WARNING! Read before buying of off Ebay!

[wudsiba]

I was just looking around on ebay today, and I always check to see how much FX's are going for, and I saw a Fantom X* advertised for $500. Needless to say, I was scepticle but curious. I e-mailed the person to see why on earth they would sell this product at this low price. I was e-mailed back with a quick storry saying that they needed to sell it by the end of the day. LONG STORRY SHORT. Later today, I got an E-mail from Ebay saying that this person was kicked off of Ebay for fraud. If its to good to be true; It's not.

wudsiba
Fantom X6
Audio exp.

[SkylineUK]

A famous English judge once pronounced that oft-quoted fact and despite this people still fall for it every day across the world. Fraudsters know one thing for sure - most people like a bargain so they deliberately shut down their savvy instincts when faced with what appears to be one. For example many people know that Sale goods are seconds that stores buy in just for the Sales - but still they kid themselves...

If you do use Ebay, only transact with Ebay users who have lots of history over many, many monhts and >96% positive feedback. Check out their past transactions for value. Many fraudsters deliberately deal in low value silly stuff, often between themselves/pals to rapidly build postive feedback before the real sting. This will be obvious if you just calm down about the 'bargain' and do a bit of digging.

An OT note.
In the company I own with two partners we recently spotted some of our goods on Ebay. Through a bit of digging we tracked the individual as being one of our field engineers so we covertly bought the goods on Ebay. We then wheeled him in to the boardroom one morning, sat him down and placed the box on the table that he'd lovingly wrapped and mailed not a couple of days ago, asking for his comments. Of course he had none so we fired him and informed the Police. He confessed to stealing £1,000 worth of goods from us, although we believe it was more. And guess what was meted out to him by good old British 'justice'? He was ordered to pay us £200 in compensation and do 200 hours community service. Moral: crime is rampant in the UK because it pays.

Postscript: The guy has changed his ID on Ebay and is still trading. Ebay do not accept information from members of the public regarding thieves and will not take ANY action against thieves, nomatter how much you've been ripped off. They hide behind their policy of only accepting such information from (puts on American accent) "The Law Enforecement Authorities"). I'm afraid the conclusion is obvious. Their turnover would drop significantly if they did otherwise. I cannot publish here the comments I received from the Police about their views on Ebay.

[squeak_D]

This is why I "don't" shop on Ebay. Anymore it's just too risky. There are sooooo many crooks on Ebay. I and another group of people from another forum are always catching crooks selling top line pro arranger keyboards by Roland, Yamaha, and Korg. These nutbags list the things as new, and then a price "well under" any dealer cost.

Just be smart when shopping on Ebay. The seller having a lot of positive history means nothing anymore. Crooks are hi-jacking accounts of individuals with excellent history and using their info to post bogus ads. To be realistic, you can take any precautions you want, but today the good crook is always a few steps ahead. Most of the time the only way you know about what to look for is because some crook slipped up. By the time you've caught on.., their already doing 10 other new things to get your money.

[GregC]

welcome to the Internet. Back in the mid 90's, it was characterized as the Wild West ( a US term)

its not that difficult to identify the phonies on ebay. If you get greedy or impulsive thats another issue

I think ebay can improve- they should build a solid database of identified frauds, and keep them off , once and for all

Plus there rating system should include $$ amounts of auctions or at least have an average $$ amount per seller/buyer

I have been using ebay successfully for 5 years. I am not a power seller, just an average joe that relies on ebay for 5-10 transactions per year

GregC

[squeak_D]

It didn't take long for crooks to realize the potential in scams they can pull off over the web though We didn't have the internet in schools when I was a kid. Our computers didn't have the "Windows" operating system either. Everything was freakin DOS :)

When the internet was getting popular there was 1 computer in each school, elem. junior high, and highschool that was hooked up to the net in my city-and Windows 95 was the thing to have. Back in those days you paid for internet service by the minute, and cell phones were as big as military field radios that cost $3.95 a minute to use.

[Silver Dragon Sound]

Buying off Ebay is something you have to approach will common sense as well as measures in place should something go wrong. As an example always pay with a credit card that will refund and not hold you liable for fraudulent activities. There are some good deals on Ebay but you have to use common sense. If its too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

[ctimmerman]

From my personal experience:
I have been buying and selling on Ebay for a few years now. Of all the purchases that I have made, I have only been "screwed" once. Luckily, it was only for about $30.00. I made a purchase and paid for it, then the seller disappeared. Since then, I have had no problems. Just watch what you are buying and look at the history of the seller and 99 times out of 100 you will have no problem.
I have had to return items, but received refunds. I have had items that I have sold returned and refunded the money with no problems.
Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones. Who know? But I will continue to do business on Ebay.

Carl
Fantom X7 (soon to be X8), RD-300s (for sale)

[SkylineUK]

Further to my post above, I do buy from Ebay but only relatively esoteric items, e.g. I collect books about Oscar Wilde and these aren't the sort of thing scammers deal in. I also sell on Ebay although I do that via my son who has 100% positive feedback and a large history.

When I sold my Roland XP50 synth recently I made arrangements for the buyer (who turned out to be a member of bangra band) for him to collect it at my office where we have many security measures including CCTV, both hidden and covert. In the event, three turned up but all was cool.
Sensible precautions are the order of the day.

As long as you approach Ebay with your level of alertness on 'amber' and not green as it may be when dealing with a regular enterprise like Amazon. you should be ok.

Click and drop by my site!

[wudsiba]

I do still use ebay. It can really be invaluable. I just wanted to let everyone know to stay sharp, and never let someone scam you into doing something off of ebay. Credit cards with fraud protection is the best way to go... But for smaller things, I'll still do money orders. Just use your head. If you smell a rat, back off. Good luck!

wudsiba
Fantom X6
Audio exp.

[GabryRox]

Good points to be sure guys...

I have also noticed the large number of ebay scammers supposedly selling FX's for way less than cost. It's true that you can't even necessarily trust feedback rating any more due to these mother f**kers hijacking legitimate accounts with highly positive feedback. However, you can usually identify these scammers by looking for the following things:

- Usually in the body of the auction, they will have a big note to ONLY contact them via an external e-mail account. They do this because if you respond through ebay your question will go to the actual ebay account owner, and they obviously don't want that to happen. Any time an ebay requests that you communicate through external channels, that's a very good sign that it is a scam.

- The other thing to do is to actually look into the details of the account's feedback... not just the score. Look for similar items that this person may have sold and benchmark what they went for against what the current offer is. Many times the scammer will hijack an account that has nothing to do with the item they are posting for sale. I've seen them try to sell X6's off of accounts that are automotive parts sellers, and other totally non-related product lines. Not a sure sign of corruption, but something that should flag the potential buyers attention.

- The one thing about ebay is that it's the ultimate open market system. So, knowing that most used X6's usually sell for $1,200-$1,400, and then seeing someone list it for $500 new should be an obvious sign of fraud.

[ctimmerman]

In the past two days, I have seen listings for X8s for $1000 and $700 using those same features. eg. use this email to contact me. Don't bid, contact me for a direct sale. I also noticed on these two that they were using photos that came from a ligitimate listing.
There is a link on the bottom to "Report this item" to Ebay.
As I was typing this reply, I did a search on Fantom X8 and guess what I found? http://cgi.ebay.com/Roland-Fantom-X8-Ke ... dZViewItem
This is identical to a listing I saw yesterday. The only difference is the ebay account. Same photo, same email address listed. Same price. I've noticed that these are usually 1 day listings as well.

Carl
Fantom X7 (soon to be X8), RD-300s (for sale)

[DanS]

I bid on afew X7's a few months ago. Didn't get them, but did get second chance offers on all of them....
Finally said phoque ebay & bought brand new.
Way too many scammers these days.

What we record in life, echoes in eternity.

[ctimmerman]

Another pretty safe bet, is to check this site for anyone selling gear. Such as this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... &rd=1&rd=1

Carl
Fantom X7 (soon to be X8), RD-300s (for sale)

[dalematt]

I quit using eBay because I was being hacked and charged for purchase charges. Once, okay, but after changing my password to include letters as well as numbers and getting hacked again, I quit. eBay was good. They tracked the hackers, both of whom being from Great Britain (not that that means anything, except that I'm from Canada), and did not charge me for the sales.

I know of a number of people who make their living off eBay and others who have a substantial second income through eBay who have had no problems and are quite happy.

Dale