EBay Fraudulent Listings (1 Viewer)

[Triple7]

I mentioned this in another thread but I thought it is worth repeating it here.

I've now found and reported well over 50 fraudulent eBay motorhome listings. Some even start with a fake eBay notice.

They range in price mostly between £4,000 and £8,000 for motorhomes that are probably worth £15-30k. What they also have in common is they ask for your mobile phone number or list an email address.

One way or another they appear to be trying to encourage you to communicate outside of EBay. I think they are trying to harvest email addresses linked to PayPal but they may even be hoping for a buyer to pay without seeing the van!

Obviously if you think you see an odd listing click the "report item" option. I think it's only available on their classic website. I've spoken with eBay and while they do remove the listings they aren't proactive. They wait for their customers to report instead.....essentially outsourcing their responsibilities for free.

I've complained but there does not seem to be any fall off in the number appearing.

I did make a mistake with one listing but eBay left it running so it looks like they are scrutinising the reports properly. So don't worry about making a mistake and it's all confidential.

 

[Triple7]

I forgot to mention they have all been fixed price listings, not auctions

 

[EyUp]

Like this autotràil for 6k !


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[robrace]

I saw on ebay a Buccaneer Caravel that was just what we were looking for!!Asked for further details and got a reply from someone who said they had bought the Van when they were working in England but had now moved back home to Paris!!When I suggested that I would be prepared to fly over and have a look at it the "SELLER" said it was in a container ready for shipping back to the Uk.The numerous pictures in the listing had been downloaded from a Dealers website!I rang the Dealer who confirmed he still had the vehicle for sale and was surprised that someone was advertising it on Ebay.I reported the scam to ebay who did remove the listing but it shows you how careful you have to be!

 

[34127]

The same problem occurs on Gumtree when you look for vehicles for sale and in particular vans such as the Mercedes Sprinter and like on Ebay the adverts contain an email contact address.
This problem is not likely to go away unless the law is changed so that the advertising companies such as Ebay and Gumtree are made responsible for making good any losses suffered because of a fraudulent advert on their website. Ebay and Gumtree do not lose anything when a fraud takes place so there is no incentive for them to put any effort into filtering out the fraudulent adverts.
I spoke to citizens advice a while ago and they were passing information on reported fraudulent adverts to Trading Standards so they could see what was going on, hopefully with a view to pressurise the government into adding a section into consumer law regarding fraudulent adverts. They suggested it would be helpful if people would contact their local MP asking for something to be done about it so that the likes of Ebay and Gumtree will be held responsible for the adverts on their website.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I was looking at that listing only 30 mins ago, first though that entered my head when I saw the price was ' that's a con'

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[black9146]

I have just joined this forum and this is my first post. I spent several nights reporting ad after ad of fraudulent motorhome listings on ebay. Give them their due they do take them down eventually. They are exactly as described above. The fraudsters started by opening up ebay accounts and the giveaway was that they all had zero sales and feedback. After this they moved on to hacking genuine ebay seller accounts. If you search hard enough you can find the actual listings by the genuine sellers. They encourage you to contact them and give them a mobile number to carry on the transaction outside of ebay, and that's when your problems start. They want you to either send them a "deposit" to hold the vehicle or try and get you to pay upfront and arrange to have it delivered. Of course you will never see your money or motorhome ! I gave up contacting ebay as I thought why should I work for them for free ?They should be doing this themselves. The moral is if it seems to good to be true then it probably is. Who sells a £15000-£20000 vehicle for £4800 ???