Scammer tactics, be careful out there

Sorry for the longer post but it was a tricky purchase that went wrong.

I made an offer on an eBay auction that was slightly too good to be true and the seller took me up on it and ended the auction early. We then proceeded to finalize the deal but not before I asked for specific angles and for a photo with the date and his username on it. The seller complied but something still didn’t feel right.

I reached out to another seller on eBay-an OF member-with the same item for sale that had similar backdrops to see if these newly shared photos was his, and they weren’t.

I then asked the original seller for another pic with the time set to a specific time and with my username it it. That’s when the OF member pinged me saying someone reached out asking him for the same information I asked for including my username.

I reported this immediately and shut it down. The scary part was the original seller was able to provide me with a photo before eBay suspended the account.

So as a naive buyer, this would have seemed legit. This was one of the only ways to verify that a seller has the watch but now that is not bulletproof since they are using other sellers to get the pics they need. This is really scary since as a seller I provide photos to buyers all the time.

One way I can to see to combat this is to ONLY provide photos with your username and a name that matches the buyer.

Looking for others thoughts on this and ideas. Again, sorry for the long post but I wanted to share.

My thoughts are that only gullible people get scammed. There aren't too many gullible members on the forum.

If you would have paid him via ebay buy it now and received nothing, you would have almost certainly gotten your money back.

Don´t guy outside E-bay if you are not 100% sure of the seller

Without getting into the "end the auction early" issue, it seems to me that a custom photo with date and user name on it, plus a second custom photo with the watch set to a specified time, would have fooled the most skeptical and suspicious OF members. OP was really lucky to be in contact with the actual watch owner.

What I find most extreme is that the scammer would actually reach out to the real owner in order to get the picture with proper time and username!
How would he convince the real owner to supply such a picture?
I’m struggling to believe the real owner would have been stupid enough.

Thanks however for sharing the cautionary tale.

Yeah I knew I was covered since it was within eBay and PayPal but I didn’t want a bunch of money tied up while I waited for it to be resolved since it smelt too good to be true.

It wasn’t even the exact watch since only the caseback would identify the LE number. So I figure the seller was just contacting other sellers to get the photos needed and kept the caseback photos with the LE number consistent.

Agreed, people with design skills can easily pull this off

Very light. That is why I was cautious. The seller had 6 pieces of feedback and a new account.

Frightening. As a new member this was very informative and eye opening. Shows you what a seedy marketplace EBay can be

I agree this will help, along with both the sellers and buyer's usernames in it. And the name must match the buyer's username.

I always suggest to buy it via Ebay, or at least via Paypal, especially when < 100 feedbacks.
Another way they try to scam is: the user buy your watches, ask you some extra pics, and then send via email a fake-payment that is very similiar to a paypal page, so if you don't check your paypal page, you think it is payed and you can ship the watch.
The address that they provide is always in UK (Reading, Bristol, ..).

BE CAREFUL 😉

Cliche but that's the point! Even more suspicious than a (0) feedback score..

Well, you know the saying, if it's @sog00d to be true, beware...

ALWAYS suspect someone who is willing to end an Ebay auction early. Why? Because Ebay now charges final value fees for canceled transactions. I.e. if he stopped the auction at $1K, Ebay + paypal gets $130 out of that, even if it does not sell on eBay

It THEREFORE means that he expects better than market price + up to 13% from you to make it worth his while.