[Premium-Rx] email from the netherlands offering a high-endreceiver

[Jeff Anderson]

Nigel, your story is almost identical to a similar experience I had several months ago with a spectrum analyzer.  It was probably the same seller!

I'd bid on an 8568B (a very nice spectrum analyzer, by the way) that was offered for a very attractive price.  It, too, had some descrepencies in the description, such as the item was supposed to be in the US, yet the seller was in Canada (or some such place).

I was very surprised when it turned out I'd won the bidding with my very low bid, and then immediately suspicious because:  1) no one else had bid, 2) the seller had little or no feedback, 3) the seller had kept the bidding 'private' - in other words, my ID was kept secret (why in the world would a seller do this unless it was to keep others from letting me know that the auction was bogus?), and 4) the seller wanted payment only via Western Union to a London address.

Smelling a rat, I told the seller I'd be happy to pay, but only through an escrow service (simultaneously I also informed ebay of the potential scam auction).  The seller and I danced around a bit, until ebay notified me that indeed the auction was a scam and they were cancelling it.  The last email I had from the seller was one in which he agreed to an escrow service, but by this time I'd had enough.  And I wonder - what kind of scam would he have pulled if I had used an escrow service?  Perhaps kept my funds tied up for a long long time?  Who knows?

Interestingly, there's another 8568B up for auction at this moment in which the bidding is private and the location is again, well, ambiguous.  However, the seller has an excellent feedback rating with lots of feedback.  Bogus auction or legit?  I can't tell, but never the less I'm suspicious.  Check it out at this URL:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2597864066&category=25397

Best Regards,

- Jeff, WA6AHL

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: GandalfG8 at aol.com 
  To: jfor at quik.com ; premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2004 12:49 AM
  Subject: Re: [Premium-Rx] email from the netherlands offering a high-endreceiver




    ---(snip)

    ...Another scam a while ago was for a bogus seller to set up a new account and offer something that was already attracting attention in another auction but at a much lower price.
    I queried one auction for a spectrum analyser where the picture didn't match the description, eventuallty it turned out both had been lifted from ebay but separate auctions.
    The "seller" then claimed to have both and could do either much cheaper than listed elsewhere.
    Payment, as always, had to be via Western Union.
    However, this guy claimed to be in London so I said I'd buy one if I could collect, just to see his reaction.
    All of a sudden he'd had to go to Spain.....so I told him I had friends there so couold still arrange collection.
    Would you believe it?, by now he's moved on to Cyprus.
    I don't know how far we could have played worldwide cat and mouse but got bored and told him to get lost:-)

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