual address instead of a po box that I can send my CHECK instead of a money order. The phone went "click".
Later,I find from the trucking school that they had complaints about the scam that school actually endorsed.
I don't trust anyone with my money.

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: south afrika
Posts: 16501

quote:

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Originally posted by loser
Tom is an educated, forty-something professional.
Wtf? How could someone be so clueless, espescially in late 2004? It's not like ebay scams are new.

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Registered: May 2004
Location: New York
Posts: 809

The best eBay scam I ever saw was when Playstation 2 came out October of 2000. All over eBay were listings of "Playstation 2...new with 3 games." Every bid was about $400-600 easy. There was one guy, however, that was selling Playstation 2's for retail price and not a penny higher. I was like "wow!" The ad actually says "you will receive this" then underneath it was a picture of a Playstation 2 with the controller. Then it states "The first person to get to retail price wins the auction!" Literally hundreds of these auctions were being put up. Well, when people won their Playstation 2's, they all sent the money the way he wanted it "Western Union only since these are time-sensitive auctions." 24-48 hours later, each of these "winners" received packages. They open it up to see a picture of a Playstation 2 with the controller. This guy made out with over $60,000! eBay eventually tried to retrieve the funds, but it was clear in the auction that the winner would receive that...he/she was slick enough not to be detailed enough about if it was the actual system w/ controller or the picture. Funny as hell...I wonder if he ever got away with it! All I ever read was the initial story about it when it was happening.

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Registered: Jul 2001
Location: Norfolk, VA
Posts: 4678

Caveat emptor.

People get taken in by confidence men all the time, all through making the same mistake: making the decision to trust someone who is not worthy of your trust.

In my experience, most people are not worthy of my trust. Most people are selfish and grasping and self-interested and will fuck over anyone if they can. Most of the time the consequences are not dire, but you can also lose money or worse.

Best policy is not to let anyone that close unless you're real, real sure.

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Registered: Nov 2000
Location: Burleson, Texas
Posts: 520

Age old art ... Man fucking Man!!! (sounds sorta gay don't it ...) --- it happens in war ... on the streets .. in the service.. at the store ... it used to happen in the newspapers... now the internet ... whats next ... they FUCK you coming and going ... lets face it ... were all FUCKED!!! and many of us won't even get kissed .......

I got fucked by Sprint PCS... in fact I believe that are fucking everyone ... even their employees --- who can't make a human decision ---

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Registered: Feb 2004
Location: in colorado somewhere!
Posts: 25658

Anyone that has a screaming deal for you wants something in return. Unless it's a true friend(even family will fuck you sometimes)They really don't love you.
Just don't trust anyone and be a predator so you won't be a prey!

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