Ok, guys, so yep, the email HAS been pulled - I put in a bid for au$100 just to see what would happen, and I just received an email from Ebay that read like this:
"We are writing to inform you that we recently ended all listings for seller alsmith20001 on eBay. The seller's privileges to trade on eBay have been temporarily suspended while we investigate this matter further. (The current account status can be viewed next to the user ID of the seller on the eBay site.). Our records indicate that you were a participating bidder or buyer in this seller's listing. You will need to use your own personal judgment in deciding whether to complete this transaction. As described in our User Agreement, eBay is only a venue, and we cannot guarantee that sellers will complete transactions nor can we guarantee the delivery or quality of bought items. As a basic principle, a buyer should know with whom he or she is dealing before sending a payment to a seller. Depending on the circumstances, you might decide to delay payment to a seller until completely confident that the transaction will be completed safely. If you decide to delay payment but already paid by personal cheque, you may wish to contact your bank to discuss whether it would be possible to stop payment on the cheque. If you paid with a credit card, you may wish to contact your credit card company's security department to discuss this payment - many companies provide protection in certain circumstances. If you paid by money order, you may want to contact that money order company for information on how to stop payment. Please note that the ending of the listings for this seller is a precautionary measure. The grounds for this suspension may be the result of a mistake or misunderstanding. BLAH, BLAH etc, etc" Now, something even MORE interesting I sent the following email to the SELLER before the auction was pulled (and no, I didn't hold back...): "Hi there, I was just wondering if you could reveal the place where you were able to obtain this camera body for such a low price? Myself and others are very interested in this auction but don't want to bid due to you having no previous feedback and the fact that you say you are in the UK, but in Bulgaria. As far as I know these are two very different places. There are many people who have viewed this auction and labelled it immediately as a "scam", do you have any information to tell me otherwise? Do you have a photograph of the actual camera body rather than just one from another website? If not, surely you could use one of the digital cameras you are auctioning to take a photograph of the other one..." to which the seller responded immediately with: "The cammera is located in Bulgaria ......For people who have labeled this auction as a scam i will propose this people read the eBay buyer protection agreements and terms and then we can talk again :-) I have little cammera store in Bulgaria but as you know people here does not have so much money to buy a professional equipment like this , that is why i have decided to open an eBay acount and sell my most expensive cammeras in Internet. The price is low for now but please notice that the auction has 2 more days so..... Just watch the price next 2 days and you will see that it will arise maybe to some price like 1700 or maybe 2400 GBP or maybe higher who knows. :-).........But if you want to win this amazing Pentax camera please watch auction very carefuly becuase i think that you will be outbid very soon...." The last line to me makes it a bit suss - BUT it could have been just a genuine seller who was panicking at the thought of a very expensive camera going too cheaply and was trying to "boost" his bids.... You know what - in this instance, I think I believe the poor guy. I still wouldn't part with any $$$ BUT, it does make me wonder if he wasn't completely genuine. I would say that his main mistake was listing without a reserve price, having had no feedback. Obviously, English is his second language, so I think, in THIS instance at least, the guy was just "struck down" buy the language barrier, and not having thought about the fact that he had no prior record to go by. He just expected it to go much higher having seen the other *istD auctions and didn't think he would *need* a reserve price - of course, he also didn't take into consideration his "exotic" location and his non-existent feedback, OR the fact that he only became an Ebay member two days ago. The poor guy has probably been lurking around ebay for years, and finally summed up enough courage to actually list something, of course, had it been a roll of film he was trying to sell, he probably would have received a much better response. So, in retrospect, we have learnt two lessons from this - 1) we know now that Ebay is "onto" things like this and obviously working very hard to prevent scammers and the like 2) there is no "Bulgaria" in the UK... 8-) Maaaary Chritmoo (in the words of my 4yo) tan. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leonard Paris" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 6:41 AM Subject: Re: Slightly Dodgy looking Auction > Auctions could be legitimate. He may have access to stolen property. That > fits the no reserve scenario. We had a fellow on eBay before that worked > for a large camera store that was auctioning off stuff at heart attack > prices. He got caught and then the buyers were questioned as to the > whereabouts of the equipment they bought from him. I don't know that > anything was ever actually recovered but the seller is, I believe, still in > jail. > > Len > --- > * There's no place like 127.0.0.1 > > > > > > >From: Tiger Moses <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Subject: Re: Slightly Dodgy looking Auction > >Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2003 08:48:27 -0600 > > > >Plus he's selling a BRAND NEW KODAK DCS 14n without a reserve, on a three > >day action! > > > >At 09:56 AM 12/23/2003 +0000, you wrote: > >>Would you send a cheque for a large chunk of money to someone in Bulgaria > >>with 0 feedback? > >> > >>Not that I have anything against Bulgaria in general. I have visited > >>several > >>times and it is a lovely country with some fantastic people, but there is > >>something about this that looks slightly suspicious. > >> > >> > >>http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2974321167&category=3 00 > >>20 > >> > >>Peter > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Take advantage of our limited-time introductory offer for dial-up Internet > access. http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup >
