15 Jun 2025 - AJ
One of several events that got me interested in recognizing and preventing scams was when I myself was scammed - or nearly so - on eBay as a seller.
Unfortunately it was so long ago the details have been lost to memory, but it involved a computer, a technically savvy buyer with scammy intentions, and me when I didn’t know better. Fortunately, I was able to recover.
This week’s scam doesn’t even touch that platform at all, except using its good name to scam people wanting a cheap ride and who are not familiar with what eBay does or doesn’t do. As a seller and a sometime buyer on the platform, every single item bought or sold has been shipped by the seller to the buyer. Or in the case of eBay motors, the buyer usually is responsible for finding their own shipping service and arranging it with the seller.
Also, eBay’s VPP is very much a “vehicle sales are complex, we’re here as a third party to help with buyer-seller disputes as long as it was bought on our platform”. Note the “on our platform” part. They’re not a dealer, they’re a service that facilitates buying and selling items.
I feel like I repeat things over and over on these pages, and for a good reason: while there are easily hundreds or even thousands of scams, they rely a lot on the victims not using their brain or common sense. I’ve never bought a vehicle off eBay because I’ve never needed to, but a simple search of “does eBay ship cars?” gave me the information I provide above.
Likewise, scammers will avoid communicating by voice in order to hide their lack of English skills or very obviously foriegn accent in these types of scams. For example, in the scam I read about on Reddit, the ‘seller’ was in the hospital waiting for surgery. I can guarantee that if you’re in the hospital awaiting surgery, you are not going to be concentrating on selling your car - you’re either going to be in pain, loopy from pain meds, or otherwise not concentrating on something as complex as a car sale!