[Shotimes] Buyer beware

[BJamesjr@aol.com]

> maybe a ebay sting committee should be formed?

I saw an article recently about ebay fraud.  There were the normal things such as people shipping boxes with bricks in them instead of merchandise, or people asking for wire transfers of money then never shipping anything.  Or the guy that bought cheap used computers and resold them represented as much faster computers.  Or the bidders who would have multiple ebay accounts and would bid on their own stuff to get the prices up.

The most interesting thing in the article was about people who would scan ebay looking for obvious frauds, and bid the items up real high so nobody else would win the bid and get taken by the scam.  Of course these watchers would not actually take the items so they might pick up some negative feedback.  After awhile they would just register under a new name and continue.  One guy estimated that he had saved innocent bidders about $80,000 in one week.