OK i found a 2004 maxima for an $8500 buy it now price. Red flag went up, so I emailed the buyer and asked him whats the catch. He immediately closed the auction and emailed me- here is the exact email Hello there, Thank you for your interest in my car.I want you to know that I closed my auction earlier for someone who has offered me the buy it now price, but didn't have all the money available and I cannot accept financing because time is a real issue for me.The price I want to obtain for it is $8,500US (this price includes shippment and insurance charges). We recently opened a small store in Greece and we moved here. We found out that we cannot register the car here, because it is an US model and Europe regulations are different from the US ones. Also we didn't pay yet the duties for bringing it here and if we sell it back to US there will be no more duties to be paid. Now we have our money stuck with this vehicle, so the low price is for a fast cash deal. The car is like new, completely working, low miles, 2004 model. It was always been garage kept. It is an US model with US specs and passed the US test emissions. It will be shipped via air freigth with Lufthansa Air Cargo to the nearest international airport from your area and from there with ground freigth to your door. The title is clear and clean and you will register it in your state. I will send the car as a gift or donation for you, so you won't have to pay any additional taxes. It will come with all the papers (warranty, insurance etc. ...). The shipping costs and the insurance taxes will be down to me and you will pay the fees for transferring the money (about 5% of the total amount). This is a large purchase and I would like to use a third party for this transaction as I want a smooth and safe transaction. We will use Square Trade, I have completed a lot of successful deals using them. I have a purchase protection account of $20,000 with them. If this is your first time using Square Trade here are their terms: if you will not receive the car exactly as advertised or you won't receive it in 15 days since you made the deposit, Square Trade will refund you from my Square Trade account. If you agree with these terms, please send me your full name, home and shipping address so I can register the transaction with Square Trade asap. Regards, Ron I then went to my favorites to see if it passed the scam test- it didnt. Below is the criteria: Most people who are defrauded are victims of their own greed. When a transaction appears to be too good to be true, it likely is. If 3 or more of the following relate to your transaction, application of common sense can preserve your money. 1. An expensive item is usually involved - often an electronic item, computer, camera, fitness equipment, automobile, motorcycle, ATV, snowmobile, desirable event tickets, etc. Often, it is listed at auction at a significant discount off fair market value. Multiples may be offered in the fixed price format. 2. Western Union or Moneygram Instant cash wire transfer are the only acceptable payment methods. Wire transfer was created for sending money to someone whom you KNOW and TRUST. Money wire transfer is untraceable and unrecoverable after the thief picks up the money, which is typically very soon after it is sent. In an attempt to provide the illusion of safety, the prospective buyer is often told to send the money to a fake name or use a secret password, which the buyer will change only after receiving the item. Also be wary if an auction requires payment by e-gold. 3. The item is no longer listed on eBay, so the deal will be an off-eBay transaction. Often the auction was removed by eBay after being identified as fraudulent. An invalid item number indicates that Ebay deleted the listing and purged the auction from the Ebay database. At other times, once a buyer indicates serious interest, in order to reduce the opportunity for the authentic account holder to detect the fraud and notify eBay, the hijacker may end the auction early. A buyer who transacts off-eBay obviously forfeits all fraud protection provided by eBay. 4. Bidder was an unsuccessful bidder on an expensive item and subsequently receives emailed offer (customarily from a person in a country thousands of miles away) offering to sell an identical or similar item off-eBay for a huge discount. International criminals often offer tickets to US sporting events and concerts. Doesnt it seen unusual for a seller thousands of miles away to offer tickets to football bowl games or world series games? 5. Bidder is required to be pre-approved. When pre-approval is sought, seller offers instant sale (usually off-eBay) at significantly less than true value. Also, some private auctions are fraudulent. After placing a bid on a private auction, the bidder receives an emailed offer to sell the item off eBay. 6. Item listed on hijacked account. Some characteristics of hijacked accounts: --Seller with excellent feedback, which was acquired solely from buying or from selling items unrelated to the expensive item being offered. --Long dormant account suddenly listing expensive items. --US, UK, or Canadian registered seller but the item location city/country is in another country. The location city/country may be bizarre (e.g. Bucharest, Canada or Madrid, USA. --Prominent mention on the auction page that email contact through the conventional eBay ask seller a question link is unavailable (various excuses are used), consequently you may only email the seller by using an unusual email me hyperlink embedded in the auction. They may claim that they have already reached their email limit. A hijacker doesnt want the owner of the account tipped off by receiving an email about an auction which they didnt list. --There is no conventional Buy It Now button, but the auction terms state Please email me for the Buy It Now price, or there is a phony BIN button embedded in the auction. --Payment terms for an auction listed from a US location include the customary PayPal, money orders, & checks. When contacting the auction winner, the seller claims to be in a country thousands of miles away on a business trip, vacation, or other excuse, and wire money transfer abruptly becomes the only acceptable method of payment. (Suremost sellers take along a few Plasma TVs when traveling to Europe for a vacation, dont they?) 7. Seller offers free shipping, from distant countries, often premium (very expensive) shipping such as FedEx overnight. (Imagine the cost of overnight shipping for a horse trailer from Romania, a tractor from Greece, or a motorcycle from Spain to the US). 8. No actual photo, or a generic photo or illustration of the item taken from a catalog or website. (Inconclusive in the absence of other red flags) 9. A one or three day auction, often ending on a weekend, (Inconclusive in the absence of other red flags) 10. Poor or unusual grammar / spelling indicative that English isnt the users primary language. (Inconclusive in the absence of other red flags) 11. Seller recommends an escrow service other than escrow.com, which is approved by eBay. Fraudulent escrow sites are created daily by thieves, for the purpose of attempting to defraud unsuspecting users. How to spot a fraudulent escrow site: https://www.escrow.com/fic/ficspot.asp 12. Bidder/buyer who is doubtful and undecided receives email (typically containing poor or unusual grammar) appearing to originate from eBay, vouching for the seller and security of the transaction, which advises the buyer to complete the transaction. Recent variations of such emails assert that the buyer is fully protected by the Square Trade buyer protection program. Square Trade is not a division of eBay. Genuine Square Trade buyer protection is LIMITED (usually up to $250 in addition to eBay buyer protection), and Square Trade doesnt initiate emails to prospective buyers. To determine if an item is genuinely covered by Square Trade, click on the S.T. seal displayed on the auction page. Other variations have claimed that purchase protection is guaranteed by the eBay Safety Board, Trade Secure Division, eBay Transactions, or similar [non-existent division. The emails often assert that the seller has placed a multi-thousand dollar security deposit with eBay. Some further claim that the item will be shipped from an eBay warehouse. eBay is not a traditional auctioneer, but is only a venue. eBay neither holds security deposits, nor confirms or guarantees the safety of transactions. eBay has no merchandise to ship, nor a warehouse in which any merchandise is stored. Sorry for the long post, but I dont wanna see anybody get taken. By the way, he had a 100% positive feedback rating. I would have posted his ebay page but i didn't add it to my watch list and he removed it.
