Abdabz

In December I decided I was tired of the modern ways of the latest mobile phones, tired of forever chasing my shadow to get the latest upgrade and tired of inadvertantly surfing the web when all I wanted to do was play snake while having a dump.
So I bought a very basic Nokia handset and put my trendy slim Sony Ericsson on ebay so some other technofreak could benefit from my generosity.

Bids started well, beginning at £50 and slowly creeping up towards £100 (not bad when there is no box or CD software) but it was promising.

At the last minute a bid of £2000 won the day I then got a scam blag email purporting to be from "paypal" proclaiming that "monies had been paid" and for me to send the phone to an address in Nigeria.
Within minutes I also got a "TKO Notice" from ebay saying that a scumtard had hacked a genuine account and that the listing had been removed as I had suffered ebay naughtiness.

So I relisted, again all went well until 10mins before close when a bid from a different user for £999 came in and the same scam email and same TKO from ebay.

Feeling sorry for the internet inept / unlucky who were getting hacked, I held back from relisting until after xmas.

On Sunday I relisted the phone and yes, on today when I logged in to check on the closing bid status from last night, I have ANOTHER TKO notice from ebay!!!

It seems I cannot sell on ebay as it is now a scammers paradise!!!

So do I try one more time, or do I put the phone on a bonfire and destroy the planet?

Ooooo it make me mad, mad I tell ya!

AndyC_772

iTrader: (2)

WTF kind of phone do you have, the K810i Plutonium Edition?!

OllyK

Can you not second chance offer it to the next to last bidder?

Abdabz

Alas not... Ebay quite literally remove the listing so no trace of it can be found anywhere on the world wide interweb
I did get an email from a localish person offering to collect the phone if they won the auction. I'll email them to see what they are prepared to pay.

Me still mad... Bastad 419 scumtards

Paddi70

Although I don't know what type of phone it is, but worth something. Better than binning.

envirofone.com - Get cash for your old mobile phones

topbuzz

I always have a list of countries that cannot bid on my auctions, this then puts a stop on people from outside the Uk from bidding. Sold my Nokia 8800 with no problems at all. The options for this are on your account page. You can also stop negative rated bidders.

Sonic'

I had the same problem with my old phone, I sold it 17 times for the sum of about 14.7 million US dollars to various organisations in some darkest deepest country somewhere

In the end I kept the phone

OllyK

That may help to some extent, but it's sounding like the bidder has hijacked a valid account from another user, so they would still be able to bid, assuming it's a UK based account that's been hijacked.

Abdabz

Exactly right OllyK, the bids have been made from a hacked UK ebay account, so the options mentioned wouldnt work in this instance. The accounts being hacked are genuine as when it happened the first time, I sent an email to the account holder thinking it was owned by the scammer. I included many swear words including the C word only to have the real owner of the account (in London) apologise for the hack and wishing me well despite my tirade of abuse... The victims of the hack seem to be relatively new ebay users (one or two transactions) probably as a result of phishing...

The only foreign element is the postal address provided on the fake paypal email...

The issue must be rife for me to get stung 3 times on the bounce...

Sonic'

Abs

It is rife especially with mobile phones, digital cameras seem to be affected by it too

when I sold my old camera I had to relist countless times due to the amount of nigerian / hacked accounts being used

Its a pain, and you do get your listing fees back, but nothing for the inconvenience

PaulC72

do Ebay refund any charges?

Sonic'

yes they do

Abdabz

Cheers Ste, I will try one more time...

Greed prevents me from giving it up for £20 to a charideee when it is worth about 70ish squids... It's only a W880i with all the trim (prodrive spolier, MAF sensor and morettes)...

Ebay arent charging me for the listings, which as you say is the least they can do...

If the worst comes to the worst, I'll sell it locally to a local person via a local paper. That said 87% of my home town dont know mobiles have been invented yet

mart360

Ive had it 3 times as well, i gave up in the end, and gave the phone to my nipper

ive a K800i going as well, dont know whether to risk running that on the fleabay


Mart

Fantom

There is an easy solution which I had to resort to. The scammers definitely seem to target mobile phone auctions. To stop it happening you simply have to review the market and decide your price first. Then list it for buy it now with immediate payment required. You will find all of a sudden no scammers will touch it.

Regards
Steve

Abdabz

Wahey!
I hoped by now that Ebay would have nailed this problem and so decided to relist the phone one more time.
Just a 1 day auction, using the filters re UK Bids only, only bids from people with positive feedback above x% etc...

First things first, loads of people asking which network it was locked to, people asking me to take it off ebay and sell it private etc... All dealt with...

Bidding started with 3 hours to go at the minimum £60... Then a bid of £68.51... Looking good.... 30mins to go £72.51.... OK...
Then with 9 mins to go a bid of £999.00 Here we go again I thought!

Then it came to me!

There is a "cancel bid" link, where you as the auction master, input your item number, the ID of the bidder and a reason... My reason was "Clearly a false bid - Nigerian Scammer"...

The bid is removed 'real time' and the genuine next highest bid wins the auction!

It means you have to monitor the closing mins of your bid and manage the blag bids, but it beats the scammers

Nice

Brendan Hughes

Well done!

Was it bought by Hightee Butzlaff?

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

Good man

The Buy It Now option is always a good one imo for auctions. Its faster, and people tend to pay a little more not to have to wait (I promise fast 1st class delivery)

Abdabz

Nope she can't buy anything as I keep her locked under the stairs and only let her out for "special occasions "

Anyhoo - a the cancel bid option is hopefully a useful bit of info when selling small high value electronics on Ebay

Nicci

I have been trying for the last week to buy a phone from Ebay, to be outbid by scammers or newbies.

It has been so annoying.

Today I was given a second chance offer from one of the sellers, I now have a phone on its way

Abdabz

Well I thought I had it sussed...

I sent the invoice to the next highest bidder - Some lad from nottingham who had bid realisitically at £72.50...

This morning I get ANOTHER TKO notice from Fleabay...

I checked my email account and I had the following email from "service@paypal.com" although it's not from paypal...



Dear PayPal Member,

This message is originated from PayPal company.We have receive an order from our client "Paul Armstrong" regarding the payment made to your PayPal account.

The payment has been successfully made but due to security reason we have to receive the shipment tracking number before the next 24hour for the processing of your order.

This a new measure we are taking to protect both our sellers and buyers against fraudulent customers.
Once you have shipped the item send us the shipment tracking number for verification after the number has verify your account will be credited instantly.


This PayPal® payment has been deducted from the buyer's account and has been " APPROVED" but will not be credited to your account until the shipment reference/tracking number is sent to us for shipment verification so as to secure both the buyer and the seller. Below are the necessary information requested before your account will be credited. Send tracking number to us or email us through this mail:verificationsoftracking@accountant.com


**PLEASE NOTE**
Once shipment has been verified and the tracking number sent to us, You will receive a " CONFIRMATION EMAIL" from PayPal® informing you that the Money has been credited.


Note: eBay and PayPal will be responsible for the item loss or damage once we receive the tracking number


Thank you for using PayPal!
The PayPal Team
.................................................. ........

So then I see another email from "service@paypal.com" providing a ship to address in Nigeria - AGAIN

So there clearly is no escape... I have emailed Ebay directly now and asked them to explain what they are doing about it and that if I dont get assurances I will be writing to the media regards the problems of buying and selling on a website designed for buying and selling...

Whilst I appreciate that the account security is to a large degree the users job to manage, Ebay will soon become a laughing stock if every single mobile phone listing is the subject of scam bids...

Does anyone want to buy a phone?

I am vewy vewy cwoss