# General Mandolin Topics > eBay, Craig's List, etc. >  Fraudulant ebay listings

## MikeEdgerton

As honorable as your intentions are you've violated the posting guidelines. Please take this opportunity to review them.

Posting Guidelines

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## markishandsome

Seeing as people post links to dubious ebay listing all the time, I'll assume this one crossed some line. But couldn't the orignal post have been edited rather than removed entirely so the "honarable intention" of warning cafe members of fraud could be retained? Feel free to box my ears if I'm meddling here.

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## MikeEdgerton

The poster deleted his own message, we simply edited out the information that was against the posting policy. Posting links to suspected fraudulent autions is a time honored tradition on the cafe. With that said, some of them aren't fraudulent.

We posted a message in the edit that said you could PM the OP for the information if you wanted to.

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## Ted Eschliman

For what it's worth, we support identifying potential fraudulent transactions. What we need to avoid is singling out particular Sellers (the individual). That gets us in the Slippery Slope of identifying who's a hardcore criminal from the occasional seller that's a tad overtly misguided in item decription. (The latter could be interpretted as slander.)

I'd invite the original poster to resubmit the questionable transaction; this is a good service to the Cafe community.

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## f5loar

I saw this listing on ebay (A 1924 A4 for 63 cents) and this one is so obvious a fraud listing there is no doubt when you know what to look for. I have reported it to the ebay through the link below the listing for reporting such listings that violate ebay guidelines. I think for here it is important for us to be notified of such listings as it may save someone some expensive grief. And should be harm in at least letting others chime in on what they think about it. True some look to good to be true and sometimes are the real deal but face it too good to be true buyer beware. Things on this one like a buy it now for $1500 not through the ebay system was the biggest red flag. Shipping $12 another. And contact direct before bidding verses going throught ebay contact seller section is another big red flag. While many times like this one it is so obvious these scammers are getting better at their craft. We need to at least keep up on the current scam trends.

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## TomTyrrell

Those listings where the description says something like "Don't bid on this, contact me directly at my aol email address" and giving the buy-it-now price are absolute frauds. Not only are they fakes, they are piggy-backing on phished accounts.
Report it to ebay using the link at the bottom of the page and citing "avoiding ebay fees" as the reason for the report. The listing will be gone within 1/2 hour.

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## MikeEdgerton

> The listing will be gone within 1/2 hour.


Sometimes.

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## TomTyrrell

"Avoiding ebay fees" is a hotspot for them, particularly when the listing offers to sell outside of ebay. 

"Inaccurate description" or any of the other reasons may or may not get action.

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## Skip Kelley

I saw this one too! If it's too good to be true...

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## MikeEdgerton

Yes they are but we've seen them last for days. eBay isn't consistent on what they take down and how fast it happens.

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## TomTyrrell

Maybe I'm just lucky. I've reported 17 this week. All the same scam. All gone within 1/2 hour of my report. This clown just ticks me off 'cause he is listing something I want.

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## MikeEdgerton

In that case they had a history and probably acted faster. I wish they all came down that fast.

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## Jonathan Peck

Hey, your not Tom Tyrrell the big shot corporate exec lawyer guy from Sony Music Entertainment are ya'?

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## MikeEdgerton

Nice.

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## TomTyrrell

No I don't work for Sony.

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## jaco

Awhile back I came across an item on our classifieds. Made a lowball offer that was immediately accepted. I became suspicious and e-mailed Scott rather than starting a thread. In hindsight I think it was a legitimate deal. Just someone anxious to unload and I got nervous. Sometimes it's hard to tell what's real and what's a scam. I'm glad I didn't start a thread.

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## atetone

The thing that bothers me about the latest rash of these scams is that the scammers are fairly well educated as to what is desirable to us mando-holics and they have widened the range of brands that they are flogging.
It is not just Gibsons any more.
They have stepped it up a notch.
This latest rash are easy to spot though.

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## MikeEdgerton

It's not just mandolins, it's not just musical instruments. It's cameras, it's golf clubs, it's cars. eBay is a great resource for finding things that people will pay large amounts of money for.

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## jim simpson

I have enjoyed selling instruments and other items on craigslist as an alternative to Ebay as it's easy to set up communications to determine a legit deal. The email responses that kill me are the ones that say "they are interested in my item and would I let them know what shipping, etc. will be". They just don't get that craigslist is all about the local thing plus they are just fishing for a sucker.

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## Danny Packer

I know Craig's List is supposed to be local, but when I am looking for a hard to find item, the larger markets are often a better bet. It doesn't hurt to ask. I'd pay shipping for something I wanted if the seller was willing to ship. If they say not, they say no.

Danny

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## mrmando

There are plenty of fake mandolin listings on Craig's List too. And not everyone who replies to your Craig's List ad and asks about shipping is a scammer. I just sold an instrument to someone in France off a Craig's List ad, and bought another from someone in Missouri off a Craig's List ad. And anyway, eBay owns a pretty good chunk of Craig's List. 

Craig's List doesn't charge fees to sell your stuff, but it doesn't offer you some of the protections that eBay does. Craig's List leaves it up to buyers and sellers to decide how much risk they are comfortable with. If you want to reject all non-local transactions, that's fine, but it doesn't mean everyone you rejected was fishing for a sucker.

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## MikeEdgerton

Here's a compromised eBay account. My goodness, look at all the good stuff he's selling.... We'll see how long it takes eBay to get this one down. You have to click on Other items.

Store for stolen account

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## TomTyrrell

This seems to be the current MO with this one. Actually listing fakes under an active ID that really does have other stuff for sale.

What stinks is when this happens ebay usually just cancels every item the seller has listed, even the legit stuff.

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## MikeEdgerton

That would be because the account has been hijacked and they have to secure it.

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## markishandsome

The thing I find interesting about our discussions here about ebay scams is how some folks seem to see fraud everywhere while others seem blind to really blatant scams.

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## MikeEdgerton

This guy got his store back. The fraudulent listings are gone. The guys was selling PDA's and such when suddenly he had a dozen or so vintage guitars and cameras with an "E-mail me at ***@aol before you bid.... for the Buy it now price" message. He was most definitely hijacked. There are two other eBay fraud threads running right now. They listed most of the the items this guy had in his store, or let me say it this way, most of the items the scam artist had in this guys store.

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