ebay and be careful

[chouston at tiscalinet.it]

>Subject: [MacDV] Re: Be careful!
>From: Matthew Guemple <mo.og at verizon.net>
>Message-Id: <2C1BF61E-38AB-11D7-B321-000A9566D3DC at verizon.net>
>
>Hey all. I've bought and sold stuff on Ebay a few times, and with few
>exceptions successfully. For expensive stuff ie. money you can't afford
>to never see again... always go through Escrow. Sure it takes longer
>and costs more, but it's the only way to make sure you don't get
>scammed.


An interesting twist on Ebay ripoffs using Escrow is for the buyer to 
receive the goods, then complain to the Escrow company that something 
was missing: e.g., guy won an auction for a PB, then when it arrived 
he made a claim to the escrow company that the HD, processor, RAM and 
combo drive were missing, while accusing the seller of trying to rip 
him off. Obviously a shakedown to get a partial refund on the auction 
price, because if the seller had said "okay, send it back to me and 
I'll refund your money", he would've gotten back a PB sans HD, 
processor, etc.

I've actually used an escrow company twice for ebay auctions, once as 
a buyer and once as a seller. "Luckily" (I guess), both went okay.

Just goes to show you that when it comes to scams, the only limit to 
the possibilities is your creativity.

Chris