By now most of us have seen the ebay car auctions with ridiculously low buy-it now prices that are obvious scams. The scammers run these by hijacking someones's ebay account that has good feedback, so potential victims are less suspicious. They tell you to email them rather than go thru ebay's message system, which is one of the tipoffs that its likely a scam. Shutting these down has been fairly easy by just notifying ebay.

Well, there's a new twist. Now the scammers are setting up fake ebay auctions with web pages that look like they're on ebay, but they're not. They post a classified ad on an enthusiast site and provide a link to their fake ebay auction. Clicking on the link takes you to the site, complete with all the appearances of a real ebay auction. No instructions to email them directly, since they've rigged the "contact seller" feature to mimic ebay's system as well. Once you take the bait and "buy it now" the scammers send you official-looking ebay email that instructs you to send payment thru Western Uniion and assures you that you will be protected from fraud.

Just today there was a fake auction for a Yenko clone for super cheap. Turns out someone took the bait and is out a $2500 deposit (not me!). Here's a link to what's left of the fake auction (note the non-ebay URL):

http://arribada-cgi3.com/W0QQitemZ4591430876QQcategoryZ31827QQrdZ1QQcmdZVie wItem27384hisfdidssfdkljnkqiiass9dakjcsdfsdfsldkf/PASSENGER_Vehicles/index.php?ID=4606699035&sttl=1969%20CHEVY%20CAMARO,%20427%20V8

and here's a link to more info about it at yenko.net, complete with text from the scammers emails:

http://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/187494/page/0/fpart/1/vc/1

Too bad. Why would you deal with this????

It doesn't appear anybody lost any money there. The winner of the auction apparently knew the listing was a scam, and went through with the buy it now option to toy with the scam artist seller. Or at least that's what I understand after reading through that thread. It is sad that people try to cheat others out of their hard earned coin, but unfortunately it's now a fact of life people need to be more attuned too, since the internet is such a large marketplace. JN

You're right, the guy that created the post at yenko.net was toying with the seller, but in the meantime (or prior to that) the "seller" hooked someone else. This is what was posted by someone else in that same thread:

I just got this e-mail back from the REAL guy that has that Yenko Clone. Somebody got screwed by it.

Here it is:

some guy just called us and said he gave the 2500 dollar deposit and
wanted
the car. we're like man you need to contact eBay. It is bad for
people
that don't know they can't buy cars like that for 6900.
what a drag.

The Western Union is a dead giveaway. I won an auction for a laptop a few years back on Yahoo. The seller emailed me requesting payment via Western Union. They even volunteered to pay the fees. I said "why don't we use an escrow service instead. I'll pay the escrow fees" I never heard from them again. I legit seller would have no reason not to want to use an escrow service if the buyer requested it, but a scammer would be exposed.

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The old adage. if it's too good to be true it probably isn't, fits all this crap real well. I've seen plenty of those "buy it now" low priced 67 427 Corvettes and other desirable cars and while tempting (why would anyone sell one of these cars for $6,500?) that little voice screams NO WAY! While there may be, and I mean MAYBE, somewhere someone with something they really don't know the value of and want to sell it, there are easy and simple ways to determine if its a bogus deal or not if your careful. I saw a really nice Corvette recently, so to test my little voice E-mailed the bogus scammer piece of you know what saying I wanted the car right now and would come in person to pay cash on the spot, but they must have already sold their imaginary $50,000 car for $6,500 since I never got a response. Its sad, but people fall for this stuff all the time, and when greed or emotion sets in they will get you. I'm all for getting a great deal, or helping someone else get a great deal, but I'm not willing to give up even $1.00 to a cheat and don't want anyone else to either. Just my take on all the scam stuff, it ticks me off.

It's usually trusting people that get hooked, but as said: If it's to good to be true it isn't.

About a year ago before I found my current chevelle I saw and even looked into one on E-bay, next thing I know the guy tells me his wife works for a shipping company and the car is in Italy and he will send to me if I Western Union him 4,000. :clonk: I sent him a reply telling him it sounds bizzare to see what he would reply back. He never did. About a year later I saw the pictures from the E-bay ad on someones Chevelle web site. Stuff like this happens all the time not just with cool cars. Sad but its one of problems with non face to face internet sales. Personaly if I'm gonna invest in something this important I'd go look at it, cause even if its not a complete scam you could get some rusted old thing that the pictures didn't show.