On October 2, 2007 I won an auction on eBay for a 2006 Toyota Tacoma which I never received only to learn I had been taken for just under $18k by a scammer. The seller ended the auction just a few minutes early & soon after it ended I received a email in my home email from eBay saying "Congratulations, eBay Transaction Started!" with instructions for a bank wire transfer to an eBay account.
What I didn't know is that this email was actually sent from the seller who was able to basically take over all of the correspondence that came to me from, what I thought, was eBay. The scammer was good about answering emails in a timely fashion through Monday evening Oct. 8th. I never received any other emails from the scammer after that. At this point The Illinois State Police confirmed my funds had definately been transferred out of the account my money was wired into, it was gone, it wasn't supposed to get transferred out until I authorized it?
Tuesday October 9th is when I started reporting everything to law enforcement agencies including Illinois State Police, FBI Cyber Crimes Unit & The Illinois Attorney General's office & all of the appropiate departments at eBay & of course my credit union. Out of all of these contacts I have had to make, eBay by far is the worst on customer service & leaves the impression that they pretty much don't care by dancing around questions & never really giving you a direct answer.
I have had to endure hours of live chats with eBay because this is the only way they will correspond with you, no phones. The representatives on ebay basically try to send you to the appropiate department but you have to spend 10-15 minutes on a live chat to find out you are not in the right one to begin with...which an eBay rep sent you to in the first place? This would take 2 minutes on the phone?
Yesterday I had another live chat with an eBay Rep & reported 2 auctions for vehicles on ebay that are scams...today I went on to ebay & both of those listings are still active? Why would they believe someone that just got scammed through their websight in the exact same fashion as these 2 auctions I just reported? Here's another knife eBay threw into my side,...eBay Loss Prevention Department sent me a message not to bid on item I had already got scammed on October 11th,...I reported the scam to eBay October 3rd...great reaction time...yeah right!
All I have learned to this point on how these scammers work quite honestly makes me sick & I am going to do everything possible to bring them & eBay down. I feel that eBay is just as responsible & negligent for letting all of scams get through their terrible security measures & admitting to having knowledge that it is happening...I've got that on hard copy! The worst part of what I was told is that my money probably will end up in the hands of terriosts to help aid their destruction.
The scammers are more than likely having the funds wired (through a source that has no knowledge what they are involved in, they get hired to do wire transfers through fake employment opportunities advertised on job websites) over seas, at this point kiss your money goodbye.
Buyers beware if you go to bid on ANYTHING on eBay, ISP reported that they get at least 1 call a week for a fraud related to an auto sale on ebay, FBI reported they recieve a number of calls a week related to ebay fraud (not necessarily auto related). The week after I got scammed I made contact with another person that lost about $9k through a bogus auction on eBay...her situation was identical to mine...same scammer.
Come to find out 6 eBay members had got taken in about a 2-3 week period buying autos through eBay for over $100,000 & eBay has knowledge that it is happening & that peoples computers are getting infected with a Trojan Horse virus that is down loaded through the eBay website.
Keep your ears open for a sinking ship that is going down!
Chuck
Springfield, Illinois
U.S.A.
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