Is this a dodgy Nigerian on Ebay?

[Stoo]

it doesn't matter, you can email anyone you like on ebay, leaving you open to a deluge of "buy this item outside of ebay" type emails if you bid on any high value tech goods etc..

[daniel_owen_uk]

State the acceptable payment option in the items description when you put it up.

And if your read western union in any emails don't even try it.

[mpg123]

Hey people, just to let you know that I too have recently auctioned a phone on ebay which was won by a 107rachael who turned out to be a scammer. I had not heard of this scam until this user sent me an email (below) 5 minutes before the end of the action. I work in the IT industry so I'm fortunate enough to recognise scams when I see them and this email just shouted out SCAM. After reading your posts I realise that I was right to believe it was a scam and reject the winning bid.

The email went...

Dear seller, How are you today and your family hope all is well with them?. am intending to buy this item for my Son for his Graduation, who his schooling in Africa- Nigeria..a , and i want you to know that my mode of payment is western union money order. and to make the payment your name in full is required for the payment, and your contact address,also your secured e-mail address,for the approval confirmation of the payment also you,will need to you get a price quote from FEDEX or ROYALMAIL SPECIAL DELIVERY...so that i can pay you once for the item and the shipping cost. NB.. as soon as they approved the payment they will send you notification via your email. soon as they get to you get back to me. graduation from school of management which is coming up next week Thursday. looking forward to hear from you soonest. GOODAY

I have got the IP address and coordinates of this user. The source pc is based in New York. I can give details of the IP address if anyone else has the IP address of their scammers. Surley we can track these muippets down and get the relevant authorities to deal??

Anyway, rant over - I'm just sick of getting pestered by time wasting scammers <internet , telephone, even door to door>.

[MD]

hate to say it but I work for FedEx and the number of these that are coming through at the mometn is scary. Seriously scary.

m@

[Rave]

Right, someone explain to me how Western Union is an insecure method of payment? I thought it was a money transfer service, so you can walk into a Western Union office and they'll give you cash? If you've got cash in your hand you can't lose surely?

Rich :¬)

[Stoo]

it's mainly because of the escrow issues iirc

ah..

The Western Union staff assured me on more than one occasion that there is no way whatsoever that the reciever could collect the funds unless he had the 'Western Union money transfer number', which he could only obtain from me.
It turns out that if the transfer is to a foriegn country the reciever can collect the money by providing details of the sender and does not need the money transfer number.

If you're a seller you're probably okay, but if you're a buyer avoid it like the plague..

Virtually all the WU requests are scams though, and quite often they fake the WU email regarding payment.

It's easiest just to avoid WU entirely and only accept bids from the UK.

[blockers]

Forgive my ignorance, what are escrow issues? and how does this scam work?

[Tarffie]

reminds me of http://www.p-p-p-powerbook.com/

[shiato storm]

hehe ppppowerbook has to be the best anti-scam ever