Selling Gear Online? Read this warning..

[Bigby]

Get this...posted an ad to sell an Ibanez sr405 on the local craiglist.com website so that I could make up some of the difference spent on my new SR5. Had someone interested who paid for shipping and sent an email to me that appeared to be from the United States Post Office saying "Your money order has been approved". Then the email goes on to talk about avoiding fraud online, then explained that I send the tracking info to a USPS email address when the bass is picked up and then my money order will be sent to me.

This seemed odd so I called USPS directly and found out it was a scam! Good thing I hadn't sent the bass yet. The FedEx person showed up to get the bass and I had them look at the mailing label that I printed off from the email above..it was for an address in Nigeria.

The guy emailed me this morning asking if the bass had been picked up yet, I replied with "No, actually FedEx showed up with a Fraud Investigator from USPS and they said they've been tracking a computer IP address in Nigeria for months for fraudelant activity and they had me print out all your contact information, do you know about this?"

We at least it has a happy ending..I still have the bass (for sale), he is out $50 shipping and hopefully scared s***less that someone may be out after him

[shamus63]

Yeah...the Nigerian Scam is an old one.

I love when one of those ****ers gets busted!

[bassmonkeee]

Get this...posted an ad to sell an Ibanez sr405 on the local craiglist.com website so that I could make up some of the difference spent on my new SR5. Had someone interested who paid for shipping and sent an email to me that appeared to be from the United States Post Office saying "Your money order has been approved". Then the email goes on to talk about avoiding fraud online, then explained that I send the tracking info to a USPS email address when the bass is picked up and then my money order will be sent to me.

This seemed odd so I called USPS directly and found out it was a scam! Good thing I hadn't sent the bass yet. The FedEx person showed up to get the bass and I had them look at the mailing label that I printed off from the email above..it was for an address in Nigeria.

The guy emailed me this morning asking if the bass had been picked up yet, I replied with "No, actually FedEx showed up with a Fraud Investigator from USPS and they said they've been tracking a computer IP address in Nigeria for months for fraudelant activity and they had me print out all your contact information, do you know about this?"

We at least it has a happy ending..I still have the bass (for sale), he is out $50 shipping and hopefully scared s***less that someone may be out after him

Well, that's a new variation that I hadn't heard before. Of course, I would never in a million years send an instrument to someone I didn't know well without cash in hand--email about an approved MO, or not.

[Mahlon]

Good show!

[Rayan]

Yeah...the Nigerian Scam is an old one.

I love when one of those ****ers gets busted!

~
Unfortunately, the 'Nigerian $cam$' are too often wild@$$ $mokescreen$
for very sick, slick and well funded fraud artists who live a few blocks
down the street and work with network hotrodder$ that bounce their
dirty 'bits' off 'blackhole$' in cyber$pace ...
- tracers have a very difficult time, and getting convictions is another matter
~
Play Safe !
/R

[Adwex]

Yeah...the Nigerian Scam is an old one.

I love when one of those ****ers gets busted!

WTF!

[bovinehost]

I think the disallowed word started with an "F".

[vinylbeater]

Yeah you have to watch it..

I bid on a bass on ebay once.. and didn't win the auction.. Then days later I got an e-mail seemingly from the person who auctioned the bass... saying that I could have a second chance offer because they hadn't heard back from the person who bought it.. and it looked like an official ebay e-mail too.. Luckily I went to check out the bass (on the ebay site again) and I thought hmm I better check his feedback and see what it's like... and there was feedback regarding this bass from the buyer saying beautiful bass .. sent immediately etc... anyways.. I investigated it.. and this guy was using a fake e-mail addy program to make it look like the e-mail came from the guy who owned the bass .. but it didn't it came from some guy in the states.. (and this dude was in australia).. hahah once again stupid americans... LOL.. just joking.. but i was pissed off..

[Adwex]

...when the bass is picked up and then my money order will be sent to me.

Rule #1 of selling things online, especially with money orders: You send the merchandise AFTER you have CASH in your hand. The expression is 'Buyer beware', not 'Seller beware'. This scammer wasn't very bright.

[Aussie Mark]

http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

Great read!

[shamus63]

I think the disallowed word started with an "F".

You know, the alternative didn't even cross my mind until this was pointed out.

I am a huge fan of the F-word, not the N-word!

[niftydog]

I bid on a bass on ebay once.. and didn't win the auction.. Then days later I got an e-mail seemingly from the person who auctioned the bass...

The rules on eBay are there to protect you as much as possible, that is why they say in no uncertain terms that these kinds of offers are to be reported to eBay and then ignored. Don't rely on the feedback scores to tell you if someone is legit or not, they can be "massaged" as well.

I guess I've been pretty lucky with my online dealings, I've never had a problem and I've bought and sold about 2 dozen items I guess. My golden rule is to talk to the person on the phone wherever possible, at least twice. Especially with music gear, you can catch out the person by asking them something specific. Like, have a chat with anyone here about a Ray or a Bongo and they know what you mean, but ask some half-witted petty criminal a question with some lingo in it and they stumble.

[tkarter]

Never click a link in an email to get to your deal. Ebay and paypal like that tell you to type into your browser the url.

IP spoofing isn't very hard to do.

Careful is what you have to be.

tk