weldman87 wrote: I have had bad experiences with ebay. My account was stolen twice and ebay did nothing about it. I was riped off when i bought a ceramic crock to make peppers in and the person got my money and never sent the crock and ebay never helped me with that, I have had to tell them that i was looking into leagal action against them and they still have done nothing to correct the situation. So will never use ebay again. the only thing that i do is look to see if they have something and compare the price to what they are asking in the store for. most people that use ebay bid the price up so far that you can buy your item in the store or from an individual for less price, and with out the chance of getting ripped off. have a great day.
I have had bad experiences with ebay. My account was stolen twice and ebay did nothing about it. I was riped off when i bought a ceramic crock to make peppers in and the person got my money and never sent the crock and ebay never helped me with that, I have had to tell them that i was looking into leagal action against them and they still have done nothing to correct the situation. So will never use ebay again. the only thing that i do is look to see if they have something and compare the price to what they are asking in the store for.
most people that use ebay bid the price up so far that you can buy your item in the store or from an individual for less price, and with out the chance of getting ripped off.
have a great day.
I'm suprised that Ebay didn't help you out. Did you use paypal? Did you research the guy BEFORE you bid on the item? It's not all Ebay's fault..and I don't understand the attacks on Ebay. Buyer Beware is the saying...right? If you take the time to research the seller first..check his rating..read the msgs left..then you might have avoided this problem.
Also, did you contact your local police department? Theft is theft.
As far as getting bids up way high..I've had fantastic results in buying items on Ebay..way cheaper than the store. Granted, there are bad people out there...as are anywhere. You just have to be smart about it.
My Dad bought a mini trampoline for Xmas. He started having problems with the guy and shipping. My Dad contacted Ebay and started the process..and what do you know? The mini-tramp arrived shortly thereafter.
Paypal is the best way to do transactions on Ebay. If the seller is a "Power Seller" and you have problems, you get all your money back. Otherwise, I think it's similar to a credit card..you're responsible for up to $50.00 I believe...
Anyone who gets a request for information from E-Bay or PayPal should Forward it to Spoof@ebay.com or Spoof@paypal.com. They will reply and in soom cases turn it over to the Law.
If you were to received a Phone Call asking for personal information, you would never reply, you have no idear who is on the other end of the line. THE SAME RULE APPLIES TO THE INTERNET!
Don U. TCA 73-5735
Rule 1. Never, ever bid unless you can receive educated answers from the seller about the items you are interested in. Vague descriptions never get my bid. None of that, "I'm selling it for a friend, or I know nothing about trains, or I have no way of test it (with a transformer included in the picture), but they always seem to post outragious starting bids for it. (What makes him think that P.O.J. is worth that much?)
Rule 2. Check the feedback and ID history of the seller... In fact I use a site that will separate ALL the nuetrals and negatives from the positives for your viewing pleasure. Now I don't have to weed through pages of it to find what I'm looking for. Just copy and paste the sellers ID number and there it is in black and white. http://toolhaus.org/
Rule 3. Use PayPal. At least you have a fighting chance of getting your money (or at least some of it) back... Using checks and MO's are not wise for transactions on eBay. If you felt that you got burned, don't fool around getting a grievance started with PP and eBay. You only have so much time to this.
All in all, do some research before bidding. Five minutes of your time will save you big head aches down the track....
This is the first time I've heard of Nigerian scammers scamming Lionel trains. I had one try to rip off an Apple Powerbook from me about a year and a half ago and my sister had someone try to rip off some jewelry from her. In the second case, the person claimed to be from Memphis but kept talking about a "cheque." Not too many people from Memphis spell it that way!
Nigerian scams are everywhere and they're older than the hills (they used to work by U.S. Mail, back before the Internet was prevalent). About all you can do is report them to the appropriate authorities. When a 419 scam gets through my spam filters, I'll forward it to abuse@ whatever domain they're using. I can't tell you how many 419ers I've gotten kicked off of Yahoo. It doesn't totally stop them but it certainly slows them down. Who knows how many people they're using that address to communicate with.
It really stinks, but I'm sure eBay will be willing to help you. They're victims in this case too. And I'm sure you'll find another one being sold in the United States by a U.S. citizen. I haven't just found one of everything I ever wanted on eBay... In some cases I've won three (which means I found a lot more than that!)
Some people succeed in scamming the scammers, but I'm not too comfortable with the idea of an organized criminal gang having my mailing address. Others succeed at just wasting a lot of their time, but I'd rather spend my free time playing with trains than harassing crooks.
Before becoming a railroad conductor, I was a police officer for 20 years. 2 years I did financial crimes investigations..
Those darn Nigerians..bunch of losers. I figured that they would start hitting up the Ebay site..
Remember..EBAY AND PAYPAL WILL NEVER SEND YOU ANYTHING! If you have an Ebay/Paypal site and receive something..you can always check by going into your own account on the site, and see if you have a msg on the site itself. They will never contact you to have you update your account!
The fact is that there are hundreds of thousands of sucessful transactions every day. When something does go wrong, Paypal generally does everything they can to make things right.
Many of us have several hundred transactions to our names with out one single situation that hasn't been totally resolved to our satisfaction. Sure, most of us can tell some tales, but most of those tales also end with the satisfaction of both parties.
I find it interesting that certain members of this forum feel the need to mention how much they hate Ebay every time the topic comes up, despite their complete lack of experience with it.
Thanks guys.
Anyone with 1/2 a brain would have recognized that the shipping, and the indiviual I talked to was a fake. However, turns out later that the entire auction was nothing but a fake. 440 people looked at it! 15 bids where placed. Anyone could have been the "unlucky" bidder.
I never gave them money and have blocked all e-mail. Wanted me to send some western union mail transfer.
After doing a ton of research on 99% of the people doing it are from Africa or Eastern Europe.
Sorry to hear that you had a bad deal on ebay. But ebay is getting soaked with bad deals lately from overpricing to out right rip-offs.
With all the bad publicity about "ebay" that is why many of us into model railroading go to train auction sites like "ChooChoo auctions." Never had a bad deal from that place.
Also ebay & Paypal NEVER send emails requesting updates to your account, any email asking for information is somebody scamming you, that applies to all emails even from your bank or credit card company will never send an email out of the blue as it is called. If you need to deal with your bank or credit card use the telephone number on the account.
Lee F.
Paypal has recently added another optional security tier in the form of an ever-changing security key. You keep track of it using a little electronic key fob, and the security key changes every time you log on.
I went ahead and signed up for it, although I'm still waiting to receive my key fob. I'll be anxious to see how it works when I do receive it.
The cost is a $5 one-time fee.
You can read more about it here http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/cps/securitycenter/general/PPSecurityKey-outside
Hedda wrote: If you receive a requst to update your Paypal account and click on it... Make sure you check out the address bar on top of your screen. There is a scam out where the screen looks identical to PayPal but it is not. We contacted Paypal about this after those requests showed up. They explained the address should ALWAYS read Paypal!
If you receive a requst to update your Paypal account and click on it... Make sure you check out the address bar on top of your screen. There is a scam out where the screen looks identical to PayPal but it is not. We contacted Paypal about this after those requests showed up. They explained the address should ALWAYS read Paypal!
We were victims of one of these scams, but changed passwords soon enough to avoid any real damage.
We are now in the practice of going to PayPal thru Google, upon receiving e-mail, and avoid any fraudulent links.
Send ALL suspect e-mails to Paypal to check for fraud.
Kurt
Be careful!
I am constantly receiving e-mails to update my pay pal and e-bay account information. Only problem is I don't have a pay pal or e-bay account.
I do buy stuff on e-bay ( not trains ) but I use a personal check via snail mail. I e-mail the seller and tell him he can hold the item until the check clears. Any legit person will accept my terms and any crook would be involved in Mail Fraud, a Federal offense. There would also be an address where the check was mailed and a paper trail of where it was cashed.
I just don't trust either e-bay or pay pal to persue criminals who hack into their systems.
Wow man, that's crazy. Some people just completely stink at life. I hope you are able to get your money back and I hope that you get the cars you wanted some day for much less.
WOW thanks for info.
laz57
I'm not an Ebay expert, but I would certainly consider voiding out my Ebay account, passwords, email addresses and anything else that has been touch by this scum.
Celebrating 18 years on the CTT Forum.
Buckeye Riveter......... OTTS Charter Member, a Roseyville Raider and a member of the CTT Forum since 2004..
Jelloway Creek, OH - ELV 1,100 - Home of the Baltimore, Ohio & Wabash RR
TCA 09-64284
Holy **** you guys are not going to believe this one. Please keep this thread going as long as possible so others can hear this.
About a WEEK ago I was searching for Lionel "Madison" cars for my boxed/C8 conditon 2332 GG1. So I found a set..in identical condition and put it on my watch list.
Well the next day I sent a question to the seller asking about the conidtion of the boxes....no response until 5 days later when I get an "odd" message asking me to buy something COMPLETELY UNREALTED to the cars. I disregarded...everyone makes mistakes...right?
I bid..and I win. Total was $935.00
No response from the seller.
Turns out the ENTIRE AUCTION, listing, userID, account, e-mail was a Nigerian 419 Escrow Scam!
I ACTUALLY talked to this indiviual! After two days this is what I have learned.
He gave me his name and address...turns out it is a Jewish Studies School in Florida!
The website with my so-called tracking number is fake! The address is for a Clarion Hotel in Miami, FL!
PLEASE BE CAREFUL!!!
I also had another name and turns out they used a another persons name as the seller. I called this lady up...who owns a Real Estate firm in Ohio!, and was told we don't even do Ebay!
I wanted those cars so bad!!!
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