[i hate ram]

hey guys,

i tried selling my girlfriend's laptop on ebay because she wants a new macbook. finished up the listing today, and several hours later some sketchy guy with bad english asked me to ship it to nigeria. i knew something was suspicious, so i told him i wouldnt violate TOS and told him to bid if he wanted it. came home a bit later, and the laptop had been bought (buy it now)! great. 4 emails in my inbox, as follows:

1: ebay item sold notification (valid)
2: paypal receipt for $200 more than the ending price, asking me to ship now and the payment will be cleared after a tracking number is given. email is obviously fraudulent. whats more, it wasnt even from the same person who bought it, it was from the guy who asked the question prior
3: an email sent as a reply to the buyer-side auction won email, telling me to mail the thing to nigeria, of all places. hmm. not their verified address.
4: email from the first guy (who sent me the huge fake paypal check) telling me to ship it to, you guessed it, nigeria 'right away'.

the addresses are different between these 'two' scammers. the phone is different. obviously a very complex scheme, or just two fake IDs. the tone and horrible grammar is also different between them. the first guy has 100% positive feedback, but the actual buyer is brand new and private. i know this whole thing is a fraud and theres no way in hell i'm shipping anything anywhere. i am having an impossible time finding the paypal/ebay fraud depts and finding a way to relist/waive the fees from this auction.

what should i do? contact ebay/paypal (how??)?
legal investigation?

i want to do this the right way... i dont want to pay any fees or compromise my 100% positive feedback, or get into any legal trouble here in the US or in nigeria.

[ekim68]

Yep, contact ebay, they've gotten pretty good at suspicious things, as of late..

[LuckyStrike]

When you re-list the item, you could specify that you will not ship anywhere but the U.S. and Canada.

[i hate ram]

just an update....

ebay refunded my final value fee, and allowed me to relist the item. done.

SO ANOTHER *********** SCAMMER BOUGHT IT AGAGIN!

i am so pissed off... this is outrageous.

[Gabriel]

Hi Ram.....I have discontinued all my international selling for a while, and have all of my stuff on the "Pay Immediately' option listing......
I have had some problems with fraudulent buyers lately.

[coderitr]

List it as an "authorized bidders only" item. Don't ask me how to do that but I've seen other auctions (like Bob Barker's microphone) using that technique. Potential bidders have to contact you to get authorized before they can bid on your item.

[Skivvywaver]

Man Rambo you aren't having any luck with this deal are you? Just be wary and make sure you get your money. I'd only sell it in US only to bidders with very, very good feedback.

Just be careful not to get ripped off.

[i hate ram]

Again! Oh My God!

[Skivvywaver]

Put the thing in the local paper for what you want out of it. Buncha thieves in this world man.

[Farmgirl22]

I had this same problem once...I even wrote one of those "guide" things about it. The people that did it to me wanted me to send it to Russia though, and wanted a Money order of like a thousand dollars to be shipped with the item. eBay must have gotten better about this sort of thing though, because there wasn't anything they would do about it when I had this problem...they didn't even acknowlege that there WAS a problem. I'm sorry man...I hope that it works out better for you in the future. You could try selling it on Craigslist or Cheapcycle or something along those lines... Hopefully you have better luck in the future!!