• Price WAY TOO LOW to be true. For example, the EOS 1Ds sells in retail camera stores for around $8,000. Scam auctions will have a "Buy it Now!" for $1,250, $2,000, $3500 or some other ridiculously low figure, usually less than half the real price.

Everyone loves a bargain, that's why many of us frequent eBay.

But when you see auctions for cameras and other expensive merchandise that end up selling for near the retail price, you should wonder why one or more sellers are asking half that price or less, especially with "Buy it Now!" Are these sellers simply naive or uninformed about the real value of the item, or are they setting a trap for a buyer?

We would all love it to be true that we can really get something very valuable for nothing -- or for a lot less than what others are paying. But you may have heard the saying, "If it's too good to be true... it is."

After a Search for a particular items, it's often helpful to click on "Completed items" in the upper left column area of a Search results page to see how much most similar items have sold for.

• "Pre-Approved Bidders Only, Email Seller to be put on bidding list."

  Email seller to be put on SUCKER LIST, it should say. Most times, the seller will offer to "sell" you the camera outside of eBay, which is illegal by eBay's TOS [Terms of Service]. At other times, the "seller" may say that you're "protected by eBay's warranty." Well, the eBay warranty is only for a maximum of $500, and these auctions are usually for at least twice that.

  Evidently the scammers are complaining to eBay that this warning auction wasn't selling anything, so eBay has cancelled it, took this page down and sent me a notice to that effect, twice. But it's back by popular demand!

  So per eBay's regulations, this auction is for a Xerox copy of the information presented on this page.

  I've also changed this to be a Pre-Approved Bidders Only auction, just as many of the scam auctions are, so you must email me to be put on the bidder's list.

One crook was offering to sell me a camera after the auction had ended and someone else had "won." I emailed the "seller" and told him to check his email and the auction page, but he continued to make the offer better and better. I then emailed the auction winner, who told me that the seller had given him the same cock-and-bull story about having a sick sister in Rome who needed an operation, so the money had to be wired there immediately. Not only didn't he have the camera, he was offering the same nonexistent item to more than one person at a time.

He later started referring to the "laptop" he was selling, evidently that was another scam he had going and he forgot what he was supposed to be "selling" to me!

• Will only accept payments by Money Order, Cashier's Check, Western Union or other easily-cashable means. But in almost every case, these are not traceable and you have NO recourse if you don't get your merchandise. Will not accept credit card, Bidpay, PayPal, an eBay-recommended escrow service or other secure means through which you can dispute a transaction and withhold or withdraw payment.

The seller with the "sick sister" said he couldn't accept PayPal because the payment site was in Italy. I looked around PayPal and found they will transfer money in Euros, the common currency of the European Union [including Italy] and informed him of this. He then gave another version of the story, his sister was now dying, and again insisting that the money had to be sent immediately and only via Western Union.

• Possible, but implausible "cover stories" about why the item is being sold so cheaply: Needs money to pay for an operation for a relative/friend, used once for a photo shoot, now needs to sell, bought in a Customs auction after it had been seized, etc., etc., etc.

  None of these stories are true. The more fanciful ones may actually be quite amusing.

  Legitimate sellers also need to be careful about buyers in Indonesia, etc., who want to pay you through a credit card. There have been quite a few of these scams... in fact, I've gotten several emails offering to "buy" this auction's "goods" for twice the BIN price. There isn't any Buy It Now price on this "auction! It's amazing how dumb and how brazen crooks can be!

  
• "Stock" photos and descriptions downloaded from camera web sites, not photos of the actual item for sale.
• Won't give you Serial Numbers of the camera(s) "for sale."

  Almost all cameras today have the serial number on the outside of the original box, so there's no reason to refuse to give it to you, except that the seller doesn't actually have any cameras. Ask the seller to photograph the outside of the box showing the serial number and email the photo to you. But don't be surprised if he has an excuse as to why he can't do so. If they just email you a number without a photo, you can get a toll-free telephone number for camera maker/importer and contact them to verify that a given serial number is valid [call 1 800 555 1212 and ask the operator for Nikon, Canon, Kodak, or whatever headquarters' toll-free number].

• If current transactions are available in the member name's Feedback file [available by clicking on the number in parentheses after the member name], you may find a history of buying and selling items worth a few dollars or less [click on the blue links to the right on the Feedback page].

  Then, suddenly, this "seller" has one or more multi-thousand-dollar cameras for sale.

  Often, as mentioned elsewhere, the feedback you can read may not even belong to the "seller" -- someone else's eBay account, with good feedback, may have been "hijacked." Unfortunately, there's no easy way to verify this, but see below about researching a seller's eBay ID.

  Another trick is to sell several inexpensive goods [or pretend to sell them] to establish small amounts of Positive feedback. "Buying" can be done by a friend or even by the "seller" himself, simply to have good feedback showing. I would advise you to be very careful if you find a seller with very few feedbacks, and those only for items costing a few dollars, now selling one or more very expensive items.

  

• Seller in a foreign country, although he/she can also claim to be in the U.S., or need the money sent via Western Union or other easily-cashable method. See above about the "sister in Rome, Italy."
• Member's info not available when trying to use the "Find Members" function [at the top of eBay Search results pages and elsewhere] and enter the item number and seller ID to actually get information back. This is a tip-off that the seller has "stolen" someone else's eBay identity.

  Stealing an eBay identify happens all too frequently: a perfectly-legitimate-looking email arrives, complete with real eBay logos and links to real eBay pages, and the person asked to to "verify" their eBay username, password and ID, address, etc. Similar techniques of fake emails have also been used to gather bank account and credit card info. This process is called "phishing" [pronounced fishing].

  What to do to check the member's ID: Copy the item number and seller's ID and use the Find Members function. Look for "User ID History," "Contact Info," and "Request User ID" fields to find information on the seller.

  One "seller" I contacted had changed his ID five times in two months, attempting to escape detection.

  Another real eBay user, whose REAL email address I was able to get [the "seller" in the auction used two different addresses, neither of which matched what I got from the Find Members section] told me that his account and original email address had been hijacked recently, and he had just been able to get eBay to accept his new email address after several weeks of complaining and asking for help.

• Refusal to accept Escrow transactions, Credit card, BidPay, PayPal or other secure payments that you can dispute.

  Legitimate escrow is a way of protecting both buyer and seller. The buyer sends his money to a trusted escrow firm; the seller is then notified to send the merchandise. When the buyer gets and accepts the item, he notifies the escrow firm, which then pays the seller. If the buyer doesn't accept the item, the money is not released unless he fails to respond to the escrow firm's questions about receiving the item, in which case the money may be released to the seller.

  There are fees for this service, based on the selling price, but if the buyer is willing to pay these to ensure a safe transaction, the seller should have no good reason to refuse escrow. See eBay's Escrow Information .

  BUT BEWARE OF PHONY ESCROW SITES! Use only eBay-recommended or other well-known sites that have been in business for years, such as escrow.com . Scammers have been known to set up phony "escrow" sites to steal your credit card and/or bank account information so they can transfer all your funds to themselves.

  Here's where to check out whether an escrow site is legitimate or not: http://www.sos4auctions.com/Information.htm

  I've been emailing several of these crooks to see how they operate. When I brought up the topic of escrow for such an expensive item [one crook wanted to "sell" me a Canon EOS 1Ds for $3400, less than half of what it actually costs], he said he wouldn't go for it because he had been "f**ked over" by using escrow in the past.

  When I then wrote that I didn't understand that, because my money would already have been sent and waiting for him at escrow.com [one of eBay's recommended firms] before I could even receive the camera and that all he had to do was send me the camera and I would notify the escrow firm to release the money, he wouldn't reply to my question.

  I then wrote that I had tons of frequent-flyer miles and travel all over the country and that I would come to him and buy the camera in person [true], "Just tell me where you are so I can arrange a trip and rental car." I got no more emails after that.

  No reputable seller of truly expensive goods should have a good reason for refusing to accept escrow or another method of payment [Credit card and/or PayPal, BidPay OR any other easily-traceable and secure method] so that the buyer will have some assurance that he/she will actually get the merchandise.

  PayPal charges fees that can add up to quite a bit on an expensive item, so there's actually a reason for sellers not to want to take Credit card payments through them, but you can also make PayPal payments through a bank account, and you can buy insurance through PayPal against fraud [not getting anything for your money] or defective merchandise, during the payment process.

• Scammers often use broken English, resembling what you typically find in the Nigerian spam/scam emails that promise a few million dollars for you if you'll just help General Mumbo-Jumbo of Nigeria or some other third-world country to slip his multi-millions or billions into the U.S. illegally.

  The scammers may also refer to you as "My Dear Sir," "Dear Esteemed Friend," and other odd phrases, multiple times in the same message.

Further "Tip-offs" to a SCAM:

• Multiple eBay IDs, not a registered user status, user suspended status, and past unusual number of auction cancellations.
• New user or user with new I.D.
• More common with electronics, computer-related, and digital photography.
• Feedback as buyer only or for low-cost sales, which result in lots of positive feedback prior to offering high-cost items for sale.
• Selling items which are in high demand and very desirable, causing bidders to be less cautious and more anxious to get the item at a low price.
• Private auction with no access to bidder I.D. s.
• Buy-it-Now! price or reserve significantly lower than for comparable items from other sellers.
• Unusual willingness to cancel the auction and sell the item outside of eBay.
• Does not accept usual forms of payment but may give an excuse for not using these and insists on wire transfer through Western Union or from your bank account.
• Use of a P.O. box rather than a home or business address or will not provide home or business address.

In short, ASK HONEST QUESTIONS and don't be afraid to INSIST on full and COMPLETE information if you're going to send someone you've never met -- and don't know from Adam -- lots of your hard-earned cash.

What you can do to help fight fraud on eBay: You can report suspected fraud auctions at http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/rfe-spam-non-ebay-sale.html

If you get an email offering to sell you an item outside of eBay, Forward the email to rswebhelp@ebay.com

Further info: Where are all these scammers located? Most are in third-world countries. Romania is evidently a hotbed of computer-savvy scammers. Here's a newspaper story about Romania and why it's become a center for Internet crime.

This auction is for a Xerox copy of the information presented on this page, alerting camera buyers and buyers of other expensive merchandise to scams often listed on eBay [computers, antique coins, jewelry, antique dolls, etc., to name only a few] . I hope this information will be found useful.

Sal