Chinese sellers are becoming adept at "manufacturing" seemingly trustworthy EBay identities, in order to sell Dell, Toshiba, Compaq, and other high-value counterfeit or fraudulent laptops and other electronics to suckers in the UK, EU, and USA.

To spot a 'manufactured' seller identity, look at their feedback.  The seller will have 10 or 11 quick transactions that all took place between different individuals in China, each for a small, inexpensive item, and each posts highly positive feedback (in english of course). In many cases, the Ebay ID's used to manufacture the positive feedbacks all dissapear a short time later - ie they are all 'no longer a registered user'. All the ten or 11 sales are for  cheap chinese items without brand names, such as 10 small jade figures.  Thus, with more than 10 feedbacks obtained, the seller has a solid '100% positive feedback' reputation that allows them to dupe the unsuspecting buyer.  With more than 10 feedback they also qualify to begin listing "buy it now" type sales.

After these first 10 or 11 local transactions, which are small ifor a few dollars each, then presto! All of a sudden the seller lists one or two expensive items for sale to suckers in the West.  Mostly these are Dell, Toshiba, Compaq, or similar high-value electronic items for  hundreds, or even thousands of dollars. The scam is that this item will never be delivered - after the payment is made, the seller will disappear.

See, for example the seller grrrrgg65, which perfectly fits this pattern.   (Update: grrrrgg65 disappeared shortly after I wrote this guide)

In a new twist, some of these scammers now list their location as outside China (see for example artyr0_1ej50 who lists his location as France, but his profile is otherwise identical to the Chinese scammers)

See current seller btsofng - who sold 10 items to chinese buyers (one item was a pair of scissors, another a postcard) for a few cents each.  btsofng then got 10 positive feedbacks from his all-chinese buyers (the item description was 100% in chinese, so why is the feedback in english?).  Now, btsofng has suddenly started selling $3,000 dollar Toshiba laptops.

To the inattentive buyer, the 100% positive feedback is a sign the seller can be trusted, right! Wrong! Early on there will be no feedback from anyone except from these small, probably sham transactions.  Then you will see some negatives from USA customers as soon as they realize their money is gone forever.  By the time more than a one or two negatives have been posted, the seller has already discarded the "tainted' eBay identity and moves on to another.  By the way, this scam is also being used to sell high-value fake designer wares, such as Gucci, Chanel, and the rest.

Beware!