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Mick65
20-05-2011, 06:18 AM
Have had my boat for sale on Boatpoint ($60K) for the past 2 months and have been notified by some concerned buyers that my boat is also for sale on eBay for $20K. Contacted eBay which was a 2 hour process (all automated) and an absolute joke. Finally got to speak to someone live by email and the best they could respond with was that the ad would be removed in the next 24-72 hrs. Ad was removed in the next 36hrs but returned the following day. The ad photo's have been copied directly from the Boatpoint ad. It appears the ad or seller may be from a different country as the grammar in the ad is poor. How common is this type of scam?? Was telling people the following day and they replied that the block next door lost $10K on a motor home with the same scam, he was supplied with forged paypal receipts etc to make the deal look authentic.

Almako
20-05-2011, 06:44 AM
When i was selling my boat I was contacted (via ebay) by someone who was pretending to be an Australian living in the UK but really wanted to buy an Australian made boat because they 'didn't make them like this is the UK'. The buyer wanted to know all the exact measurements, i.e. height, width, wether the screen folded down etc etc.
He offered payment once the boat had been picked up by his agent, but not before the boat left the country.
Doesn't sound all that bad really, but at the time i was warned that this is a pretty popular scam.

Sheik
20-05-2011, 08:34 AM
There was one on one of the internet sites a couple of weeks ago and the price was ridiculous. Looked obviously like they'd copied the ads directly from another ad that had been running. I rang the cops and they chased the rego number for me (which was good of them actually) and there was no such number. They must have photoshopped a new rego number on and were pretty good at it. Nothing I could do, just hope no-one got done.

Micadogs
20-05-2011, 08:50 AM
Mick, Make sure you keep a record of all your communications. If someone does get ripped off from eBay and the pictures show the rego number of your boat then the person ripped off may report to police and they will come knocking at your door.

It is ridiculous I know, but it can and does happen.

stue2
20-05-2011, 09:16 AM
Mick, the email trail is a great record of what has been done.

I bought some stuff over the internet once that never turned up so i rang them and eventualy got an email trail set up that I sent to consumer affairs.

I had been waiting for 2 months for the good and Consumer Affairs got the goods in three days.

I haven't been on ebay for a long time because of the same reason as you have highlighted.

cheers, Stu

WRM
20-05-2011, 10:38 AM
It's unfortunate that the internet has become a playground for thieves. In the Sates we have "scam" boats on all of our big websites but especially Oodle and Craig's List. As we tell a lot of our customers "if the price is too good to be true it's probably not".

Quite a few of these boats are pictures and specs stolen from a valid seller. Poor grammar and ridiculous descriptions seem to be the norm with these crooks.

Remember the old saying "Caveat emptor".

Rob Marsh
rm@wyerivermarine.com

cormorant
20-05-2011, 11:37 AM
An official note saying the photo used is copyright of yours often gets quicker action from website owners . Gives them an instant reason to delete. Just ask Ben grubb from the SMH

Anyone who buys and pays for large $ things from ebay sight unseen is putting themselves at huge risk and fools who send goods before money is out of the ebay system and in your own bank acount are also at huge risk.

All the same scams as used for 100 years just updated for technology with slight twists to trick the gullible and uninformed.

I think it would horrify us to know just how many seemingly smart people get caught. That and credit card frauds Sheesh

With the number of these scams tries they must have a success rate and haul in the $ as they are so persistant , cheap to set up and getting better evertime they fail. I feel the websites are negligent in not weeding more of them out and not having a simple button to report the ad. They don't want to hurt their brand.

Watermarking photos is what boatpoint should be doing although some smart folk have software that can wash some watermarks off. Even Ausfish watermarks it's photos but on boatpoint who are aware of these scams they should do it diagonally or in the middle

Review your security software for trojans / key loggers on your computer and confirm you can change your passwords by changing them around a smany scams steal access to your accounts . Keep computer updated.

rippedoffb4
20-05-2011, 11:43 AM
Mick do you have an Ebay account mate? It wasn't with a boat, but I had a situation with Ebay a few years back where my account got hacked by someone in Malaysia I think from memory and apparently I ended up having items listing/selling things that I knew nothing about. Ebay then chased me for the fees. Go figure. Anyway the thrust of my post to you is that I concur with your sentiments about Ebay.

A friend of mine is a fraud investigator (copper) who occasionally has dealings with Ebays investigations. He tells me this is common place unfortunately.

Mickol
20-05-2011, 01:58 PM
Hi Mick,

It is not getting any easier I too had by boat on boat point and had eight people send me a text messages, just told them to F off.

If it sounds too good to be true it probabaly is !



Cheers

cormorant
20-05-2011, 02:18 PM
Hi Mick,

It is not getting any easier I too had by boat on boat point and had eight people send me a text messages, just told them to F off.

If it sounds too good to be true it probabaly is !



Cheers

It's a generation thing as well in some cases. I sold some chainsaws and a young bloke bought a couple and he was all text plus there was the usual fraudsters. I just called the numbers to see if the folk were real. The young bloke had no idea how sort of "rude" text seems to a older bloke when money is involved. The fraudsters were just trying to prove a valid phone number to onsell or do scams and bonus if they could link it to a address and name.


No one ever gets my address and where the goods are until I know they are serious and I have spoken with them at length.

It is easier to ignore the or tell em to f-off. I specifically say on adds that they must phone , leave a number and I won't accept the barred call numbers. I use use a pre paid sim when selling stuff not my usual phone. Just slip in the sim and check it a few times a day or leave it in old phone and a gmail account..

They'll have a new scam next week

The ones that worry me are the ones where people overpay for goods - are they washing dirty money or just stupid? I have sold secondhand stuff and whitegoods at basically new prices they could walk down to Bing lee and negotiate - I don't get it. Sold asmall outboard last year on fleabay 3 bidders fought for it and the bloke who won paid expensive courier, paid instantly and I could see he was buying lots of stuff at high prices from others.

Not my problem but I don't want to be involved in any way with Police or ATO.

Mick65
20-05-2011, 05:59 PM
Thanks Fellas for the feedback, from what can be seen from your threads and people I have talked to over the past few days is that this type of scam/fraud is more common than I had imagined. On a brighter note my boat has just sold, deposit paid, however boat will not be leaving my garage until all of the $$$ are confirmed in my account. Will cancel the Boatpoint ad immediately

PinHead
20-05-2011, 06:31 PM
Have had my boat for sale on Boatpoint ($60K) for the past 2 months and have been notified by some concerned buyers that my boat is also for sale on eBay for $20K. Contacted eBay which was a 2 hour process (all automated) and an absolute joke. Finally got to speak to someone live by email and the best they could respond with was that the ad would be removed in the next 24-72 hrs. Ad was removed in the next 36hrs but returned the following day. The ad photo's have been copied directly from the Boatpoint ad. It appears the ad or seller may be from a different country as the grammar in the ad is poor. How common is this type of scam?? Was telling people the following day and they replied that the block next door lost $10K on a motor home with the same scam, he was supplied with forged paypal receipts etc to make the deal look authentic.

are there really people out there that fall for these scams ??

Bros
20-05-2011, 06:42 PM
are there really people out there that fall for these scams ??

My wife isn't very internet savvy and she though this was true..

http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/showthread.php?t=173693

Mick65
20-05-2011, 06:55 PM
are there really people out there that fall for these scams ??
PinHead unfortunately there is, the stated person above I know personally, I was very suprised / confused he forwarded $$$ etc.
Just removed my ad from Boatpoint, thought I would check eBay again to see if my Boat was still advertised frauduently. surprise surprise there have been an additional 11 bids since yesterday which took the tally to $20400 ($400 better than the selling price). Again went through compliant process "Listing Violation" etc to have the ad removed. Thought I would up the ante and suggest escalating this to a legal matter and surprise surprise the ad was removed immediately. Will not be surprised however if the ad again returns tomorrow

cormorant
20-05-2011, 07:10 PM
Thanks Fellas for the feedback, from what can be seen from your threads and people I have talked to over the past few days is that this type of scam/fraud is more common than I had imagined. On a brighter note my boat has just sold, deposit paid, however boat will not be leaving my garage until all of the $$$ are confirmed in my account. Will cancel the Boatpoint ad immediately


Govt says Nigerian gold scam etc got something like 50 million and that was after they had Aussie post stop physical mail and banks barred fromsending more money.

Print a copy of the add for your own records.

So you photos can't be used before you cancel your add delete the photos or put in a photo of the floor and ait 24 hours then cancel the listing. Change the wording of the listing to something meaningless in reference to your boat. Then even people with direct links to your add will not see your old photos. I think I had to change value last time on boatpoint so it would accept the change.

Hope your sale goes through trouble free

Dealers are some of teh worst at using "sistership "photos on their adds to get buyers interested. Very poor form.

Mick65
21-05-2011, 08:42 AM
>:( Checked ebay again this morning, guess what the ad is again listed

charleville
21-05-2011, 09:16 AM
A bit off-topic but what I find strange about internet selling is how detailed photos of the inside of houses are shown on the real estate sites.

I once bought a large table from a house at Manly that was being sold and before going to look at the article, I looked at the interior photos on a real estate website to see how difficult access to the table would be to carry it out. I could have equally been looking inside to see all of their goods and access points. The photos are quite detailed in that regard.

Thieves can now case a house in comfort from their own home.



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