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Yahoo Auctions Scam or not?


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I've recently started buying & selling off the yahoo auctions here and a couple of times when I've been outbid on an expensive item (camera lens), I've been contacted after the auction by email by the seller. They say that there was a problem with the winning bidder and they will accept my way lower bid. I've been ignoring them but last week when the same thing happened on a really nice lens I actually wrote back to the guy. He told me to furikomi the 15man and he'd cover shipping. I told him that since we were out of the yahoo auctions I would only do it daibiki (pay c.o.d.). He wrote to say that he'd had trouble with that so he wasn't doing it. So I told him to forget it if he wouldn't do daibiki and I haven't heard from him since.

 

Anyone else had this happen? Seems like a potential scam since i would have no backup if he just took the money and ran. The only thing is that he had good feedback. confused.gif

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it sounds fishy to me. i mean, what are the odds that you've been outbid on different items, and then they are coming back to you and saying that there's been a problem with the winning bidder?

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That sounds like a pretty good scam. Much better than the 'ore ore' telephone scams I imagine. My friends like internet auctions but they usually buy relatively cheap items --ie a couple of 'man' at the most.

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Sounds like they are pushing up your bid to max price and go over it, then come back to you trying to sell it. Scam for sure.

Some people do win & cancel but if you are coming across it more and more it might be the lastest scam.

I think you did the right thing.

Also have a look at their history, you can ofetn see the same people winning their or their mates auctions.

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His feedback is good because if he scams someone they are not entitled to leave feedback as it was not a yahoo deal.

 

He probably does a few real sales from time to time to keep the feedback looking good and up to date.

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May be a scam, but might not be.

I've heard that on Yahoo Japan you can have multiple accounts with the same IP. My Mother in law is always on there making her bids go higher with one of her multiple accounts. They have that anti-sniping thing where if someone bids at the last minute that it adds 10 min. to the auction. It seems that alot of people play that to their advantage. Of all the shit that I've bought off there it always seemed as if the seller was bidding on their own item to make me outbid them.

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actually I found a way to look up completed auctions in your watchlist. The lens that the guy was offering to me had gotten perfect feedback on the 24th, saying that the lens arrived today and how nice it was!!! and he was emailing me on the 26th!!!

talk about sketch! thumbsdown.gif

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Yeah, it's lame. I had a friend who had two accounts on Ebay using one only at work and one at home. He tried to drive his auctions prices up, and Ebay froze both accounts within about a week. They stay on top of that shit. JYahoo is a free4all.

 

That guy might have multiple accounts, outbid you with one of them and then left perfect feedback to himself. He must have done that since he said the high bidder backed out, but they still left feedback. That's what my Mother in law does. She says that's just how it is, everyone does that. Sometimes if you scan the sellers feedback you can find multiple buys from the same buyer. In that case I assume it's prolly that seller outbidding lowballers.

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I soon as I saw you first post I thought what everyone else has said - he was bidding himself.

What is his Yahoo ID?, I want to have a peek myself at this weasel in question.

 

My wife often uses yahoo auctions and has never had any trouble; however, most of her deals were from women sellers and small items.

 

In respect to the freedom, I guess Yahoo Japan is hoping to rely on the overall high percentage of honest people in Japan.

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my girl once sold her airline uniform when they changed the style. apparently a collector's item.

 

On Ebay, you can use Paypal which is some sort of saftey I guess. Can also pay an receive with your credit card - good idea.

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They have that anti-sniping thing where if someone bids at the last minute that it adds 10 min. to the auction. It seems that alot of people play that to their advantage

 

what's the deal with this?i:m trying to buy a concert ticket but the time limit just kept changing.. any ideas how i can win? when is a good time to enter a bid? should i wait until the last minute? i fear my internet isn:t as fast as some.

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If he/she was bidding against you with the winning ID, he/she may have also added the feedback with the same ID - in which case, who knows if the lens was actually shipped, and even more, who knows if there was actually a lens.

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yeah but even if they leave perfect feedback that's not the point.

The point is to see if the same few people are buying off this person all the time ( check their history too) then if they do try to sell to you after then it would probably be a scam!

 

Also with that last 5 min extension. People often lay low right till the last 5 mins! I've had heaps of auctions with surfboards being 100 yen then with 10 mins to go a bidding frenzy takes place and the bloody auction can extend for a long time till no one wnts to go further.

 

The old system where if you won you had to pay yahoo 3% had people paying alot if they were being dodgy.

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I scanned their feedback but they don't have the same people buying. but now that I think about it I have seen people with really high feedback (in the 100's) jumping in near the end of an auction and buying it for nearly the same or more than the cheapest kakaku.com price.

 

One thing I've noticed with the japanese auctions is that people will get in a bidding war with each other on the 1st day of a 7day auction, and just drive the price way up beyond reasonability. confused.gif

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 Quote:
Originally posted by Kumapix:
One thing I've noticed with the japanese auctions is that people will get in a bidding war with each other on the 1st day of a 7day auction, and just drive the price way up beyond reasonability. confused.gif
I haven't really noticed that much, usually the opposite for things I buy or sell.
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has anyone come across the "i'm going to be away on a business trip on the last day of the auction, so can you sell me this item at XYZyen for me?" type of question?

 

i got one the other day and am wondering if they're trying to pull something. five or ten minutes later that was another question. a lame one, two. what color is your product? i had three pictures of the product up there.

 

the first question was from a guy w/ nearly 300 listings to his name, the second from a new member (same guy?)

 

... confused.gif

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yeah it's ridiculous. on another listing, i was selling bindings, which i said i bought two years ago, in the description.

 

some dude rocks up online and asks,"so what year model does that make these bindings?" wtf?

 

but at the same time, people are just fishing for information. if a seller has a low number of listing to their name, i'd wanna check their reliability by seeing how long it takes them to answer a question.

 

kneeseckoflatsrule: i'm selling a pair of arc'teryx pants.

 

j/k about your handle name ;\)

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