Caveat Emptor: Why you should use an escrow agent or some other form to get the goods first before sending the money. Imagine replacing Harleys with 500E's/AMG's, etc

:-( neil
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Harleys, Hijacked Accounts Used To Scam eBay Users Harley-Davidson
Motorcycles Used As Bait

http://www.local6.com/money/2569798/detail.html

Internet scam artists are pirating legimate eBay accounts and reportedly
using Harley Davidson motorcycles as bait to rip off users, according to an
exclusive Problem Solvers report.
A Local 6 News story about Central Florida resident Georgeen Edwards and her
online search for a Harley-Davidson Fatboy motorcycle led to an "expensive
lesson in international fraud," according to Problem Solver Mike Holfeld.
"This is the absolute perfect scam, the perfect ripoff," Edwards said. "You
don't pay taxes, you get all this money and there's no trace."
Edwards wired $4,600 to a man calling himself Stuart Hewlitt in Berlin,
Germany, to purchase the bike in the online auction, Holfeld reported.
The money was picked up 24 hours later. And then the Harley and the imposter
disappeared.
Edwards panicked and contacted eBay.
"What did they tell you?" Holfeld asked.
"They told me that that ID had been stolen -- that it was fraud and his
(Hewlitt's) ID had been stolen and they were sorry for this misfortune"
Holfeld said: "Wait a minute. There was not an alert on the Internet?"
Edwards said, "Nothing."
Now, it appears phony auctions are being set up by account imposters, some
using Harley-Davidson motorcycles as the bait, according to the report.
"You go in and check the reviews," Edwards said. "You make sure the seller
is a legit person. You read all the reviews. Everything looked good."
Holfeld reported that more and more eBay members are discovering their
accounts have been hijacked.
Industry insiders say 30 or more bogus auctions are running at the same
time.
One motorcycle Internet site has issued an alert warning consumers about the
international scam.
"Somebody's getting rich off of a lot of Americans," Edwards said.
Last year, eBay recorded more than $16 billion in online transactions.