It amazes me that people bid for such items. Maybe it’s first time ‘eBayers’ who have heard a story of a mate’s friend’s sister’s uncle that found a bargain TV. I don’t know.

The first rule of eBaying is to always do your homework before bidding on anything. Always check the sellers? feedback rating. Let’s take an example from one of our plasma TV sellers.

So far, so good. Our seller has a 100% positive feedback score. This means every person dealing with our seller has been happy. We can also see the seller has been registered since 16th of Jan 2006. This is an effective, quick check to carry out as most scammers have been only registered for a matter of weeks.

The next step is to check out these 10 positive ratings to see what people thought of the seller and to have a nosey at what they’ve sold or bought in the past. (You can often find the most unusual items by doing this!!)

A quick glance at the comments and it appears this person is an eBay god, an A+++++++++ seller. Everything sold has been shipped quickly, described accurately and the communication has been excellent. It’s nice to also note they are "Honest". Brilliant! Let’s get a bid in quickly!

A closer look reveals that in fact, all these reviews were left on the same day, within 30 minutes of each other. That sets alarm bells ringing in my head. 10 completely separate people leaving 10 reviews with in that short time scale. You then begin to wonder if these are, in fact, real reviews or has this user made up 10 accounts and left feedback for themselves. Maybe this person is not really the A+++++++++ seller we first thought.

A further check can be made on the actual auctions the seller has supposedly sold to our buyers.

This user has purchased "Temptation" from our seller for RMB 16 (around £1.10). A bargain at twice the price if you ask me. A quick check on the other buyers reveals that they have all bought "temptation".

If we glance back at the feedback listing, we also note that all the buyers have a rating of 0. Again, not impossible, but it’s very unusual to see. Most users on eBay also have fairly readable names such as "matty44312" or "dan-the-man554". The fake buyer names are, more often than not, randomly typed names. For example: "ttgfg" "dfhdfg". You may also find the buyers are "no longer registered".

The above example shows all feedback having been left within 20 minutes. This also shows the "fake buyers" as having feedback ratings of 10 and 11. This may be more convincing than all of them having 0 feedback but it’s all a little too similar. The names are not legible and all the comments appear to be in a similar format. Two are even identical!

By this stage, we’ve started to wonder if our seller has been as honest as their feedback proclaims. It appears they have created several fake accounts, purchased a barrow-load of "Temptation" and left wonderful feedback.

Still think this may be a genuine listing? There are still more checks you can do.

If we look at the actual items which are listed for sale, we can see they are new items. The little sun icon () indicates that the item has been listed within the last 24 hours. Whilst there is not a problem with this, in fact many items are listed this way you’d expect something as expensive as a 42" plasma TV to be listed with a longer time to run. These scammers are looking for a fast transaction.

The most obvious factor in this scam is the price. Can you honestly imagine a shop selling a genuine plasma television for this knock down price?

When purchasing from eBay, be sure to do your homework. Be sure to check the following

• Where is the seller located? If purchasing electrical products from outside the UK can you be certain they are genuine. It’s easier to return a faulty item to your local shop than to post it back to China.
• Does the seller have genuine feedback? Check the buyers or sellers who have left feedback. Have a look at what they’ve been purchasing.
• Check the feedback times if they’ve all been left on the same day within a small time window, chances are they’re fake.
• Look at the photos on the listing. Has the seller taken a photo of the item in their own home/shop or is it a stock photo of the item?
• Check when the seller registered with eBay. Be wary of new sellers not in the UK selling cut price items.
• If you’re not sure, contact the seller. Use the contact link within the auction and remember to always use your eBay messaging centre, as any correspondence is logged.

Remember, if it’s too good to be true, it probably is!

I listed my Nokia 6230 mobile phone on eBay – it was going well – and sold in the end for £80. I was happy with this, so I sent the invoice to the winning bidder. It was all going normally until I received the following email from my winning bidder.

Immediately alarm bells start to ring when you read “NIGERIA”. I am not intending to be racist here, but there are so many scams you hear about and they all seem to originate from Lagos, Nigeria. (Check out 419eater.com for some brilliant stories!)

I decided to give “Jones” (the winning bidder) the benefit of the doubt and replied positively saying that once I receive the postal order, I will ship the item out immediately. Nice and simple! I also offered to post the item insured, explaining as it was going such a long distance it may be wise (and it was only ?3.30 more!). Of course, Jones was not interested. They wanted the phone sending as quickly as possible. I soon received the following:

Ooh payment’s been made! woo! I should hopefully be receiving the postal order in a couple of days… or so I thought! This email then arrived shortly after…

O…K… I don’t know about you, but that’s not the most professional looking email I’ve ever received. In particular, the animated GIFs really made it look realistic. The fact that it was not even addressed to me – “Dear Miles From”… who’s Miles From?! I did the usual, and checked out the source code of the email – and all the images in the header were pulled from other sites!

Having emailed Jones back about how I go about getting the payment, I receive the following:

Seems obvious enough! At this point, I was 100% sure it was all a big scam – I mean, who’d honestly believe the above information! A quick google search showed that a number of people have fallen for these scams – but the winning bidders used PayPal, BidPay and other forms to send fake money. This is the first instance I could find of someone actually using a “British Postal Order” to pay for goods. All these scams promise to release payment once you send them the postal order tracking number. Of course, you will never receive anything.

Not wanting to leave things here, I decided to play along a little more. I replied:

I received a reply confirming that once I send the item and reply to the “British Postal Order” email I will receive the money. Excellent! However, what I planning to send is not exactly what they bought. It’s pretty close… but not quite there.

Here’s the original phone	….and the one Jones will be receiving….
(click for larger)	(click for larger)

Nice hey? Looks almost identical!! Except the new one cost me only ?1.99 from the local newsagent. It’s got some very realistic ring tones and even has a “built in camera” which doesn’t appear to work – but it sounds nice.

So things are now ready to post. I’ve just received another email from Jones asking have I posted the item yet – he/she seems to be getting inpatient – I guess as it’s her son’s birthday coming up! I decided I had better check out the situation further, and mention the smell of a scam cooking….

I love this. Wasting some scammers time is surprisingly entertaining. I await a response form this new contact.

………….watch this space!