We once bought a Prufteknique VibScanner for almost nothing on Ebay. It was a legitimate deal, but I don't think the owner understood what he had, and he had mis-spelled vibration as I recall, so the listing didn't show up when searching with the standard terms.

I've never been burned too badly buying from Ebay...well, except for a couple triax accelerometers with only one functioning axis. That's not to say I haven't bought some worthless junk - but that's been my mistake not being completely clear on the descriptiions.

Of course, everybody here knows not to reply to e-mail from Ebay, PayPal or banks asking for PIN and social security numbers! Some days I get 6 or 8 of those. Especially love the ones supposedly from Banks where I don't have an account and have never even done business.


Jon
Spintelligent Labs

What P----- me off is when I changed by email address to stop hundreds of spam emails, I then ordered something from Ebay and the next day I started receiving spam again. To date (2 months time) I have 139 spam emails on my new address.
Never give your primary address to ebay's sellers. Use an address you don't use for normal email, like on MSN or Yahoo or something, never your main address.

Usually, when you see something that is "too good to be true" if you just ask polite questions, as any good buyer does, you will either get your questions promptly answered, or you'll get the runaround, or the listing will just disappear. I've never gotten burned, but I have run onto a few scam deals.

Sometimes people just have a lot of something they need to sell, for whatever reason. I bought 5 dozen brand new, name brand accelerometers the other day from someone who was selling them a few at a time on Ebay, for a fraction of what they cost new. They work perfectly. You'd be amazed at what government agencies, including the military, practically give away at auction!

Should you ever need to "alert" someone on Ebay about something, if you click on their "feedback score" (number in parenthesis after their username) you will be taken to their feedback page. There is a button on the right side of the page you can click to send them a message, as seen below. You may have to be a registered Ebay user to use this feature... I'm not sure.

We came across something different at e-bay last week. We found a great price on a piece of equipment we've been looking for, but it was in the UK. Even considering shipping and customs, the price was excellent.

The ad said "To contact the seller, don't use the "contact seller" option but send e-mail to me at someadress.com". We did that to ask if the system was set up for 120V power. A quick reply was received, assuring us it was, and also offering to cover shipping.

Sounding a little too good to be true yet?

Looking at the seller's other items for sale, there was a long list of items, including large screen TVs and other high-value items. MAybe 100 items, all set to expire with-in about 5 minutes of each other.

Looking at a couple of the other items, we saw a message...."Warning. My account has been hacked, and I am not selling these items! I have not sold anything on ebay in over 4 years."

So if it seems too good to be true, be careful. If the normal e-bay channels are bypassed, be very cautious, especially since you'd probably lose any recourse through e-bay.

Jon
Spintelligent Labs