Warning signs were there, says eBay shop owner

Saturday 29th March 2008, 9:29AM GMT.

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.

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.