Ebay scam...someone was trying to sell MY boat.

[mrmeaniemeateaterman]

Was alerted yesterday by @srf32 to the fact my boat was for sale on eBay by a new seller, no reserve, 2 day auction and boat was in Nebraska (I'm in North Carolina). They had all my pictures and even copied and pasted from my ad for the description. Fortunately he recognized my pictures and so I was able to call ebay. They investigated and the listing and the seller has since been removed, although it did take about 24 hours. I didn't post anything about it yesterday because ebay asked I not do anything to alert the sellers that they had been outed. But unfortunately there is nothing to keep this devious person from doing this again and I have to believe they will try again.
In the meantime I have edited the pics on my ad to include text (see pic) so that if they end up somewhere else it will red flag a potential buyer and so hopefully will prevent a scammer from stealing my pics to begin with. I highly advise other people selling stuff to do something similar. Again had it not been caught it would have been no skin off my back, but it delegitimizes my actual for sale advertisement and would have taken some cash out of someone's pocket. Bidding was up to 15,000 last time I checked.
So be alert if you're selling and buying. Some dirty M-F'ers out there.

 

[IvanRZB]

Wow, that's ballsy. Hopefully someone spending that much money without seeing the boat in person would have the knowledge to go through PayPal or something similar that protects you.

I wonder if the scam was really something like "first send me a small deposit" and then the alleged seller disappears.

 

[Thats]

While I was shopping for my current boat I kept finding the same 212X for really good pricing with slightly different pictures all around the country. Stay safe out there!

 

[mrmeaniemeateaterman]

I agree @IvanRZB. Or maybe they would offer a discount for a wire transfer? I would hope that would be a huge red flag for a buyer. What was crazy is in several of the pics my NC registration number/sticker is clearly visible. Why would a boat in Nebraska have NC registration? But it was up to 6 bids so someone was 1 day from learning a hard lesson.

@Thats my issue (see what I did there ) I don't want to have that red AR210 that is a scam sale everywhere, when I'm legitimately trying to sell it.

 

[Liveto99]

Ok $15,001 then do I get it?

 

[biffdotorg]

I was just about to say that

Ok $15,001 then do I get it?

I was just about to say that.

$15,002

 

[ZippyBoater]

There are a lot of those on Craigslist. I have bounced into a couple of waverunners with the same MO. Claim they are service members trying to sell the waverunner before they deploy. They want to get your personal info through ebay and then they will complete the transaction. ebay doesn't work that way. I have been a part of the US Military for nearly 40 years and can normally sniff out a false military story. The worst was when the waverunner was supposed to be on the base I am working at. They would never let me come check it out until I gave them my info.

You gotta be careful out there I the wilds of the internet.

 

[Thats]

There are a lot of those on Craigslist. I have bounced into a couple of waverunners with the same MO. Claim they are service members trying to sell the waverunner before they deploy. They want to get your personal info through ebay and then they will complete the transaction. ebay doesn't work that way. I have been a part of the US Military for nearly 40 years and can normally sniff out a false military story. The worst was when the waverunner was supposed to be on the base I am working at. They would never let me come check it out until I gave them my info.

You gotta be careful out there I the wilds of the internet.

Scammers aren't that wise, but damn are they persistent little bastards.

 

[Dave burke]

Wow! I wonder how often this scams work and they get somebody to actually pay something.

I was looking for a couple of jetskis last year and saw a great price on Craigslist from a Service person supposedly being xferred. I got suspicious when they were evasive but I wonder how many unfortunate people get sucked in.

 

[haknslash]

I had a similar issue many years ago when I made custom headlights. Sellers would always steal my pictures of light patterns and cutoff images. Glad they pulled the listing but unfortunately this is a common scammer practice and they’ll just create a new account and steal someone else’s property pics for their listing.

 

[Shark Bait]

When I was looking for a 242LSE I was considering one at a big dealer in Key Largo. They said they wanted a deposit to hold it for the time it’d take me to get there from WV. The salesman said he’d send me a picture of the boat. He did, it was a picture of a boat for sale in Ohio, I know because I had looked at the same boat (wrong color of what I wanted). He was speechless when I called in out it by sending him a link to the same picture from the Ohio dealers website. Needless to say I bought one elsewhere. I believe them to be dealer and don’t know why he did that.