Ali,
This type of scam has become rather common on eBay. Unfortunately you have
just handed your email address to the scammers, sadly I would suspect you
may get spam and phishing emails on that address now.
The tactic is to try and get potential victims into a direct email
conversation off the eBay messaging networks (which allow a limited amount
of identity protection prior to completing a sale and some logging). The
scammers use hijacked accounts to post high value items on short time
listings with the offer of an often impossibly low BIN price and the listing
always will be missing the eBay BIN feature. They state to contact them
directly at an email address in the listing text often saying not to use the
eBay messaging system. Once they get into a dialog the price may come down
until they get you.
By asking you to pay with Western Union they can get cash anywhere in the
world with little to no records kept. Once the payment is sent you would
never hear back from the scammer again most likely. It's just like sending
cash and totally unrecoverable once the payment is cashed out (WU would say
they felt bad about it but you wouldn't be able to get a penny back from
them). eBay specifically prohibit sellers from soliciting WU payments for
any eBay auction now due to the high rate of fraud associated with it (if
you see it as payment option you should report it BTW).
Good luck and don't fall for any other offers you may get since this one.
Dan S.
-----Original Message-----
From: olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:olympus-owner@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Ali Shah
Sent: Saturday, July 28, 2007 12:00 PM
To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [OM] Re: [OT] Can this be real?
Turned out to be a scam. The seller had listed a N*kkor 28mm F1.4 AF-d with
the starting bid of $45.00 w/ no reserve. There were no bids and the lens
only had 15 hours left. However, the post said something about having 3 in
stock and one could be purchased for $1000.00. I wrote to the seller and
he/she wrote back that I could buy the lens for $1000 sent via Western Union
to Europe. I am not sure what the seller had in mind. Didnt sound very safe.
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