Dot Cons

Diary of an Auction Gone Bad: Scammed Like Me

How do auction scammers bait their traps? Once you've been burned, how easy is it to recover your money? I decided to find out the hard way. When a recently defrauded bidder tipped me off in January to a possible scam in progress, I jumped into the action.

DAY 1: The EBay listing is for a much-in-demand Sony PlayStation 2 game console. I send an e-mail message to the seller--let's call him "Gabe" (not his real name)--and ask about shipping policies. I don't have to wait too long. He replies with a cheery, ingratiating note.

DAY 2: Frenzied bidding is under way when I swoop in and win the auction with an offer of $455. Gabe is so happy that he waives the shipping fee. Nice guy. He extols the virtues of PayPal: It's easy, reliable, and safe. I transfer $455 to his PayPal account.

DAY 3: Gabe thanks me and promises to ship the console on Tuesday and to e-mail me with tracking information.

DAYS 7-14: Tuesday comes and goes. I pelt Gabe with increasingly panicky e-mail. No response--and no PlayStation, either.

DAY 15: I ask EBay for the phone number Gabe provided when he registered. I try calling, but the number is out of service. I alert EBay and wait to hear back.

DAY 16: For one fleeting moment, I think I'm covered by the $100,000 of insurance touted on PayPal's home page. But that turns out to protect the money sitting in a PayPal account. Fraudulent transactions are covered for only $200. And I'm not eligible even for that, since Gabe was an unverified user--meaning that he hadn't registered a checking account with PayPal when he signed up with the service. I call my credit card company and speak with a rep who says that I might be able to reverse the charges--but the process could take two to three months. Yikes. I get the paperwork rolling.

DAY 17: An e-mail from EBay suggests I take my problem to PayPal. I write back, explaining that PayPal won't help. EBay's response explains that PayPal usually assists only fraud victims whose claims are denied by EBay. So why'd EBay tell me to start with PayPal?

DAY 45: I notice that Gabe's EBay account is still active. I send EBay a couple of e-mail messages asking if they intend to terminate it. No answer.

DAY 58: Good news at last: My credit card company says that it has reviewed my situation and decided to reverse the charges. But after all the runaround and finger-pointing I encountered, I see why some burned bidders say that they feel as victimized by the recovery process as they did when they got scammed in the first place.