eBay Nomad scam

[Danneaux]

Oh, it just gets worse and worse, as before but now larger.

Running the email used in the US eBay listing through the ICANN WHOIS registry, it comes back to "Enom Whois Privacy Protection Service", a firm dedicated to "scrubbing" or otherwise obscuring the real identities of domain name registrants. See: https://support.dnsimple.com/articles/what-is-whois-privacy/ This of course subverts the whole intent and purpose of domain name registration and allows scammers to flourish. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_privacy#Implications

For more on this dating back 6 years, see: https://www.thedomains.com/2012/08/30/if-your-using-enoms-whois-privacy-protection-service-inc-whois-agent-udrp-panels-says-your-a-serial-cyber-squatter/

Best,

Dan.

[mickeg]

Bidding is up to $610 USD with over 8 hours to go.  The current high bidder has a zero feedback score, so likely this is his or her first Ebay experience.

I called Ebay and told them it might be a scam and that they should check it out.  That it has previously been listed in the UK.

[mickeg]

Wow, bidding now is up to $20,000 USD.

I should post my Nomad out there if the demand is that high.

[Danneaux]

Now pulled down.

And so it goes.

Best,

Dan.

[macspud]

Listed again but differently:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Thorn-Nomad-MK2-S-S-Rohloff-Touring-Expedition-Bike-Cycle-Matt-Black-565M-/302619410227?hash=item467585bf33

[mickeg]

I just called Ebay.  I wish they had an easy way to report these scams, but it is very time consuming to get someone on the phone that can understand the problem.

[Pavel]

there is a "report item" button on each ebay listing, just above the description field to the right. 

[mickeg]

there is a "report item" button on each ebay listing, just above the description field to the right.

Thanks.  I wish I saw that earlier.

[mickeg]

Persistant.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Thorn-Nomad-MK2-S-S-Rohloff-Touring-Expedition-Bike-Cycle-Matt-Black-565M/232646672157

The Ebay report system is a drop down menu system.  There are no really applicable reporting options, I tried:
- Prohibited and restricted items
- Illegal items and items encouraging illegal activity
- Other illegal activity concerns
They do not have a box where you can add text, so this is all I could give them.

I clicked on other items by seller and found they have 970 items, about 300 of them are probably part of the same batch.  So, if you were ordering the Leica binoculars or Hasselblad cameras or anything else like that, you probably will not get them.  While I was checking other items, suddenly all photos disappeared from that sellers listings.

UPDATE:

That seller still has a lot of stuff on Ebay that is part of the scam and now the photos are back.  But the Nomad now is listed as - listing was ended by seller because the item is no longer available.

So, I suspect someone just lost a lot of money.

For reference, this was the photo in teh listing.

[humedavid]

As soon as someone shows interest in buying the bike, the seller removes it. I know this from experience.
I guess if all listings get pulled down at once, it could mean that the rightful owner has managed to recover their ebay account.

[mickeg]

It appeared again this morning, disappeared soon thereafter.  It disappeared before I could report to Ebay.

If the seller told them to send their money outside of the Ebay system, and if they were naive enough to do that, the money would be gone forever I suspect.  If the seller posted 300 items all at once, if people expressed interest in 10 percent of them (30) and only one in ten of those (3) sent him or her the money outside of the Ebay process, that would still be over $3,000 USD or whatever currency the seller was specifying.  The items the seller posted yesterday all asked for $1100 USD per item.

[mickeg]

And like clockwork it is back.  I will report it in a couple minutes.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Thorn-Nomad-MK2-S-S-Rohloff-Touring-Expedition-Bike-Cycle-Matt-Black-565M/152888124095

The bogus terms of sale are not on the ebay site, you click on a box for full description and then you get those are at this link in graphic format:
https://s9.postimg.org/xgt16u5kf/image.jpg

For documentation, I included those bogus terms of sale here in graphic format.

This time the seller put an openning bid of $11.55 on all items.

UPDATE:

It and several other items from that seller are now off of Ebay system.

[Andre Jute]

You would think Ebay would have their jpegs scanned by character recognition software to avoid this sort of scam. Seems pretty obvious to me.

[mickeg]

And, again.  Already reported to Ebay.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/332542192624

[mickeg]

And again, will be reporting in a few minutes.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/292438117069