THIS IS A SCAM

[Loren Bailey]

Spoke via AOL messenger with the seller, who is in eastern europe. Offered to sell me this Gibson F4 for $800. Would only use Western Union wire transfer.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws....MEWA:IT (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=3745945790&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT)

beware, he looks legit on the feedback. He is not in Wales.

[Jim Hilburn]

Doesn't fit the profile of most scams, especially with lots of good feedback. I wouldn't expect to see a slideshow on a scammers listing.

[mandofiddle]

Look at some of the items this person has gotten feedback on. Strange...

[b.pat]

[/B]This is a scam[B]
Check completed items under gibson f-4 Two other entries. Different seller, same pictures. Hope this buyer hasn't sent his 890.00 payment .
Very strange . How are they using seller names with large positive feed back.
B.Pat

http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

[Magnus Geijer]

Are you sure it was the actual seller you were talking to? This guy is listed as being in South Wales, UK, not eastern Europe.

[steve95018]

This auction looks very suspicious to me. #When a wire transfer is insisted upon, an escrow service like escrow.com should be used. #It slows things down but everyone wins and it's secure. #Offer to pay the escrow charges (probably around $60),#If they won't agree to that... walk...

[b.pat]

Kyswede, When you place an E-bay listing , you can place anything you want in the "Location" field.

The **&&%^$%& has also e mailed me demanding wire transfer. US postal money order is unacceptable!



scam
B.Pat http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

[Loren Bailey]

I tried the escrow route, I even offered to pay for all fees. Seller said he was in Romania, away from Wales, for 3-4 months. He did "take" one more photo of the label for me, but I can't figure out how to post it here. He refused to take a picture of himself holding the mandolin. It's a scam.

[Loren Bailey]

Besides, who sells a 20's F4 for $800?!?!?

[FrankenMouse]

Private Auction + Stupidly Low Price + Dealing Outside of eBay + Uncertain Location + WESTERN UNION = Definite Scam. The positive feedback is easily explained: it's a stolen identity.

Careful even with an escrow service. There are now lots of fraudulent, fly-by-night escrow services! If you go with an established one like escrow.com, you're probably safe. But if the seller insists on using "his favorite escrow service", be very careful as it's probably bogus. Here's a link to how to spot a bogus escrow service (https://www.escrow.com/fic/ficspot.asp). The first hint: you pay into it via Western Union rather than credit card.

Western Union was designed for transactions between family members and/or close friends. It was never designed for business transactions between strangers. ANY time a seller insists on Western Union -- directly or through the escrow service of his choice -- you can bet it's a scam.

[jjboone101]

Whoa. Thank goodness I just did a search on here on "F4" and found this thread. I had been emailing with this eBay'er this evening and it just didn't feel/look right but I was close to pulling the trigger on his $890 "Buy It Now". I gotta send a donation to the PSF; Scott's site just saved me some serious dollars.

[Eric F.]

Hey jjboone101: Ain't this place great? I looked at that thing on eBay today, too. I lust after an F4, but it's not something I would buy off eBay except under rare circumstances, like a seller I knew from here or a previous deal.

[Mastersound]

Just as an aside.... it's only recently been an easy option to use Western Union money orders here in Oz. Until a year or so ago you had to go to the moneychanger at the airport to cash them. Now we Aussies can cash Western Union orders at Australia Post. Strangely enough Australia Post won't touch USPS money orders, so you have to take them to your bank and have them deposited... AND you pay about AUD$12 for the privilege as well as getting very poor exchange rates. I use Paypal for the convenience. Hopefully one day I'll make a mando worth offering escrow on!

[Tom C]

jjboone101,
Yeah, we all really watch out for each other. Pretty amazing. Usually when we spot a scam like this. Fellow members will bid extrodinarily high bids like $50,000 or $100,000 so nobody else who may not be as knowledgable bids on it and gets suckered. but, Some Ebay accounts have been suspended for a short time for doing this to scammers like that one.

[mandogrouch]

A friend and I were toying with a scammer a while ago under the same circumstances; the seller apparently had a lot of feedback, and a clean ebay record, but was offering an F4 for aomething like $960.00. We figured it was too good to be true, and sure enough the guy had somehow swiped somebody else's id off of ebay, grabbed some F4 pics and was off to the races. I don't know how they do the id theft thing but ebay is getting pretty dangerous. After I played with his mind for a couple of days, I called him on it; only after I'd gotten him to describe the leopard skin lined, Loar autographed case and the Loar engraved custom tailpiece that he says was part of the deal, but didn't have pictures of. Oh, and the seller was supposedly from France but couldn't speak a word of French.

[peterleyenaar]

Anyone who thinks he can purchase a nice 1920s Gibson F4 for around $900 should give his head a shake

[Dan Cole]

I once bought an expense war medal from a gent in Bulgaria off Ebay. He wanted a Wire transfer because it is the safest means of moving funds to the eastern european countries. Same goes for the Russian software engineer in my office when he sends funds to mom. Transaction was perfect. As for USPS money oreders they don't work outside the US and I think Canada. They do have some international version but its a pain to deal with.

[mandobob]

Auction pulled.

[jjboone101]

I agree with you Peter but eBay can play weird tricks on your mind at midnight, and this F4 seemed to fall into the "I can't believe he doesn't know what this is worth" category. Lesson learned, I guess.

[mrbook]

A couple months ago, ebay caught someone using my account information (including my credit card) to open another account. It was stopped in time, and I had to make a few changes, but I'm sure others have succeeded with similar tactics. Criminals never sleep, it seems.

[flairbzzt]

Does anybody think there's someone on the "inside" with ebay selling Id's and info? I wonder what their internal security is like?http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

[jjboone101]

There is another thread on the Cafe about another eBay mando scam. Collings F5 (says #12) with a low buy-it-now price of $2600 and a lifted picture of #10, which I saw listed in the classifieds for $5899. Man, these guys are creative.

[mandofiddle]

So are these guys mining the MandoCafe classifieds for the photos to use on eBay now too? Man...