Ebayfraud?

October 5, 2006 8:17 PM

I was idly checking out the Digital Rebels on Ebay, when I came across this guy...

Anyone have a guess, or explanation, of what is happening here?

The high bidder (at $5100) is the same for each auction. Is this fradulent feedback inflation?

posted by pullayup to computers & internet (8 comments total)

That's my guess. The D80 on there retails with that lens for $1,300. As long as the users never posts anything worth any where near $5,100 he'll always win and boost his own points.

They're also all bought (meaning the three I clicked on) by pcarucci.

Now, where you go to report that to eBay I don't know...
posted by ztdavis at 8:24 PM on October 5, 2006

This link probably doesn't work for you, but that's where to go.
posted by ztdavis at 8:31 PM on October 5, 2006

One thing I have heard of people doing (and I do not know if it is the case here) is people "patrolling" eBay listings and entering very high false bids on items that seem to be a scam. They do this with no intention of paying just to keep the less wary from bidding on the item and being taken in the scam.
posted by procrastination at 8:33 PM on October 5, 2006

"This seller is not currently offering any items for sale."

Looks like someone reported him.
posted by mendel at 9:38 PM on October 5, 2006

Yeah, no sign of this guy anywhere. However, I would recommend against ever buying a DSLR on ebay. It seems to be a haven for scammers.
posted by antifuse at 1:57 AM on October 6, 2006

Yep, that was me reporting him.
posted by pullayup at 6:20 AM on October 6, 2006

,¸¸,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º° GGRRrrr888 eBay'er º¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º°`° Thanks A Bunch º°`°º¤ø

Says it all really.
posted by meehawl at 9:55 AM on October 6, 2006

Any hot / high-value ebay category is going to be crawling with scammers at this point. Even though you're clearly more scam-aware than the average ebayer, it's still a great idea to look elsewhere.

I'm sure some of these people make careers of ebay scamming, and at this point I'm sure even feedback from people with long histories is suspect, because those long histories might be fraudulent *themselves.* (In other words, the more the scammers work together, the easier it is to make any new fake listing look real.)
posted by allterrainbrain at 10:46 PM on October 7, 2006