[Garage81]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MakeTrack=true

what do you all think?

wasnt sure where to post this. i want to buy one, but it seems kinda fishy. even tho ebay and paypal both offer scam protection, etc.

what does everyone think?

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

How come the pic of the contents is missing the iPod itself?

[Garage81]

i thought that was weird, and also how theyre only going to ship once they all are sold.

[Captain Obvious]

Originally posted by Garage81:
i thought that was weird, and also how theyre only going to ship once they all are sold.

I think this has nothing to do with needing a lawyer.

He -----still he hasn't sold many big ticket items------, has almost 500 ipods to sell and is not in the same state. If you think its prudent to buy from him go for it. Paypal has a reputation for buyer/seller protection so it is up to you to decide if you can rely on it working. That is your money you are gambling with and attorney fees are going to cost you more than an iPod.

[Garage81]

very good points.

not sure how possible it is to scam on ebay with paypal nowadays.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Garage81:
very good points.

not sure how possible it is to scam on ebay with paypal nowadays.

As I understand, scamming happens all the time on eBay these days. I'd be wary.

[jnrjr79]

These could be stolen as well. You may get your iPod just fine, but he may or may not have obtained them legitimately. He hasn't really done high volume before and now has this much inventory? I'd be interested to know why. I could easily see the guy just wanting to unload all of these for $200 each if they came to him for free.

[Garage81]

heres my theory:

he got phished of his ebay password, or his ebay account got hacked. someone made this listing (without him knowing) and now all of a sudden he has thousands of dollars in his paypal account and no idea what to do with it, or who to contact.

id be freaked out if i all of a sudden got 50 emails saying you've got 200 cash.

[discotronic]

Originally posted by Garage81:
heres my theory:

he got phished of his ebay password, or his ebay account got hacked. someone made this listing (without him knowing) and now all of a sudden he has thousands of dollars in his paypal account and no idea what to do with it, or who to contact.

id be freaked out if i all of a sudden got 50 emails saying you've got 200 cash.

I believe you have the right theory here. If it sounds too good to be true. It most likely is.

[discotronic]

I found something else that might be of interst. He used the word "Labour" in the warranty terms. I don't know about anyone else but I don't see someone from Kansas spelling "Labor" like our friends across the Atlantic do.

Also the sub-title of the auction states they have over 6000 units. At the bottom of the auction it states that they have over 20,000 units. I would like to know where someone came up with that many iPods.

[Garage81]

good detective work so far

a couple people on other forums sent emails to ebay, checking it out. he has 2 500 units auctions right now. pretty unbelievable.

you can check out the buyers lists too o_O

[ThisGuy]

1. According to PayPal accepting their ToS (Terms of Service) in effect means you waive your rights to credit card consumer protection laws if you want to use their service, and that you may not issue a chargeback for unauthorized use of your credit card and PayPal account, or if you do, then they have the right to limit your account. Is this legal? We don't know. But it's how Paypal operates. See my credit card waiver page for more information.

2. Their customer service is horrible. They used to hide their telephone number, (intentionally - by their own admission) and only provided support via "form" emails:

"As for the customer service, Sollitto said they intentionally make the phone number very difficult to find in order to save costs."

If you have a problem, you are at their mercy! (And you will eventually have a problem.) The only reason their number can be found at all is because they had to by law (EFTA Electronic Funds Transaction Act). Or you can click on our FAQs page. Just scroll down a bit, and you'll find their phone numbers, plus their toll free numbers as well, plus a huge list of unpublished PayPal phone numbers.

3. Their terms of service are not completely disclosed upon signup and some key "conditions" are not disclosed. They fail to mention their total lack of security to prevent your account from being compromised by phishing & spoof sites. That if your account is accessed by a criminal using one of these methods, PayPal will hold YOU monetarily & legally responsible! Also, no place do they openly tell potential members that their money is 100% at risk. That PayPal can, will, and has in the past, completely cleaned out customers' accounts, (including your checking or savings account) with no appeals process available. Instead they bury in the fine print of 37 pages of their "Terms of Service" (ToS) where they disclose to you that PayPal can close your account for any reason what-so-ever, or no reason, and then you have to wait 180 days to get your money. Think that'll never happen? Think again. That's what everyone thinks till it happens to them.

4. If PayPal feels your actions are questionable, PayPal is the investigator, judge, jury and executioner. "Telling your side" of what happened, in most cases seems to be irrelevant. They also refuse to provide you with the details of their investigation and withhold documents they relied upon to make their decisions. Your only contact will be an email that says:

Thank you for contacting PayPal. We apologize for the delay in respondingto your service request.

After review, the decision has been made to keep your account locked. This decision cannot be appealed.

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email.

That will be the end of it as far as PayPal is concerned. You can email back, but you'll just get more of the same. Oh yea, and you'll have to wait 180 days to get your money.

5. If you are a bona fide, up-standing individual with hundreds of successful transactions, but someone pays you with a stolen credit card, your account (by PayPal's own admission) is immediately flagged as being "criminal behavior" and any money in that account is confiscated. If a customer "disputes" the charge, same thing happens. (See email above.)

6. Paypal's fees for NON-credit card funding are the same as for credit cards! This is the single biggest rippoff on their site. We understand Paypal charging a fee when you fund your account with a credit card. After all, they are being charged by Visa/Mastercard, etc. And we understand there is a lot of fraud with credit card funding. However, most of the money sent within the Paypal system no longer comes from credit card funding. However, money spent from PayPal account to PayPal account is subject to the exact same fees credit card purchases are! This money has been in the system for years and is "clean." That is, there are no fees at all to Paypal, and there is almost no fraud at all with this money, but Paypal charges the SAME fees to transactions with NON-credit card funds! Thus every transaction makes PayPal money, but it's nothing more than an entry in a computer database on their system. No money has actually moved, and there are no costs to Paypal. They are just skimming the gravy.

http://paypalsucks.com

[discotronic]

Looks like the auction is still going. Believe it or not I am tempted by this. eBay is usually fairly good about doing away with the scams within 12 hours. I wonder.......

[Garage81]

He's changed his eBay username to something new, he also says this on his Q/A sheet:

There have been a lot of questions on the price of this item, so I thought I would use this question to answer all of your questions. Due to the response after this I will not be answering any more questions (there are just to many). This auction is as it is. Please read carefully the auction has all of the information you need to purchase. Before you bid please read all of the information carefully because there are no refunds. We are running a promotion in which we are selling 20,000 units of ipods, you will recieve a brosure about our company with your ipod which helps in our marketing, that is why the price is so low. Please do not try to contact the seller through other means than ebay and e-mail, because it is unsafe. Thank you.

[Garage81]

Originally posted by discotronic:
Looks like the auction is still going. Believe it or not I am tempted by this. eBay is usually fairly good about doing away with the scams within 12 hours. I wonder.......

im gonna keep an eye on it. im tempted also.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Can some sucker here please buy this so we can find out how he got scammed.

[Garage81]

ref: http://pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/buying_tips.html

4. Pay safely - Use PayPal.

PayPal is the fast, easy and secure way to pay on eBay. If your seller offers PayPal Buyer Protection, you receive free purchase protection up to $1,000. And if your seller does not offer PayPal Buyer Protection, PayPal can still try to recover your money if something goes wrong if you use PayPal's Buyer Complaint Process.
Please Note: eBay strongly discourages you from paying for your item with instant cash transfer services such as Western Union or MoneyGram. Money transfer services offer no buyer protection and are not designed to be a payment vehicle when doing business with a stranger.

5. Know Your Protections.

It is rare that something goes wrong with a transaction, but if it does, eBay can help you take action. If your purchase isn't covered by PayPal Buyer Protection, then it is likely covered by the eBay Standard Protection Program which will cover you up to $200 (less a $25 service fee).

I guess the question is, do you think it is possible to get away with such a large scale (1000+ user) scam on ebay?

[discotronic]

The auction will get shut down. I'm almost certain of it. This guy has made bank already. I just wonder why eBay hasn't shut the auction down yet.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Pay pal protection is total ********.

Once I bought a $100 Apple Power adapter off ebay, paid through pay pal and the guy shipped me an empty envelope. I reported it and pay pal sent one generic email saying it is a quality of merchandise issue and I need to take it up with the seller, the also considered the matter closed.

Luckily I called my credit card company and they were just as shocked, they said Pay pal or the seller had 30 days to send me the item or they would refund the money.

[Garage81]

well see if the auction is still around when i go home from work

sucks about paypal protection being crap. i was under the false assumption that it would be very easy to get your money back from paypal. reading that paypalsucks link that was posted, it seems it's completely the other way around.

[AB^2=BCxAC]

He says there are 20,000 with his company, he has 6,000 he's selling, and each lot on ebay is about 500. The numbers are not entirely accurate, I'll bet. If they won't ship until a lot is sold, is that the 500, the 6,000, or the whole 20,000?

Sounds like a priceline.com sort of deal. The bulk purchase of 20,000 end-of-life iPods from Apple's retail channel or grey market might be alot less than 20k x $200 (including shipping). They likely won't ship them until they're purchased en-masse from the source, which is a scam because you can't sell something you don't own yet, but it certainly could work if they were buying in lots of 6,000... which has a better chance of selling out at $200 a pop.

Caveat Emptor: no refunds might preclude getting your money back from paypal if you end up getting a sealed but waterdamaged iPod (imagine its from a Chinese shipment that went overboard...)

[discotronic]

eBay finally caught up with them. It is amazing that it took almost 24 hours for this to happen.

[Garage81]

it was listed for more than 33 hours til they ended it.

more than 100 were bought too, you could even see who bought them.

crazy ebay.