Schaublin with a certain scam ambivance..

Oh yeah, lets send $3K to NJ for a grainy catalog photo, BS sounding copy and zero feedbacks...


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3812120174&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1

Normally I don't get involved with these things, but I decided to send the seller a question. Sure seems shady though.

Buying big ticket items on eBay is certainly getting risky. I've been looking for a nice bike for awhile. There are a *ton* of fraudulent auctions in that area though... very well known. For some reason, most are hosted out of Canada. I suspect this has something to do with a question of international jurisdiction. If you deal strictly with the US, then you may have the US Postal Inspector working on a fraud case. My understanding is that this is always a federal case and the PI can be pretty diligent (mail is their business and its abuse kind of ticks them off)...

Anyhow, I guess we will all be buying from Reliable soon! At least we'll get the product!

--Alan

[This message has been edited by wrench (edited 04-26-2004).]

I've run into several of these types of listings lately. I suppose it's in "our" best interest to turn in suspected fraudulent listings to Ebay or pretty soon we'll spend all out time sorting thru the BS.

I even found one where I had purchased an item several weeks ago and recognized the exact same picture in another listing, different seller, different state, both sellers seemed legit, lots of feedback and no issues, so I just emailed the guy I bought from and let him know. Could have been a buddy of his helping him sell a mess of the same thing I guess, but it just seemed weird.

Brian

We are encountering the classical case of assymetric information (the reason all used cars sold by dealers are lemons and cheap). There are a number of dealers other then Reliable who I have had a good experience with but as time goes on it will become increasingly difficult to distinguish them from frauds. The feedback system on e-bay is pretty good and I've generally had a positive experience whenever the seller has good feedback. This does become a barrier for new folks, however.

Cheers,
Bob Welland

Bob:
That was a tongue in cheek comment... There are still a whole bunch of people I'd buy from *other* than Reliable. In fact, I really am not that squimish about buying on eBay (probably to my peril). I definitely check the feedback though.

Alan

Interesting... Maybe this guy just isn't a very savy eBay seller. He has responded to my request to see the machine. Actually did so relatively quickly and he gave me his phone number. He very well may be legitimate(?).

Alan

wrench, responding with a 'come see it' may mean something or it may mean nothing. I responded to a seller a couple of years ago, who offered me *two* Schaublin 150's. Now I knew there was 90 percent chance this was a scam, but on the 10 percent chance that it wasn't I played along for awhile. When I asked about coming to see in person, she said, sure come see them. But when it got down to actually scheduling an exact date and time, the excuses followed. I eventually traced the photos she sent to another web site.

<sigh> No sure thing anymore.... Fundamentally, where there is money being transacted, fraud will follow. Not much you can do about it, I guess, other than to be careful and "street-wise".

Funny, though... I recently bought something from a gentleman for my HLV-H. A bit of a gamble because I sent a check blindly, but I am probably too believing of people's good nature... Anyhow, he got the check and has indicated that he is sending the material (with tracking number) today. Now, he got the check yesterday. In other words, he isn't waiting for the check to clear. I'm an honest person so I'll definitely not let it bounce but I must admit that I was a little surprised.... Maybe he got good "vibes" from me. Anyhow, it is kind of nice to find mutual honesty (again, I'm assuming that I'll get a box of good stuff... I wouldn't have sent the check if I didn't feel that would be the case).

Alan

[This message has been edited by wrench (edited 04-28-2004).]

On our ebay sales our bank requires 15 working days for checks to clear. This translates to 3 weeks before I can ship on a personal check. I get some complaints, but not many. Since I started selling and buying on ebay, I have had less than 1% losses due to fraud. This is an acceptable rate as far as I am concerned.

Mark