This Guide was written some years ago, but I still see the same types of scams on eBay, not only for high-end Digital SLRs, but for all types of expensive merchandise.  I hope this helps someone to avoid scammers.

DIGITAL CAMERA SCAMS AND BUYING TIPS

for high-end Digital SLRs including but not limited to:

Nikon D3, D300

Canon EOS 1Ds MkIII, 5D, 40D Digital Rebel XSi

...and other expensive merchandise, including computers, laptops, jewelery and rings, antique dolls, Roman coins, ATVs, etc.!

• Price WAY TOO LOW to be true.  For example, the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III sells in retail camera stores for around $8,000+.  Scam auctions will have a "Buy it Now!" for $1,250, $2,000, $3500 or some other ridiculously low figure, usually less than half the real price.

When you see auctions for new cameras and other expensive merchandise that end up selling for near the retail price, you should wonder why one or more sellers are asking half that price or less, especially with "Buy it Now!"  Are these sellers simply naive or uninformed about the real value of the item, or are they setting a trap for you?  

After a Search for a particular items, it's often helpful to click on "Completed items" in the left column area of a Search results page to see how much the same cameras have actually sold for.

You can also contact the buyer on a low-winning-bid auction to see if everything went well with the sale, through eBay's contact a bidder function: Items bid on by a specific bidder [30 days worth]

• "Pre-Approved Bidders Only, Email Seller to be put on bidding list."

Email seller to be put on SUCKER LIST, it should say.  Most times, the seller will offer to "sell" you the camera outside of eBay, which is illegal by eBay's TOS [Terms of Service].  At other times, the "seller" may say that you're "protected by eBay's warranty."  Well, the eBay warranty is only for a maximum of $500, and these auctions are usually for at least twice that.

One crook was offering to sell me a camera after the auction had ended and someone else had "won."  I emailed the "seller" and told him to check his email and the auction page, but he continued to make the offer better and better in his emails to me.  

I then emailed the auction winner, who told me that the seller had given him the same cock-and-bull story about having a sick sister in Rome who needed an operation, so the money had to be wired there immediately.  Not only didn't he have the camera, the "seller" was offering the same nonexistent item to more than one person at a time.

In later emails, he started referring to the "laptop" he was selling.  Evidently that was another scam he had going and he forgot what item he was supposed to be "selling" to me!

• Will only accept payments by Money Order, Cashier's Check, Western Union or other easily-cashable means.  But once cashed, these are nearly impossible to trace and you have no protection against losing all your money.

• Will not accept Bidpay, PayPal, an eBay-recommended escrow service or other secure means through which you can dispute a transaction and withhold payment.

Another option is C.O.D., "Collect on Delivery," in which you pay for an item in cash or with a Cashier's Check only when it is delivered to you.  BUT -- you should open the package and verify its contents before accepting it -- fraud artists have been known to put some heavy piece of junk into a box and send it, even emailing a tracking number so you'll think everything is OK.

The seller with the "sick sister" said he couldn't accept PayPal because the payment site was in Italy.  I looked around PayPal and found they do transfer money in Euros, the common currency of the European Union [including Italy] and informed him of this.  He then gave another version of the story -- his sister was now dying -- and again insisting that the money had to be sent immediately and only via Western Union.

• Possible, but implausible "cover stories" about why the item is being sold so cheaply:  Needs money to pay for an operation for a relative/friend, used once for a photo shoot, now needs to sell, bought in a Customs auction after it had been seized for being black-market goods, etc., etc., etc.

None of these stories are true.  The more fanciful ones may be quite amusing.

• "Stock" photos and descriptions downloaded from camera web sites, not photos of the actual item for sale.

• Refuses to give you Serial Numbers of the camera(s) "for sale."

Almost all cameras today have the serial number on the outside of the original box, so there's no reason to refuse to give it to you, except that the seller doesn't actually have any cameras.  

Ask the seller to photograph the outside of the box showing the serial number and email the photo to you.  But don't be surprised if he has an excuse as to why he can't or won't do so.

If they just email you a number without a photo, you can get a toll-free telephone number for camera maker/importer and contact them to verify that a given serial number is valid [call 1 800 555 1212 and ask the operator for Nikon, Canon, Kodak, whichever headquarters toll-free number].

• If current transactions are available in the member name's Feedback file [available by clicking on the number in parentheses after the member name], you may find a history of buying and selling items worth a few dollars or less [click on the eBay item number blue links to the right on the Feedback page]. 
  

Then, suddenly, this "seller" has several scarce multi-thousand-dollar cameras for sale.

Often, as mentioned elsewhere, the feedback you can read may not even belong to the "seller" -- someone else's eBay account, with good feedback, may have been "hijacked."  Unfortunately, there's no easy way to verify this, but see below about researching a seller's eBay ID.

• Another trick is to sell several inexpensive goods [or pretend to sell them] to establish small amounts of Positive feedback.  "Buying" can be done by a friend or even by the "seller" himself, simply to have good feedback showing.  I would advise you to be very careful if you find a seller with very few feedbacks, and those only for items costing a few dollars, now selling one or more very expensive items.

• Seller in a foreign country, although he/she can also pretend to be in the U.S.

• Member's info not available when trying to use the "Find Members" function [at the top of eBay Search results pages and elsewhere] and enter the item number and seller ID to actually get information back.  This is a tip-off that the seller has "stolen" someone else's eBay identity. 
  

This happens all too frequently when someone with an eBay account receives a perfectly-legitimate-looking email, complete with eBay logos and links to real eBay pages, and is asked to to "verify" their eBay username, password and ID, address, etc. in a box on another page that looks exactly like an eBay page, but is a fake page sending info to the scammer.

Similar fake emails have been used to gather bank account and credit card info for Identity Theft.  Sending such phony emails is called "phishing" [pronounced "fishing"].

What to do:  Copy the item number and seller's ID and use the Find Members function, "User ID History," "Contact Info," and "Request User ID" fields to try to find information on the seller.

One "seller" I contacted had changed his ID five times in two months, attempting to escape detection.

Another real eBay user, whose REAL email address I was able to get [the "seller" in the auction used two different addresses, neither of which matched what I got from the Find Members section] told me that his account and original email address had been hijacked recently, and he had just been able to get eBay to accept his new email address after several weeks of complaining and asking for help.

• Refusal to accept Escrow transactions, Credit card, BidPay, PayPal, other secure payments that you can dispute, or C.O.D.

Legitimate escrow is a way of protecting both buyer and seller.  The buyer sends his money to a trusted escrow firm; the seller is then notified to send the merchandise.  When the buyer gets and accepts the item, he notifies the escrow firm, which then pays the seller.  If the buyer doesn't accept the item, the money is not released unless he fails to respond to the escrow firm's questions about receiving the item, in which case the money may be released to the seller.  

There are fees for this service, based on the selling price.  But if the buyer is willing to pay these charges to ensure a safe transaction, this is another secure way to make sure you'll get what you pay for, especially for an item that costs thousands of dollars.  Info about Using Escrow from eBay

BUT BEWARE OF PHONY ESCROW SITES!  Use only eBay-recommended sites.  Scammers have been known to set up phony "escrow" sites that look legitimate, just to steal your credit card and/or bank account information so they can steal your identity and transfer all your funds to themselves.

I did a Whois on an "escrow site" to help someone who emailed me and found the site had been set up only three days before!

I've been emailing several of these crooks to see how they operate.  When I brought up the topic of escrow for such an expensive item [one crook wanted to "sell" me a "brand-new Canon EOS 1Ds in the original box with all warranty cards", etc., for $3400, less than half of what it actually costs], he said he wouldn't go for it because he had been "f**ked over" by using escrow in the past.

When I then wrote that I didn't understand that, because my money would already have been paid and waiting for him at escrow.com [eBay's recommended firm] before I could even receive the camera and that all he had to do was send me the camera and I would notify the escrow firm to release the money.  He wouldn't reply to my question.

I then wrote that I had tons of frequent-flyer miles and travel all over the country and that I would come to him and buy the camera in person [true], "Just tell me where you are so I can arrange a trip and rental car." I got no more emails after that.


No reputable seller of truly expensive goods should have a good reason for refusing to accept escrow or another method of payment [Credit card and/or PayPal, BidPay, C.O.D. or any other easily-traceable and secure method] so that the buyer will have some assurance that he/she will actually get the merchandise.

• Scammers often use broken English to try to convince you they're just a poor but honest foreigner who's trying to sell you a multi-thousand dollar camera [!].

At other times, the language may resemble what you typically find in the emails that promise a few million dollars for you if you'll just help General Mumbo-Jumbo of Nigeria or some other third-world country to slip his multi-millions or billions into the U.S. illegally.

The scammers may also refer to you as "My Dear Sir," "Dear Esteemed Friend," and other odd phrases, multiple times in the same message.

Further "Tip-offs" to a SCAM:

• Multiple eBay IDs,  not a registered user  status,  user suspended  status, and past unusual number of auction cancellations.

•  New user or user with new I.D., few or no feedbacks.

•  More common with electronics, computer-related, and digital photography.

•  Feedback as buyer only or for low-cost sales, which result in lots of positive feedback prior to offering high-cost items for sale.

•  Selling items which are in high demand and very desirable, causing bidders to be less cautious and more anxious to get the item at a low price.

•  Private auction with no access to bidder I.D.s.

•  Buy it Now!  price or reserve significantly lower than for comparable items from other sellers. Unusual willingness to cancel the auction and sell the item outside of eBay.

• Does not accept usual forms of payment but may give an excuse for not using these and insists on wire transfer through Western Union or from your bank account.

• Use of a P.O. box rather than a home or business address or will not provide home or business address.

In short, ASK HONEST QUESTIONS and don't be afraid to INSIST on full and COMPLETE answers if you're going to send someone you've never met -- and don't know from Adam -- lots of your hard-earned cash.

If they refuse to sell to you unless you pay via Western Union or similarly unsafe ways, email them and tell them YOUR choices, for example:  "PayPal or C.O.D., or NO DEAL."  It's your money and you have the right to protect yourself.

What you can do to help fight fraud on eBay:  How to Check and Report Fraudulent Auctions on eBay

If you get an email offering to sell you an item outside of eBay, see this eBay guide: Non-eBay Sales


Further info:  Where are all these scammers located? 

Most are in third-world countries.  Romania is evidently a hotbed of computer-savvy scammers.  Google "Romania" and "computer scam".

Side Notes:

• "Gray-market" [overseas] goods, even if you get them, may carry warranties that are only good in certain markets such as Europe or the far east, or which must be sent back to the country of origin [Japan, in most cases] for service.

• Nikon buyers should also be careful because Nikon USA refuses to do warranty service or honor guarantees on non-USA Nikon cameras.

Legitimate sellers also need to be careful about buyers in Indonesia or any other foreign country who want to pay you through a credit card.  There have been quite a few of these scams... in fact, I got multiple emails offering to "buy" the camera on this guide for twice my "Buy it Now!" price.  I've begun sending replies which are copies of the Nigerian spam/scam emails, just to have a little fun with them.

BTW, in the days before eBay Guides existed, a scammer reported me for putting this page up as an auction, for a Xeroxed copy of the info in the Cameras section and eBay immediately suspended my account for 30 days because the auction wasn't for a camera, even though I'd made it perfectly clear it was for a copy of the info.

If you find this information useful, please scroll down and click on the link to indicate that; doing so will bring this information up so more potential buyers will see it.

Caveat emptor ["Let the buyer beware"],
Sal B