Gut Instinct
Sep 16th, 2002 by mark
It appears I narrowly missed getting scammed on my online auction bid. At noon time today I went to check to see if I was still winning only to discover that the auction had been cancelled. Furthermore, when I checked the other 4 auctions “lisawarren” had listed, they were all cancelled as well.
Oddly enough just last week I read the account of a teenaged boy who, after scamming dozens of auction buyers before getting caught, explained the things to look for as signs all is not as it seems.
- If the auction listing doesn’t contain any photo of the item, or if the only photo is obviously copied from the manufacturer’s site, be very careful.
- If the listing copy is identical to the ad copy on the manufacturer’s site something isn’t quite right. Some leeway for technical information that was copied to save retyping is okay. But if all the description they have is copied verbatim from the manufacturer’s site, be afraid.
- If they won’t take guaranteed payments or use an escrow service, run, with your hand over your wallet.
In my case there was no picture initially. After two e-mails requesting one I did get a picture of a box label for the item being sold. However, the serial numbers were all blurry. The listing copy was mostly copied from apple.com. And, even though the listing claimed acceptance of Amazon Payments, when I went to use that option I was told the seller wasn’t accepting them.
I asked about the payments and got no answer. I also asked about using an escrow service and got no answer. Well, no direct answer. Within hours of my escrow e-mail all the offerings from “lisawarren” were cancelled.
So, I am glad not to have been scammed, and sad to not get a Powerbook.
