When Good Ebay'ers Go Bad

An anonymous submitter sent in: "This guy "Stewart Richardson" had over 6000 positive feedbacks on eBay, held a fake estate sale, and scammed around $250,000 out of people before disappearing. 'There seems to be little doubt among his would-be customers that Stewart Richardson pulled off one of the most remarkable con jobs in the almost seven-year history of eBay, and U.S. federal investigators agree.' Some other links: a messageboard and ebay itself. I was scammed on eBay for $3600 a while back. I was able to get my money back because I had a bank issued cashier's check. I had written "For Deposit Only" on the back, and that was crossed out by the recipient. The bank teller should have been suspicious, but was not, and cashed the check. The idiot who had it cashed wrote his bank account number on the back of the cashier's check, and also wrote his Dad's business bank account number on the back and stamped it with his Dad's signature. In the end, the bank reversed the payment, and took the money out of his Dad's account. When his Dad found out, the idiot was in some serious trouble, but I got my money back. There were a few other's scammed in the same transaction, and they recieved about half of the money back after the police started to put the pressure on these guys. The story is much more involved, so I won't go into the rest of it."

Comments

Re:Classic Move

[erasmus_]

These people were defrauded. I don't think it's very appropriate to "applaud his patience and cunning." If a murderer stalks his victim, and strikes at just the right moment, do you give him credit for such great planning?

Re:Why do they go bad?

[omarKhayyam]

"I don't think there is anything else on this Earth that would turn a normally law abiding citizen into a criminal any faster then a desire for money. "

Revenge.

-Adam

When the pioneers die

[Deanasc]

So this will only get worse when an ebay merchant dies and the heirs realize that his 9000 positive feedback is worth a quick 20grand on the black market. What's to stop that? Or a merchant themselves realize they can get a little extra retirement juice by selling their account to the mob.

Other Ebay "scams"...

[cr0sh]

Actually, I hesitate to call these scams - but more on the level of "selling an article to a person that could be had cheaper somewhere else". Let me show you a perfect example:

Look up electric bicycle motor on Ebay. Now, I am going to pick an auction that doesn't "die" until the 28th so that others can see what I mean - I am picking the last one on that list - click here.

Now, look at that picture of the "dual motor" at the bottom - seems pretty cool, huh? Pretty professional, get a little kit and convert your bike to electric. Cost doesn't seem too bad (if you have priced EV bikes before) - heck, "Buy It Now" is only $1.00 over starting bid - so this motor combo, a cheap bike from WalMart or a garage sale, and a cheap gel-cel battery - and I can have my own electric bike for under $200.00!

The motor only cost $93.00...

Now - go here, and on the left hand side select Battlebot Parts - or click here to see them. Now, go down to the fourth item on that page - look familiar?

MECI sells the exact same thing for $40.00! Just above it is the battery you need (actually, you will need two of them for enough amps to go far enough - and really, this isn't the best motor system to use, but might be fun to play around with).

So, here is an example of an eBay seller using their own ignorance against them.

Unfortunately, this seems to be the "way" of our capitalistic society - middlemen, etc everywhere always scamming for a buck. You see this on Ebay a lot - cheesy CDs of "info found no where else" (yeah right, just everywhere on the internet) - these I would take more seriously if they were selling the CDs as "fruits of labor for scouring the Net" - at least then it could be seen as an internet information gathering service thing. You also see it in the multitude of "plans" showing how to build a 100" projection TV with a special lens (but, you do get the lens - nevermind the fact that plans are everywhere to do this, it uses nothing new, and the lens can be had cheaper at the local Walmart).

These guys aren't typically shut down because they do offer a real product, and actually sell it - and people love it!

Another "scam" - I have seen sellers of SDRAM bidding for memory on other auctions - sometimes within hours of their own auctions - for the same type of RAM - they buy the RAM cheap from another auction, then resell it the same day for a profit to other bidders (and typically, for much more money than they could find it for on Pricewatch).

Many times I have wondered if I could pull these same kind of "deals" off - and each time I stop thinking about it, because it just isn't in my "moral fabric" to rip people off - I would rather tell them where to get it cheaper.

I guess that is one reason why I will never own a business - I am too honest for my own "good"...

bleh.