I have used ebay in the past to sell and buy items, but not for a long time. So recently I put an item on there for sale and now I am getting a lot of strange emails about it. They are all roughly the same, but the main outline of them are that someone wants me to end the auction early because they want to buy it right away and they want me to send the item to Africa or somewhere else overseas for their grandkid or husband or various other people who are attending school usually. All these are from different ebay id’s but they are all familiar as they have offered me different sums of money to end the auction. Anyway, I have never run into this before and it all seems very weird, so if anyone knows anything about this then that would be cool. Thanks
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February 8th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Definitely sounds “scamish” to me. Don’t fall for it. Allow the auction to run its course.
February 8th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Someone I knew had the same thing happen. They sold a video camera on ebay and someone in nigeria bid on it. They sent my friend emails telling them to end the auction so they could get the item. My friend did and it said the people payed for it so she shipped it to them. Then the money disappeared and she never saw her camera…
February 8th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
I have sold on ebay in the past and I can tell you it sounds like that Nigerian scam. I don’t know what kind, but if you read ebay’s safety guidelines, they should mention all of the scams in there. Don’t end your auctions early for anyone other than yourself to make side deals.
You set the rules of buying and selling, not unsolicited emails. Be careful with long distance buyers because if customs gets a whiff of any funny stuff you many end up in jail.
February 8th, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Sounds like a scam to me…. They probably send you a check for way more than the amount you’re asking for your item and have you send them the difference. After you send them the difference you discover that you cashed a counterfeit check or money order and you’re left holding the bag. I’d steer clear of these types of deals if I were you and you might think about reporting it to eBay.
February 9th, 2010 at 12:54 am
Take help from Ebay.