CAREFULL Ebay scam on a LASER

[Carlos Chiossone]

I contacted on Friday the seller of a ULS M-300 for more images of the machine. He sent them to me and told me to give him a price. So I told him $6K, he actually said yes (flag 1) that machine should go for more. So he sent me an email if I could pay through http://www.ill-trade.net . So thank God I have a trained eye for cyber crime, and spotted a couple of items wrong in the site. So I investigated and the website was registered on Sept 15th 2006, WOW at the same time the auction went up??? (3 flags for that one)

While the guy could have also been the victim of the bad escrow company. He has the disadvantage of putting the auction at the same time the domain was registered on the web. And since I asked him yesterday about it, I have not heard from him.

SO DON'T BID on that item, or at least be VERY carefull on how you pay for it if you did.

I already reported it to Ebay, so perhaps the listing will be off soon.

Moderator removed direct link to E-Bay - TOS Violatioon

Just a reminder that we all need to be very carefull online.

Carlos Chiossone

P.S. Jeff Ostroff from CarBuyingTips.com whom has helped in shutting down such escrow fakers, comfirmed that the template on the site is a common one used by those guys.

[Rob Bosworth]

That's about the fourth time that M 300 M 300 has been listed. I keep writing the lister, and get the same vague answers. As soon as they smell fishy, I inform E-Bay. We can't stop em all, but we can't give up. If you read or see something on a listing, make sure you ask enough questions that you think the lister has at least seen the machine. I use a couple of other tricks, but I'll keep those to myself for a while.

[Frank Corker]

This happened here in the UK - offenders again used an Escrow account demanding that it had to go through them. They were selling an Epilog 24TT and was at a reasonable cost, not extremely cheap, just enought to get one interested. Everything was fine up to the point where I received an email from Escrow - at that point I knew it was a scam, Escrow like Paypal, only deal online and do not send emails!


So one does have to be careful, the email looks and seems to be perfectly legitimate, but a few carefully worded messages to the seller will usually result in you detecting the frauds.

[Mike Mackenzie]

If anyone can get the Serial number on that system it would be appreciated. We have two systems that were stolen and I wonder if this guy is that stupid to post them on E-Bay.

[Dave Fifield]

These scam artists don't usually have any actual goods Mike - they just take pictures from someone else's auction normally. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try and get yours back.

Dave F.

[Matt Meiser]

I've seen it happening elsewhere on Ebay too. Usually the pictures and descriptions are stolen from someone elses auction.

[Mike Hood]

I am helping the daughter of a local laser engraver find a buyer for his Universal 30W. He passed away a few weeks back and she'll be trying to find someone to offer a fair price for it.

I plan to go by there this week sometime and get some info on it and some pictures. If you're interested... drop me a line somesailor@gmail.com

- mike

[Max Green]

I have been looking at engravers on ebay, only the listing of a engraver I was interested in had similar photos I had seen before, strange,. I did a search then saw the same photos and word for word listing except the sellers name was different, very odd. contacted ebay and poof they were gone
"thank you ebay". the ads started at a very low amount and no reserve flag:eek: then it said click here took ya off ebay email system flag:eek: both sellers had 100% ratings but neither had been selling anything engraving related the other thing was in the description seller listed item price that they wanted and that there was only 2 at this price and to contact them before bidding:eek: with a click here which took you off ebay to their mail account.
problem is sometimes my wants overrides common sense :p
Best wishes

[Garrick Crocker]

This guy is trying to sell to me. I asked if he would use a legitimate escrow company and he would not do so.

By the way he was willing to sell to me for $3K and the ebay bid was up to $3550.

See below from him.

Hi again sir,
I'm registered with www.ill-trade.net and i want to use them to complete this transaction. If it's ok with you please register with them and let me know your user name so i can start this transaction with you.
I will wait for your emails.
Best Regards
Brian

When I asked Ill-trade.net to send me their phone number I got the following response, same poor grammar as Brian.

Dear Valued Customer,


Our policy company deny this kind of issues. For security reasons this matters cannot be discussed by phone. If something happens and the transfer encounter any kind of problem our company is responsible as being the third party in this transaction and pays the total amount to the exporter and the insurance deposit to the importer.

[Dave Fifield]

I'm scared that sooner or later, someone with a modicum of intelligence (and good English) is going to perpetrate the perfectly undetectible eBay scam on me! To this date, I have side stepped no less than 5 attempts to separate me from my hard earned moula, all of which were quite easy to detect and avoid.

Motto: be careful out there folks!

:Dave F.

[John Lee]

Do need to be so serious:p
IN China(I am Chinese), we always find the same sample pictures from different sellers on ebay:rolleyes:
There are really many cheater on Ebay and Taobao(another famous online B2C site in China),all you can do is careful,careful,careful;)

[Carlos Chiossone]

I asked the guy for pictures of the laser and the back, he actually supplied them. The exact images I asked for. Strange! I have an image of the tag, I will check tomorrow if it has the serial number. If it does I will forward it.

Carlos

[Carlos Chiossone]

If anyone can get the Serial number on that system it would be appreciated. We have two systems that were stolen and I wonder if this guy is that stupid to post them on E-Bay.

The serial of the machine is 8858 this was the image sent by him.

http://www.andand.com/7.jpg

[Bryan Rocker]

Good evening folks,

There are several additional avenues that can be taken.

1. Contact the BBB. I have used them in the past to resolve issues.

2. Contact the sites host and file a complaint with them. Most IPS will terminate any site that is violating the terms of service.

2a. Elevate the issue to the hosts host. All manor of issues can be solved at this level.

3. Forward this information to the FBI's cybercrimes division.

I have had many "spam" websites shut down using the above tools. It is important to keep the law informed about issues like this. You may have the missing link they are looking for.

[Mike Mackenzie]

Thank you Carlos,

I am looking into this, by the way these were not my personal machines they were customers of ours. I will post the history on this system once i investigate it.

Thanks again.

[Mike Mackenzie]

This system was originally purchased in may 2003 by a company in Miami. It was set-up as a 25 watt laser system and the history states that there was no warranty or out of warranty parts replaced.

What this system might be is a lease repossession. the seller is not who is registered in the data base as the owner. Note this system could have been sold to some one else within the past three years. This we have no record of.

The bottom line is this system has not been reported stolen and the seller should not have anything to hide regarding this system. So if they can not give you everything you ask for then be careful.