Student Louis Taylor sold a Blackberry phone to a Nigerian user on eBay and was not paid for it.
NIGERIAN scams are well known on eBay, according to a regular user of the auction site.
Rose Polli runs her local business Pattern Perfection off eBay and said a person or company purporting to be from Nigeria would be a place she would never sell to.
She said as a power seller she went on message boards and spoke to other power sellers and it was well known that Nigeria was a place to avoid dealing with. ‘I think Nigeria is one of the places you hear about and it’s one of the biggest places I know of for scams.’
An eBay spokesman said yesterday that they would always recommend to their users to check the buyer or sellers feedback rating before making a bid or selling and to make sure communication between the buyer and seller was as good as possible.
And despite users in Guernsey including student Louis Taylor falling foul of spoof emails appearing to be from eBay’s payment service, PayPal, that told them that the buyer had paid for goods, eBay is still recommending that customers use it.
Ebay tells its customers to look at the options for payment before placing a bid and says the safest way to pay for gifts online is via PayPal.
Online payment options such as MoneyGram or Western Union are banned on eBay.
But Mrs Polli, like the islanders who had fallen victim to the most recent online scam, said that she too had been caught out in the past on eBay before setting up her business which specialises in sewing patterns.
A few years ago she sold a slimline Playstation 2 to someone in Scotland and ended up £150 out of pocket after dispatching the product.
‘It tends to be the small top-end products which people get scammed for, such as mobiles or iPods.
‘But the items I deal with now are less than £10 each so they’re not going to be targeted.
‘I think the police take it more seriously than they did a few years ago when I was caught out, but at that time they gave me the wrong information to start with and didn’t seem interested.
‘Generally, it’s all right but you just have to be careful. The feedback system on eBay does give you an idea.’
Article posted on 29th March, 2008 - 9.29am
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