WSJ article on eBay fraud

[myf16]

excerpts:

For the last 2½ years, Mr. Fawrup, a veteran California police detective, has been battling one of the Internet era's signature crimes: online-auction fraud. Most of the fraudsters use eBay, the Internet's biggest auction site, and they get craftier by the year.

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The task forces work closely with eBay's own staff of 1,000 people assigned to investigate and prevent fraud. The eBay team includes several former federal prosecutors, a former Scotland Yard detective and a former cybercrime investigator with the Italian police. The company regularly meets with law-enforcement officials in the U.S. and abroad. EBay says it recently trained the New York City Police Department's auto-crime unit on how to investigate people who sell stolen or nonexistent cars over the Internet. The company has won the praise of law-enforcement officials for quickly suspending accounts of potential fraudsters and helping track down suspects.

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The eBay fraudster's greatest friend is a trusting buyer. Last year Luke Inoue, a car collector in Hawaii, bid in an eBay auction for an Acura NSX sports car. The auction closed without anyone bidding above the seller's minimum bid. But the seller contacted Mr. Inoue via e-mail suggesting a deal. Mr. Inoue, believing the seller to be a reputable eBay merchant in Southern California, agreed to buy the car for $61,000. He says he wasn't worried because he had bought a car on the Internet before.

The NSX never arrived. Mr. Inoue reported the fraud, and the case ended up with Mr. Fawrup. The detective discovered that the car did exist, and had been advertised in an online classified ad by its owner, a Pasadena dentist. A man posing as a buyer approached the dentist and, pretending to be interested in the car's condition, obtained car-registration papers and a vehicle-inspection report from a Pasadena Acura dealership. The con man then advertised the car on eBay, lifting the photos from the original classified ad. He offered to show the registration papers to Mr. Inoue -- a gesture that Mr. Inoue says increased his trust in the seller, although he ended up not bothering to take a look.

Mr. Fawrup found that the $61,000 payment was forwarded to a bank in Eastern Europe. He referred the case to the FBI, which says it's investigating.

 

[NSXTASY_MD]

...And if I recall correctly that individual who originally attempted to sell his NSX is a member on this forum. And was approached by the police months after he already sold his car (or took it off the internet, cant remember)...obviously the police realized he had no part in it really quickly and he cooperated with them in their search for this con-artist...but it appears the money was sent to an off-shore bank account and already collected/withdrawed....it's gone basically, and Luke Inoue (the buyer) is out $61,000.

 

[vintagecarman]

Sad state of Affairs

This type of story is gut wrenching! Luke Inoue (the buyer) is out $61,000 Ouch, You have to feel for this guy.

Buyer we INTENSELY aware

 

[PHOEN$X]

Sad. I would never buy a car sight unseen without having a trustworthy local NSXer check it out first, at the minimum. Even then, I'd probably use escrow if I couldn't pick up the car myself.

 

[NSXTASY_MD]

...Even then, I'd probably use escrow if I couldn't pick up the car myself.

Oh god, don't let me get started on escrow...sometimes thats just as big of a scam. Just do your first suggestion...PICK IT UP YOURSELF. If your time is so valuable where you can't get away to ensure a $61,000 transaction goes smoothly...you don't need to buy from a private owner to begin with* Have a high-line autobroker/dealer find and secure it for you for a premium.

 

[myf16]

Another story within the same article describes a $150k fake escrow scam, in which the FBI guy recovered the merchandise (a necklace) before the scamming buyer picked it up). Probably a rare success story.

I plan to buy my next family car (some day) on eBay, but only if I can pick it up in person. I will probably also travel to preview it before bidding (or just buy direct on the spot).

 

[nsxtasy]

The most frequent recent scams on eBay (at least, as reported here on NSXprime) seem to involve people selling cars that they don't own. And the easiest way to avoid such scams is to arrange for the car to be inspected in person, either by a local dealer or well-regarded mechanic, or a knowledgeable, well-known local NSX owner. If the person doesn't own the car, it can't be inspected.

Of course, this, and escrow, and other measures are all great advice in hindsight - which is no consolation to the unfortunate folks who have been scammed. There are always new scams coming along, and - for those who think that they are too smart to avoid it - I suspect that ANY of us could easily get scammed, at one time or another, given enough expertise and effort on the part of the scammer. Of course, you know what they say - hindsight is 20/20.

 

[Tom239]

The task forces work closely with eBay's own staff of 1,000 people assigned to investigate and prevent fraud.

eBay has 1,000 people working on fraud?!

When I wrote to them pointing out obvious fraud on eBay motors, they yawned.

 

[myf16]

Re: Re: WSJ article on eBay fraud

eBay has 1,000 people working on fraud?!

990 of them are working on preventing users from avoiding eBay fees.

 

[Viper Driver]

It's funny that this comes up. I'm dealing with at least one, probably two, eBay frauds right now after I bid on a BBSC on eBay last week. It's funny how their little scam crumbles once you start asking some simple technical questions.

I bid on (and lost) an auction for a BBSC last week that Donwon and Fangtl were selling in eBay. Yesterday, I get an e-mail from a guy who will sell me the exact same system for the ridiculously low price of $2,000. When I asked him what the system came with, he cut-and-pasted the body text from the original auction. That might have worked, if the original auction was for a stock BBSC! Since Donwon's BBSC had all kinds of extra stuff (not to mention he had an HKS BOV put on) I highly doubt that this guy is for real.

I'm trying to figure out how I can scam him back.

An even more clever scam (potentially) is that someone e-mailed me a "second chance offer" on the BBSC auction. It says that the original winning bidder fell through, and I am being offered the BBSC at the winning price if I am interested. The e-mail looks official, with eBay logos and links. What tipped me off, though, was the fact that the originating e-mail address is not familiar at all (it's not Donwons' or Fangtl's!) I'm still getting to the bottom of this one.......

 

[myf16]

I bid on (and lost) an auction for a BBSC last week that Donwon and Fangtl were selling in eBay. Yesterday, I get an e-mail from a guy who will sell me the exact same system for the ridiculously low price of $2,000.

How do you think he got your email address? That's supposed to be masked except to the seller. Do you think they have phished the seller's account?

Scam the guy back by telling him you need to meet in person, and give him a place and time that will cost him money (like maybe a hotel room and a flight). Then don't show up and claim you were called away to Nigeria at the last minute...

 

[jdoner]

I have bought 2 cars sight un-seen on eBay and sold 2 to sight un-seen buyers. In all 4 transactions, no problems. I purchased my last Porsche and my NSX on eBay and did pick them both up personally which I HIGHLY advise. I was please with both the cars I bought. They were as described or close and I drove them home - one 1200 miles and the NSX, 800 miles.

The key to buying is asking the questions up front prior to bidding and being aware of the risks. The key to selling is pictures and an honest description and answering emails.

I love eBay but I do relaize there are risks. But in order to buy rare cars, electronics or other obscure items, eBay is the only way to go for me. There are literally hundreds of cars sold everyday on ebay and a relatively few bad deals percentage wise I would guess. But as in everything "buyer beware".

 

[Vegas Boy]

I have bought 2 cars sight un-seen on eBay and sold 2 to sight un-seen buyers. In all 4 transactions, no problems. I purchased my last Porsche and my NSX on eBay and did pick them both up personally which I HIGHLY advise. I was please with both the cars I bought. They were as described or close and I drove them home - one 1200 miles and the NSX, 800 miles.

I have as well. If you use common sense, buy from people/dealers with significant feedback and have the car inspected locally by a third party, it's hard to screw up.
FYI, firms like Lemon Busters and Car Checkers are in almost every city and charge a reasonable price to check out cars, which includes a VIN/fraud check.

Ebay is alot like the old saw "a fool and his money are soon parted"- they cant protect you, use your head.

I have yet to be hoodwinked (oops, probably just jinxed myself... )

 

[myf16]

I can beat that: I bought my car in March 1996 off a Usenet ad. That was before anybody heard of eBay. Of course, I inspected the car in person.

 

[NSX2398]

The key to selling is pictures and an honest description and answering emails.

The key to selling may be pictures but as a buyer I would never trust them. I have a good quality 35mm Nikon camera with a close up lens and I'm amazed at how easy it is with the right angle and lighting to create a picture that is a 100 times better than the actual car. I won't dispute that many on Prime have in the past been able to pick out major flaws such as badly aligned panels but as far as stone chips, small dings, paint quality, etc, I would rarely rely on a picture unless it was a close up that was specifically taken to highlight a defect (such as rash on a rim).
I make these comments as a knowledgable, amateur photographer but also as someone who did purchase an NSX 2 1/2 years ago via a Prime ad from someone I didn't know that was 2000 miles away.

In the end, I did the final inspection in person but the biggest issue I had originally, which hasn't been discussed here much, is how do you go about complying with a down payment request to hold it until you get a chance to see it?

In my case there were multiple interested parties and I didn't view it as an unreasonable request but essentially I was wanting to make a conditional partial payment with the security that I could get my money back if the car turned out to not be as advertised. I guess this is what you might use an escrow service for but in my case, the seller provided me with the name of his bank and I was lucky enough to make an arrangement directly with the bank whereby I would mail them a bank draft for the deposit amount; they would advise the seller when it arrived; but hold it in trust.

In the end, it's all about trust and comfort. In retrospect, the thing that made the transaction more comfortable for me was having an independent 'surrogate' .. the car had been serviced at Basch and I was able to talk to Mark. Oddly enough, I think the thing that made the seller more comfortable with me was that in the middle of the deal, I was out of town and had to communicate from my corporate email account and I happen to work for a company that has a reputation for integrity.

Many of the above notes talk about the integrity of the seller .. but put yourself in the seller's shoes and it's all about the integrity of the buyer. Many are tire kickers with no money; are test pilot wannabees; or back out of deals for a variety of other reasons .. just as we talk about questions that tell if the seller is legit, we almost need to be developing a list of questions that sellers can ask buyers to determine whether they're legit.

 

[chiludo67]

Ebay is no the only website frosting with fraud. I still get nsx for sale emails from YAHOO. 2000 nsx for $23k, and so on. For giggles I responded to the ad only to find they wanted a "deposit" wired to their account in order to hole the car.

 

[nsxtasy]

Ebay is no the only website frosting with fraud. I still get nsx for sale emails from YAHOO. 2000 nsx for $23k, and so on. For giggles I responded to the ad only to find they wanted a "deposit" wired to their account in order to hole the car.

As I've posted before, what scares me is the fact that these scammers are so easily identifiable by their ridiculously low prices. If they get smart enough to use asking prices that sounded like a great bargain, but not too low to believe (e.g. 2000 NSX for $45K), then they will have a greater chance of scamming and a lower chance of detection.

Again, the easiest way to avoid these particular scammers is to insist on an in-person inspection by a reputable, independent place in the vicinity of the car (an Acura dealer, a well-known independent mechanic with NSX experience, or a well-known NSX owner). And if the car is for delivery in North America, and the seller claims the car is somewhere in Europe, run away!!!

 

[NSXTech]

Though it is our policy not to share info out of a customers service file with anybody for any reason without the customers consent, such as a used car sale, I would be willing to offer a simple yes or no as to the likely ownership or non ownership of BBSC by a likely e-mail adress.

ANYTHING I can do to help stem the fraudsters.
MB