[DeTomaso] EBAY SCAM - LESSONS LEARNED

[Larry Finch]

An off-list email to me asked:

<<<<<Did it ever occur to you that this person might be a subscriber?  
( to the list) That might be how he knows which bids are meant to  
sabatoge his efforts.>>>>>

I doubt it.

With bidding up around $500k, it really didn't take a genius to know  
something was up.

If he hadn't managed to close the auction early, my snipe bid (at  
three seconds before closing) with an unused-on-his-auction eBay  
account (I have several) would have trumped everything, even with him  
having canceled all our earlier high bidding.

We did play our hand too soon, but at least we played.

For any future scam like this, we should get the word out, but  
withhold the high-bid technique and instead rely on snipe bids to  
thwart the scammer's success.

I did spend considerable live-person telephone time with eBay and they  
do have full information on the true owner/seller of this car. I  
stressed the urgency of having their Fraud department act on this  
auction, as it was already closed. Hopefully they will take action  
fast enough so that notification to the winning bidder is made prior  
to him actually paying for the scam-car. I highly suspect the seller  
will attempt to arrange a prompt payment outside of proper eBay  
methods, which would make an after-the-fact refund by eBay a doubtful  
scenario.

Larry