Dear eBay reader:

It is very important that you read this guide, so you can protect yourself as eBay can be a real jungle sometimes :). It is fun, but you can get eaten by a croc too. This is a short list of certain common scams that I have uncovered / identified so far.

1. The auction currency is GBP (British Pound Sterling) but the item is located in the US (for example, Eugene, OR).

2. The seller has a high level of positive feedback. But when you view the feedback, you will notice a lot of similar statements by the same seller, or patterns of similar feedbacks that repeat themselves (sometimes around 15 or 20 of them before they repeat again). When you click on the auction on the right side, you will notice the item cost is 0.01 GBP, 0.01 USD, 0.99 GBP or 0.99 USD. All of these pseudo-auctions will have a CD cover, a generic magazine or poster photo. Clearly some scammers use a variety of screen names to self-promote up to a positive feedback level above 11 (sometimes even above 100) in order to lure you to think they are respectable sellers...

3. The auction is from a seller located in China, Hong Kong or Taiwan: no all of these sellers are bad people, but be double, tripple careful when you bid- the vast majority sellers I have encountered so far from Eastern Asia are scammers! Usually the item will be way below its USD retail price (for example, iPod 60GB Video Black will be around $129-) but the shipping is way too expensive (for example, same 60GB Video iPod's shipping was around $80-). Usually eBay is not too bad in their ability to block such scammers, but still, it takes them 24 to 48 hours! So be careful.

4. Second Chance Offers: I think there is a chance that eBay is considering dumping that practise, as there are way too many scams. Often you will receive an e-mail that states you got a second chance to win the item that you had just lost "because the payment didn't go through so the winning bid was cancelled" etc. You can recognize a scam e-mail when you look at the top portion. Usually a legitimate eBay e-mail always tells you "this e-mail was sent to YOUR FULL NAME (YOUR SCREEN NAME)". The scam e-mail only tells you your screen name, because they have no way to obtain the real name from eBay! So please automatically delete such e-mails!

5. Official-looking Urgent Notifications from eBay: sometimes you will receive a notification from eBay (which looks exactly like a legitimate e-mail) in which you are told your account will be immediately suspended unless you reconfirm your full account information. If / when you click on the link, you will be transferred to an url different than www.ebay.com - but the site will look exactly like the eBay logon. ALWAYS LOOK AT THE URL before you logon into eBay, to avoid releasing your ID / confidential information to scammers. You may lose thousands of dollars this way!

This guide is a beta version. I will keep updating it, in order to add more material as it comes along. To be continued!