Guide to Avoiding Scams on eBay

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Introduction

So you’re looking for a notebook and want to get the most for your money. One of the best places to get a great deal on new or used notebooks is eBay. However, when you try to find a bargain on eBay, you run the risk of being scammed. Here are some scams you should keep your eye out for to make your purchase on eBay safer.

The Obvious Fraudulent Listing

Frequently, scams can be easy to spot because the seller exudes certain traits that scream “fraud”. These are some characteristics of eBay listings that are blatant scams:

• The seller’s name is a random string of letters, e.g. xtrfdsgr.
• The seller is selling from a foreign locale, e.g. Hong Kong and Sweden, but ships internationally
• The selling price is much lower than MSRP.
• The seller has little or no feedback.
• The feedback the seller does have is from others whose names are also random strings of letters or from sellers that have sold them $1 items.
• The only payment methods are money order or wire transfer.

Avoid any listing that has a few of these characteristics. If you are really curious about the listing, even against your best judgment, then I would suggest messaging the seller, and asking to purchase via an escrow service. If they say no, I would turn the other way. Also, remember to report the listing to eBay, so people not as smart as you won’t fall prey to these thieves. You do this by clicking on the “report this item” link at the bottom of the listing.

The Devious Hijacked Account Listing

You may often run into a listing that seems too good to be true. The price is quite low, and when you check the seller’s feedback, he/she seems fairly reputable. Don’t be fooled. There doesn’t seem to be much that is indicative of a spammer. In this most tricky of scams, a scammer hijacks another user’s account to make a fraudulent listing. To spot these scams, look for the following qualities:

• They tell you not to send them a message through eBay. Instead, they request that you email them directly to their personal email addresses
• The seller has not sold notebooks before, though has sold other types of items before.
• They usually have a “Buy it Now” price that is mentioned in the listing but isn’t an actual option in the bid window.
• The seller has multiple locations (i.e. eBay lists the original locale of the seller when he/she opened the account on the left hand side under “Meet the seller”. However, the item location is in a different country.)

To keep yourself safe from these scams, you should definitely contact the seller through the “ask a seller a question” link. The reason that they ask you to email them at their personal addresses is that by using the eBay link to contact seller, the real seller will actually get that message. I have done this many times, and the real seller has responded back to me that they don’t have any idea what I’m talking about. Often, these scammers hijack foreign accounts, and I received responses back in different languages. Also, by getting you to email them, they are getting you to purchase outside of eBay. Thus, you will not be able to receive some of the protection and records you get from working directly through eBay. Also, it is imperative to check what other items the seller has sold. Once, I found a seller that was selling notebooks, even though he/she had an eBay store for quilts!

Here is an example of this scam I found while randomly searching eBay:

(view large image)

Don’t be fooled by the high feedback, especially considering that they ask you to contact the seller directly through his personal email account!

(view large image)

Upon further examination of the seller’s reputation, we find that he is a seller of matchbox cars.

Second Chance Offer Scam

Even when you bid on legitimate items, you may find yourself getting scammed by people sending supposed second chance offers. A seller can send a second chance offer to the people who bid under the highest bid, when the highest bidder decides not to pay. When you are being scammed, you get two flavors of second chance offer scams. You can receive an email from some random email address with the eBay id and item description in the subject line, and then in the body, the “seller” says something about having the item still available and was wondering if you wanted it. The other way is a bit more professional. The sender is supposedly eBay, and the body looks exactly like a real second chance offer.

So how can you tell what is a real second chance offer and what is not? First, always check your eBay account. If you do not receive a message in your eBay inbox, then the second chance offer you received is not legit. Also, for the trickier second chance offer (the latter), if you click on the link in the body of the email for the eBay listing, it will take you to an invalid page.

Scamming the Seller

The buyers aren’t the only ones being scammed. As a seller there are scammers that you need to watch out for as well. Here is my own personal account of almost being scammed.

I put up a Sony PSP for sale on eBay. This user with zero feedback immediately bought my PSP with the buy it now price and sent me this email:

Hello Seller, Compliment of the season to you, I Cathy Alfred from Tx USA, but Presently in London, UK for a church seminal. I saw your product item below on eBay #180004412926 and i am really intrested in buying it for my Daugther as a surprise gift for her in school(Abti American University )at Nigeria and i will handle the shipment expenses.I will send you my fedex account so you will not pay no money for shipping. I will be sending you payment via PayPal, so kindly send me your PAYPAL EMAIL ADDRESS so as to immedaitely make out your payment and make sure you get the package ready for shipment,you can ship the item as soon as you recieve the paypal confirmation. Expecti ng your reply so as to immediately make out the payment you can easily reach me on this number +[edited] Regards, Sincerely Cathy Alfred.

So being a first time seller, I said sure. She seemed like a nice enough woman, and this seemed like a reasonable request, especially if she is willing to pay shipping costs. Soon after, I promptly received a payment email from Paypal:

(view large image)

At first glance, the emailed seemed legit, but upon further examination, something wasn’t quite right. First, the sender wasn’t from @paypal.com, and that was a little weird. Then, I though it was really odd that Paypal wouldn’t send me the money until after the package was delivered. Perhaps the most damaging evidence was the fact that they spelled the woman’s name wrong. Just to double check, I went to my Paypal account, and there was no activity listed. Feeling quite paranoid, I called Paypal customer service where they assured me that this was a scam. I emailed all information to [email protected], and the user’s account was closed.

Here’s the moral of the story. Be wary of buyers with no feedback. Be very suspicious of buyers who want you to ship internationally with their own shipping account. Never ship your item until you have your money in your Paypal account. When in doubt, give Paypal a call. If someone tried to scam you, talk to eBay about recouping your selling costs.

Conclusion

Hopefully, I have enlightened you on some of the things to look out for when shopping or selling on eBay. eBay is a fantastic market place with amazing deals. If you act with common sense and use the tips I have outlined, then you should have a safe experience on eBay. Admittedly, I do not know if these are the only scams out there. I am writing this guide based on my own experiences. If anyone has faced scams not listed here, please feel free to contribute your experiences in the forums. To those selling or buying on eBay, I wish you the best of luck!

Related Articles:

• Buying a Notebook on eBay
• How to buy Used Notebooks

Helpful Related Links:

• eBay.com Laptop Auction Site
• Heatware.com User Feedback site
• PayPal.com online payment and transaction site

 

Great article and excellent advice. I've bought and sold things on ebay and it can be a rather daunting experience, especially when selling high price items such as a laptop or camera.

Some things that I would add to your report:

1. When selling an item, there is a way to limit those who can bid to "paypal only" bidders. This option will not allow anyone who does not have a paypal account to make a bid.

2. I always make a notation in bold that I will not accept bids from zero feedback bidders. However, people with zero feedback will still bid and I have to go in and cancel their bids.

3. Sellers should make it explicitly clear that they will not ship internationally (this is where most scams originate) and that they will not accept money orders or cashier's checks for payment. I know that last point may not make sense but scammers are now able to "create" fake cashier's checks and money orders which your bank will happily accept (in most cases) but, a few days later your bank will get the check rejected from the issuing bank and your account will be charged for the full amount and in some circumstances your account may even be frozen until they verify that you are not part of the scam.

4. I've also heard some horror stories about local pick up and so I don't like to do it when I'm selling an item. If you do have a local pick up make sure to have it at a very public place like starbucks or the mall and take only cash as taking any type of check, money order or cashier's check is suicide.

Hope it helps!

 

Great article, and when looking for a selelrs feedback, look at their feedback but don't just skim through it, look at the actual items.

For example, a 4000+ positive seller has 50~ laptops listings up, and they all seem legit. But look at the previous sold items, if they were books, or pens, antiques, etc. why would they have 50~ laptops to sell all of a sudden?

 

Very nice post ejl
Informative and important

 

Just wanted to mention that there are many scams asking North American sellers to ship items to the UK (it's almost always UK for some reason). This is not only on eBay but on other services like Kijiji. I have come across about 5 of these while trying to sell certain items.

A couple of things that should alert you:
1) they often say that they are in UK temporarily
2) they use western names (ie Cathy Alfred) but their English is poor
3) if offered on auctions, they usually have very low/ no feedback
4) they offer to pay for shipping and any extra costs instead of asking "how much?"

Hope this helps

 

Thanks ejl for the article and for the extra input so far. All great advice. Another way people can be helpful after you buy something and have a successful transaction is leaving positive feedback that is *useful*, in other words leave feedback that says "Thanks for the MacBook, it arrived and looks great and received fast." instead of "great transaction. A++++++++++++++!!".

 

thanks for the comments!

another thing that should be mentioned is that though paypal/credit card is the safest method of payment, it is not 100% safe. you should check your credit card policy on what they say about fraud. my amex policy explicitly states that they will not protect against fraud, though i'm sure they would allow some sort of reimbursement or partial payment. also, paypal's buyer protection only works if the seller still has the money in his/her paypal account. since you can't file a complaint until 7 days, the seller has enough time to deposit the money in their account and close their account. there is the paypal plus credit card that supposedly provides extra buyer protection by allowing you to stop payment on items you've been scammed on, but it seems a little silly to get a new credit card just for one item, unless you frequently purchase off of ebay.

 

Let me mention that I've been sourcing Ebay for ages, looking for great deals on a Lifebook P or Vaio T.

I have always noticed that scammers will usually list or want to buy high ticket, high priced and highly coveted notebooks such as the Macbook Pros, the Vaio TXs, the Vaio SZs, the Dell M1210s, etc.

The minute you see a listing saying, "Before you bid, please contact me at I'[email protected] for a Buy It Now price, walk away, just WALK AWAY.

What really depresses me is how so many people's accounts are getting hijacked by these scum, is it by phishing, other methods or both?
Because I can't beleive all the honest, hardworking people getting their accounts stolen by these scumbags.

 

And of course, password changing every few months are always a good thing.

I had a event where my account was 'forced' into, and about $2000 was 'sent' as payments.

 

Excellent Guide and very helpful I'm sure to those looking to buy a notebook/peripheral in eBay. Thanks for taking the time to write it!

To add to what ejl said above: Don't open any emails that look like they're from ebayers. They could be questions about an item you're selling, etc. Some of them look very authentic but are attempts to hijack your account. Delete them all and go to your ebay account to read your messages. If they're not there, you just avoided a scam attempt.

When listing items, you have the option to block bids from bidder with "0 or less feedback" or "non-payer strikes" or something like that. That's another option.

Very good point. Sometimes scammers start off buying/selling 10 cent items to build up 100+ feedback with 100% positive rating before they start scamming with that account.

I can vouch for that. It also works the other way. If you won an item that you're unsure of, withdraw your Paypal funds before paying. Then, pay with a credit card so that you can always do a chargeback if the transaction falls through.

Paypal will not be able to recover your money or "Paypal funds" used to pay for the item if the seller has already withdrawn your money. A credit card company can get that money back. I lost some partial amounts due to Paypal funds not recovered.

 

Excellent guide, I use those all the time when browsing anything on ebay.

I got the Nigera scam when I sold xbox360's last christmas. Why do they always say they are away at church seminars (beside the obvoius to make you think that they are goody church going people) but now when people see that they know it's a scam. Such a shame, low life a-holes would do this.

PS I didn't fall for it, when he first sent me a message simliar to that, I contacted him back and told him maybe he didn't understand that the terms of the auction were not negiotalbe, and then he sent me another email telling me almost the same thing, but with even worse english.

 

Great article. Thanks

 

i've been scammed before by a power seller with perfect feedback... paypal sucks! seller deleted the auction somehow and paypal denied that the auction was covered under the 1000 protection plan...

 

do you know if the seller had his account hijacked by any chance? i have seen powersellers (of items other than notebooks, though) who have had their accounts hijacked. is the seller still around?

 

Thought I would chime in with some additional things about looking for scams...

***
1.) Monitor the seller for a month or two, make sure that they are still around selling laptops. eBay is good about closing accounts of scammers.
2.) Check the feedback of the seller and make sure that they have sold the product before (There are a few sellers on eBay that are legit laptop sellers with positive feedback that have been around for 1+ years).
***

3.) Make sure that the payment is a method that can be tracked and revoked if necessary such as PayPal, and Credit Cards... Money Orders and Wire Transfers should be avoided at all costs.
4.) Shipping is done by a well known Service such as FedEx or UPS.
5.) If the seller has spelling and grammar issues in their listing or contains conflicting information in the description, avoid.
6.) The price is way too good to be true... decked out Alienware gaming machine for $700.00.
7.) If you send them an e-mail with questions, and they do not answer any of them, avoid.

Anyway, these rules are what I usually use to determine if there was a scammer or not... they are easier to spot than you would think and it is always quite obvious.

 

Another consideration is that PayPal does not keep their data base secure and your information can be hijacked and used by someone else to make purchases in your name with your credit card. I first discovered this when I got my monthly statement and found over $1000 had been charged to my credit card from a buyer in Moscow, Russia. The buyer was a first time e-Bay user with no feedback and cancelled the account after convincing the seller to ship the notebook to his girlfriend in Moscow. My credit card company credited my account back after I complained and the facts became known. PayPal however claimed that I now owed them the total amount since they were backcharged by my credit card company. My experience with PayPal both with this incident and several others has convinced me that they are a completely illegitimate organization which I will never use again.

 

Though not really a scam another thing to look for is sellers who are pawning off refurbed as new. It will say "ThinkPad T43 with three year warranty" in the headline, but when you read the description it says three month IBM warranty and the remainder is from a third party company which in my opinion is not the same thing. I know this hapens even amongst the bigger sellers with lots of positive feedback. So reading the fine print is a must.

I know with ThinkPads you can email asking for the serial number which you can look up on the website is another idea. Also give it a thorough going over once you get and if it supposed to have a warranty call the manufacturer to inquire as to its status.

Having bought and sold notebooks on eBay, the forums over there are a good resource if you are unsure about anything. They can spot a scam a mile away and have very knowledge people over there.

 

listen to this kijiji experience.

ok. i saw an ad for an xps m1710.it was all maxed out.and it was only for 700$!at that time, i didnt know this is fraud.so i emailed the guy.he emailed back saying he was in uk(he made a listing for toronto).this was weird enough.but i didnt know at the time.he said they will use a service like tnt.i never heard of this company, but i still went further.he said he gave the package to tnt, and that i should get a confirmation letter soon.i got a plain letter.no fancy writing, no nothing.just something you would normally type up when using yahoo.no pics of anything related to tnt.now things started to look funny.i called tnt, and they said they dont make letters like this.also, the email address wasnt from tnt, it was from a site called post.com.i googled that, an d there was no website with the name post.com.i emailed the seller and said that tnt dont give confirmation letters like that.i asked for his phone number so we could speak.he didnt give it to me.instead, the day after, i go a message from something that looked like a powerpoint presentation page.it had tnt name, pics, everything.it had the guys address, a tnt agent name, everything.this looked real.but he said that we have to use western union.we didnt want to.we called tnt about this, and they said they never approve of western union.i emailed the guy, asking for his phone # and telling him they dont approve of western union.he said that you have to use whatthey say.he didnt give me his phone #again.also, this message was from post .com again.i looked up the tnt agent to see if he was even real.he wasnt.then i emailed the guy and asked for his phone #only, and nothing else.he didnt reply.then and there, i emailed him and said this deal cant go further.

that is my fraudulent experience.

 

Is this a scam?

 

from what you've posted, it does not look like a scam.

 

About 2 years ago there was much noise surrounding a repetitive scammer named Narro. The guy sold broken/refurbished/stolen parts as new and very often didn't send you the item listed. (for exemple, one guy received some old refurbished 3rd brand HDD insted of a WD MyBook). Narro served as a prime exemple of potential Ebay dangers on many TV reports, both in Canada and USA.
Narro's biggest strenght was that if you put him a negative feedback (not affecting his reputation% since he was a power seller with over 25000 feedbacks) he'd immediatly give you a negative feedback as well, effectivly killing your 10 feedback reputation. Then he'd arrange for a mutual withdrawn of both feedback, wich people didn't really had a choice to accept. This particular feedback scam happens often and it's pretty hard to notice, specially when there are thousands of feedbacks to look trough.

One of Narro's scammed buyer created a wonderful little tool called Toolhaus. It's a small search engine that only shows you any Ebay member's neutral and negative feedback as well as the number of mutual withdrawn he's done over the time. If you look at a scamer like the matchbook car/laptop seller mentioned above, his large matchbook car sales have created him a nice feedback % with lots of sales and he can then use this reputation to screw people with fake laptops. When you look in his feedbacks, you are overwhelmed with positive comments from matchbook cars buyers and you don't see any negative about laptops. With ToolHaus, you could see that this person has a lot of negative feedbacks when it comes to laptop sales. You should also read neutral feedbacks since they often hide a negative feedback from a buyer that was affraid of mutual negatives and thus only submitted a neutral comment. Also check the number of mutualy witdrawn comments. If a buyer has 200+ mutualy witdrawn comments, then there are pretty good chances that he's using negative feedbacks as a way to pressure people into giving him good feedbacks.

Toolhaus is a wonderful free and easy tool designed to help prevent Ebay scams. If you know any other such tool please post them caus I'd like to know them and use them caus I too have had my share of screw ups when buying on Ebay.


http://toolhaus.org/


As for scams like the first one mentioned on this thread, another giveaway is the ponctuation (or lack of it). For a texan buyer (nothing more american than a texan) he sure had crappy english skills. The lack of ponctuation can often be a sign that the seller/buyer used an online translating tool to pass for an english speaking person. Quebec is french speaking so such tools are often used by some poeple (mostly high school kid doing english homework) with low english skills and it gets rather easy to spot with time, but people not used to them will often miss that detail. People with bad english will often translate expressions on a "word to word" basis giving jems like "greeting of the season to you" insted of "season's greeting" and many other sentences that will sound funny to the ear or just be plain weird.

 

I was wondering if it was normal for people to sell say 2GB of RAM for something like $0.99 but the shipping cost like $40? Seems scam-ish is this normal for eBay?

 

It's not a scam, it's called fee avoidance, and it's illegal on ebay. But ebay rarely does something about it.

 

Do people still fall for buyers asking to send to Nigeria? I mean the common term "Nigerian Scam" should raise an alarm in this case, right?

 

Great info here, I learned a lot, thanks to all who have contributed!

 

I have only one thing to say: P-P-P-Powerbook!

 

for sellers, i advise using the delivery confirmation/tracking number feature so your covered under the PayPal sellers protection policy. if you don't have proof of delivery, almost always the buyer will win the INR complaint. it's a small investment with big protection. Free if you pay for USPS postage on PayPal.

also, i notice that many sellers saying that if shipping insurance is not selected by the buyer, and the item gets damaged or lost in transit, then it's the buyers fault. in fact, this is totally untrue. eBay's policy is that it is the seller's responsibility to get the widget to the buyer under any circumstances. so for high priced items like $50 and above, make shipping insurance required or pay for it yourself.

following things i laugh at:

1. small volume sellers who charge a pick up fee
2. sellers that charge additional fees on top of shipping charges and don't state it clearly in the auction (often on the bottom in small print). i say just charge the buy it now/auction price and a shipping fee. keep it simple.
3. seller's that try to avoid fees by charging high shipping prices. as high as ebay and paypal fee's are, it's all part of business so you just have to either deal with it or sell it elsewhere.

most buyers are pretty good. only complaint with them is your ocassional deadbeat buyers who don't pay. almost always they are 0 feedback users.

 

I got about 4 emails like this from Italy,Romania and this one from UK
Following 2 are from craiglist.

Code:

[email protected]
Hello

My name is Kevin Jones and I'm located in Madison,WI( this is my personal e-mail) !
Here is how I want to go about delivery and payment for the package which will be made through TNT.
I will use TNT service with the option Proof of Delivery so you will have the chance to inspect the package before I receive the payment for it. The delivery will be done within 48 hours (TNT Ground Delivery) .
If by any reason you will not be satisfied, you will not support any charge. All the taxes including the transport are paid by me.

Click below for more info

http://www.tnt.com/united_states-products_and_services_tnt-ground_about_tnt_ground.html


Please contact me with your shipping details ( full name and address- work or home) if you are interested so we can conclude the transaction! Delivery can be done by 5pm or after 5 pm- depending on your program(your choice)!

PS:it has

Another one [email protected]

Code:

hey
is don't need to proof  anything
My feedback speaks   ...


On 2/4/08, RAMBO wrote:

    I find it hard to believe that you are from USA>Any proof for it?Where can I meet u in person?

    Regards

    [email protected] wrote:

        i'm from US but now i have a eletronic store in Europe in Romania

        no PayPal because the withdraw limit is 500USD per week. I cant use paypal because it said im over my limitand
        i dont want to sound stupid but i dont understand why i cant use
        paypal they only gave me a 2000.oo dollar limit for mounth my credit card has way more
        than that on it. I usually pay the products with cash money.
        Western Union is the fastest way to conclude a payment! So... all this deal will be done safe and legal through eBay.Just give me your full name and address.I will send this infos to eBay and they will contact you with an invoice.you will see there in the invoice step by step how to complete this purchase..
        give me your ebay user id too ..

        
        On 2/4/08, RAMBO wrote:

            Hi
            I didn't know it was shipped from Europe.That seems far.And western Union is not a very trustable source.i am willing to pay by Paypal.Which country are you from?
            Regards


            [email protected] wrote:

                Greetings
                Thank you for your interest in purchasing my items .
                In this moment you can buy it only for $1000 . price is included the shipping . 14 days return policy
                My item is brand new sealed in original box and will come with all accessories and 1 year warranty .
                You can have this at your door in 48 hours after you confirm the payment because the shipment will be made via Ups 1Day Air or Fedex overnighted from europe.
                So that's why we use as a payment method Western Union money transfer, the fastest and
                also very secure way of sending money because we will close this deal ONLY under eBay,with their protection. The transaction will go strictly according to eBay's RULES and POLICY and will be supervised by eBay Trust & Safety Department..
                If you have any question don't hesitate to contact me .bidding is restricted because I want to carefully chose my buyers. is not necessary to bid .for me is not important who bid or what amount bid,if i receive a good offer i will sell my items. it is a private listing and i can negociate with buyers.the price is not fix.
                If you agree with my terms,  Let me know asap because the items is ready to be shipped
                Kind Regards
                


                On 2/4/08, RAMBO wrote:

                    Hi
                    i am interested in ur system.Do you have a number where we can talk?

Code:

[email protected]
Hi there,

Sorry for my late reply but I'm currently in England, Wolverhampton. I was promoted to Sales Administrator and I have to take a 6 months trainning program here in UK, before I'll be back home, in States.
The laptop is still available, in perfect condition, and I will sell it only in US because here the warranty and the DellCare are US registered.
I can't use the laptop here in UK because it works on 110 V. I didn't know about this problem when I moved here and another reason why I am selling the laptop is because I have just received a new laptop as a birthday gift here in UK, so I do not think I will be using my old laptop any more. I don't have use for 2 laptops.
I have attached some pics with the laptop to this e-mail so you can see the condition of the laptop. I bought the laptop 3 months ago and it still has 21 months of Dell transferable warranty remaining .
I hope you are still interested and we can make the deal happen right away.
Since I can't meet you and make the exchange, I would like to use a service that will help us with that:

www.tnt.com/tnt.express.wolverhampton.depot/third_party_service.html

TNT is a worldwide delivery company (like Fedex, DHL or UPS). You can see from their procedure that you will be able to check the laptop before I receive the payment. If you are in a hurry, I will use 2 day delivery (on my expense).

Let me know what you think.

Best Wishes,
Jenny

Email removed,everything else from original

The guy from Italy even made out a fake ID card and sent it to me.he told me he was in the mountains in border and blah blah blah.That was my first time.I took it first until I zoomed it and saw that the numbers were edited in photoshop and that too poorly.Later when I showed an Italian this card,he immediately asked me not to trust him.It's a pity i don't have it any more.

Moral of the story as all others said,if its too good to be true,don't take it and scammers get better and better every day.Ask for an ID,check it and talk on phone over US or if it's outside,be very very careful.they will send in many pics which will look convincing,but don't bet on that alone.

Regards

 

Rambo, I really need to thank you for pretty much saving me 1K...to be sure I looked up his email and that brought me here...problem solved, the deal was too good to be true! He has written me the exact same words back, and I even told him I did not want to get screwed over this much money!

 

I really dont trust the Western Union stuff, but wow I just got an invoice and everything...I'm forwarding it to ebay as we speak.. Hell of a deal though wow

 

Gday
when the dell xps 1730 came out there were **** loads that suddenly appeared on ebay
I was looking for a cheap deal and came across one advertised.
the price was too good to be true and the seller was located in Romania but the goods were in USA.

when I inquired the seller responded by avoiding ebay direct messaging and emailed me direct . Since I was was sort of new to the whole ebay this went over my head as well as the location which did seem kinda odd at the time.

any way he wanted to me to pay through square trade/western union ONLY , I had never seen this before so I did some research on this on the net about square trade and made the discovery of the western union scam .

I emailed him and said that it was a scam , he responded saying it was my choice to pull out and I was missing out on a good deal , he did gave me the option of coming back . I checked the acc , it had over 1000 feedbacks , this was also odd .
I reported it to ebay , and they said the account was hijacked.

so watch out , never get involved if square trade and western union are involved , most likely a scam

 

Hi Frozen;
Happy to know that

 

Good example... Thank you for this great advice... You can never be sure.