As any buyer or seller on E-bay I am very concerned about the different scam practices that are popping out from time to time. It seems that every time you think that you have seen them all there is a newer one just unveiling. Personally I got tons of e-mails and super deals that presented unbelievable deals and items that were new and so realistic looking that I almost fell off my computer chair. But I always have a cautious philosophy about deals too good to be true so I do my homework and I just simply research web guides and prices for different products. After several pages I usually ask some questions from the sellers of the respective items. This questions range from actual photos of the item to year of manufacturing, serial numbers, place of purchase and so on. Usually the answers that I receive are just completely avoiding my questions and they list a bunch of lame excuses.

Recently I have discovered a new type of scam going on E-bay. I am not sure if the E-bay security team are aware of it but it seems that its spreading pretty fast. In my case in the Home Audio section there are several high end receivers(Home Theater Receivers) like Denon, Pioneer, Krell...listed at a surprising low price starting bid($399) and with no reserve price. This might look OK for some because we are talking about open bidding on these items but not for me since I am very aware of the value and going price of the respective home audio or video items. The difference in pricing is astonishing even just for the unvary shopper since we are talking about several hundred if not thousand dollars difference. Furthermore on each listing at the bottom there is a contact e-mail listed that is not registered with E-bay(completely against E-bay policies) and buyers are urged to contact that e-mail in order to make a purchase instead of using the "Ask seller a question" feature on the listing. Explanation for this is that they will reply promptly if you use this E-mail(I have tried and they actually do). If you will pay a little attention there are several user ID's that list the same items at different times and locations but they have the same starting price, description and refer to the same, off E-bay e-mail account for a Buy-it-now option. Another striking similarity is that each item no matter the actual value has a Buy-iy-now price of 700GBP(british pounds). Investigating even further I discovered that although the feedback for the selling party ID's is near spotless none of the feedback reply ever comes from a buyer, its always from sellers-and most of the items purchased are for pennies. After contacting the presumed seller at the provided e-mail address and asking some questions regarding the item the reply I got was just way off my questions and full of excuses(for lack of proof of ownership of the advertised item) and awkward stories.

There is a new twist added to this scam. Please pay attention to the difference in the registered E-bay ID location and item location on the listing. The user ID now seems to be registered in the US but the electronic or other items are located in the UK or other country. Also the listing time is very short, mostly only one day. Please check the sellers other items too, since lots of them list quite a few high end items at the same starting price(lately its $333), buy it now price(600 or 700 GBP) and at the same time(same day, hour and minute) which is almost impossible to accomplish. The contact e-mail address is generally registered at aol.com but you can encounter exceptions too. Please be vary and just do a little research and comparison and you will feel very smart that you haven't fallen for this cheap scam.

At this point I am aware that all of this is just a scam and I don't need any more proof of it and I hope that it will be helpful out there to any good faith shoppers or sellers on E-bay. Thanks and good luck.

P.S.:thanks for the great replies and I will keep my eyes open for any future scams lurking.