eBay

dawate-66 · ‎05-26-2020

I got scammed on a boat for 2500 on a boat I payed for and never received and when eBay was email they would never write back

eburtonlab · ‎05-26-2020

@dawate-66

Sorry to hear you were scammed. But if you found the boat on another site and sent your contact information to the seller, then eBay was not actually involved.

That is not how eBay works. eBay does not rely on users finding ads on Facebook or Craigslist and sending contact information to a seller. Likely the seller will send a phony "invoice" that appears to be from eBay but is not, asking you to pay with gift cards to have the vehicle shipped to you for a free evaluation period.

eBay has no warehouse and does not ship vehicles. eBay does not handle such transactions or provide "vehicle protection orders". Scammers often promise those things, though. Any phone number you may receive on such an "invoice" does not connect to eBay, but to the scammer.

Anyone that asks you to purchase gift cards or to send card codes to them to complete a transaction is trying to take advantage of you. Anyone asking for a gift card is looking for a gift at your expense. Once anyone else knows the code, your money will be gone and you will have no recourse.

See here for some info about such scams:

https://pages.motors.ebay.com/buy/security/index.html

https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/common-fraud-schemes/online-vehicle-sale-fraud

The only way to purchase a vehicle on eBay is to sign in to eBay.com, find the vehicle on eBay and complete the checkout process on eBay. You may have to pay a deposit. Then you typically meet the seller to inspect the vehicle and pay the seller.

If you encountered an ad on another site, contact that site to have the ad removed. eBay is not involved with any ads listed on sites other than eBay itself.

atikovi · ‎05-27-2020

@dawate-66 wrote:
I got scammed on a boat for 2500 on a boat I payed for

Lemme guess. On a boat that would normally sell for $8,000 to $10,000? Whatever happened to common sense?

picknparley · ‎05-27-2020

"....Lemme guess. On a boat that would normally sell for $8,000 to $10,000? Whatever happened to common sense?"

Why rub salt in the wound??

It's a real shame that anyone gets scammed and ebay has their share. This scam just happens to draw ebay into the plot and many people unfortunately fall for it.

OP, Sorry you lost your money.

mtgraves7984 · ‎05-27-2020

Sorry that this happened to you. Do the world a favor and report the ad on the website where you found it.

atikovi · ‎05-27-2020

@picknparley wrote:
"....Lemme guess. On a boat that would normally sell for $8,000 to $10,000? Whatever happened to common sense?"

Why rub salt in the wound??
It's a real shame that anyone gets scammed and ebay has their share. This scam just happens to draw ebay into the plot and many people unfortunately fall for it.

OP, Sorry you lost your money.

Not rubbing any salt into the wound. Chances are the OP won't even reply back, they rarely do. Some people just need some common sense slapped into them. It's often plain and simple greed that gets people in these situations. They get an offer that is too good to be true but they dare not take the time to ask someone else if this deal seems legit for fear they will lose it to someone else if they don't jump on it now. The scammers play on this angle all the time.

Anonymous · ‎05-28-2020

I live near Beaver Lake in Arkansas and this time of year, craigslist is full of ads for boats. Every day, there are at least a dozen listings that are obvious frauds, the main reason being the price is far below normal and the secondary reason, right on the picture of the boat, an email address.

Anonymous · ‎05-29-2020

I just looked at the local craigslist. Right off the bat, two scams, for the same boat! One was priced at $1400 and the other at $1600. It was a for a 2014 Bass Tracker Pro. The ad said, "all lights work, tires are good. throw a coat of paint on it and you have a beautiful interested to" followed by the "seller's" email.

Your two clues: Far too cheap for the what it is and the email, not to mention the ad copy which makes zero sense grammatically.

I have no doubt, were I to contact "seller," that I would be told that it would be handled by eBay. That is your next clue it's a scam. NO listing on craigslist, facebook marketplace, offerup, letgo, or any other site "completes the transaction on eBay." None.

alcoforever · ‎05-29-2020

If you look on Offerup for a car, it is the same thing. It seems there are more scam ads that legitimate ads. Seller is always a woman (they are more trustworthy, right?) and there is always an email address in the ad of the form "julie@ G M A I L . C O M" Have no idea why gmail is always in caps and spaced out. Maybe Offerup has a bot that looks for email addresses and the spacing fools the bot?

u_cant_take_it_with_u · ‎05-30-2020

@picknparley wrote:
"....Lemme guess. On a boat that would normally sell for $8,000 to $10,000? Whatever happened to common sense?"

Why rub salt in the wound??

Sometimes a little salt in a wound can be a great teaching tool. This is a prolific broken record that we hear played over and over again. Byers being seduced by the cheap, and becoming their own worst enemy. They see what they want to see and the saying if it sounds too cgood (cheap) to be true , it probably is, are words of wisdom. People need to THINK.