Look at all these poor saps getting ripped off on eBay

[gigahertz20]

I was browsing eBay for some USB flash sticks and came across this, these sellers located in China are selling $400 128GB Kingston USB sticks for $25 a piece, clearly they are taking USB keys and reprogramming them to make them look much bigger, or maybe they are not even shipping the product to buyers at all. I'm guessing the former, they reprogram smaller USB keys of the same brand, like taking a 1GB Kingston and making it look like a 128GB key to the OS. That way people don't find out they have been scammed until they try to transfer a bunch of files to it.


If you look at this one seller called "liaohao2008" you'll notice his feedback is almost all from people that have no feedback themselves, which means the accounts were created just to leave false feedback to make buyers trust him. What is sick is that it shows he has sold 783 of these at $25 a piece, so $19,575 scammed out of people...WOW

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=160410044876&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT



Another seller doing the same thing, sold 164 so far:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250591815242&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT


When it is too good to be true, it usually is!

 

[shortylickens]

I intend to be an honest seller. Whenever I start selling. Someday.

 

[HannibalX]

I only buy from North America and even then I am very cautious.

 

[gigahertz20]

I only buy from North America and even then I am very cautious.

Well it's too bad eBay buyers don't share your same habits. Most people see a great deal and they buy, they don't even look into the seller and where the person is located.


What I wonder now is, will eBay reimburse the people that got scammed through their new eBay Buyer Protection that displays over the eBay site?

http://pages.ebay.com/coverage/index.html

 

[Nik]

Caveat Emptor

 

[theflyingpig]

All Chinese are untrustworthy and should not be trusted. Everyone knows this.

 

[akshatp]

People get scammed on eBay every day. Its nothing new.

You seem to be particularly incensed by these guys though.

Best thing is the "128GB" part on the packaging looks so photoshopped even without looking closely.

 

[Nik]

All Chinese are untrustworthy and should not be trusted. Everyone knows this.

I wouldn't ever buy something directly from China. Ever.

 

[TruePaige]

$400 on newegg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...00%2f128GB

 

[TruePaige]

Also you can tell his feedback is from himself or friends due to the "engrish"

 

[Tristicus]

I wouldn't ever buy something directly from China. Ever.

I've bought things like FM transmitters and bluetooth adapters from China for dirt cheap.
And they are great.

 

[TruePaige]

I've bought things like FM transmitters and bluetooth adapters from China for dirt cheap.
And they are great.

They also sell cheap DVD's and GSM cellphones.

 

[Tristicus]

I bought Accepted on DVD for cheap from China...and the DVD itself seemed like it was a burned copy...but it was cheap.

 

[Q]

Click the 'report item' button

 

[gigahertz20]

Click the 'report item' button

I did already, I also sent the seller this in both English and Chinese, the 2nd tinyurl link below takes them to this thread but translated in Chinese.




English:
Nice scam!
You are clearly ripping people off, check out this link I made about your auction:
http://tinyurl.com/yh3vsdm


汉语:
好的诈欺! 您明显地偷窃人，检查我做关于您的拍卖的这个链接：
翻译为汉语：http://tinyurl.com/yb44n44

 

[frostedflakes]

I bought Accepted on DVD for cheap from China...and the DVD itself seemed like it was a burned copy...but it was cheap.

Is the DVD region free? That's a sure way to tell if it's a bootleg.

And honestly, you're better off downloading movies than giving money to bootleggers. Just my $0.02, though.

 

[coloumb]

/shrug - everything I've purchased from China has arrived exactly what was stated in the description and they ship faster than most US based sellers. Then again - if I do buy from China - I only buy from someone who has an insane amount # of feedback [ie: power sellers] and mainly positive rating [97%+]

 

[TruePaige]

Is the DVD region free? That's a sure way to tell if it's a bootleg.

And honestly, you're better off downloading movies than giving money to bootleggers. Just my $0.02, though.

But you can give them as gifts to people who don't know about region coding or won't care!

 

[pontifex]

i was looking at possibly getting another set of creative headphones that retail for about $50. I was looking on ebay and saw people selling 2 for $30 or 2 for $15 (oem). Sounded too good to be true so I did some research and found that they are fakes. they look fucking real though, right down to the packaging. apparently the only way to tell besides sound quality was that the creative logo is slightly off center by a small measure or something like that.

funny thing was, not 1 auction was selling a brand new pair for anywhere near the retail price. all of them were most likely fakes.

 

[rcpratt]

I don't feel bad for these stupid people. Use some common sense.

 

[coldmeat]

People get scammed on eBay every day. Its nothing new.

You seem to be particularly incensed by these guys though.

Best thing is the "128GB" part on the packaging looks so photoshopped even without looking closely.

How can you tell it's photoshopped? Looks like the real packaging to me.

 

[alfa147x]

I only buy from North America and even then I am very cautious.

I bought a $4 (Free shipping) off-camera shutter for my camera from China and it's perfectly fine...

 

[Locut0s]

I wouldn't ever buy something directly from China. Ever.

Your loss. Certainly you have to be careful and I would never buy anything on eBay like this but there are plenty of cheap products made in China like non name brand TVs, DVD players, recorders and the like that aren't as bad as you might think. As always Caveat emptor.

 

[Zebo]

What is it with Chinese? They are the loudest, scammyist, rudest people in all Asia which normally are the best of peoples.

 

[Locut0s]

What is it with Chinese? They are the loudest, scammyist, rudest people in all Asia which normally are the best of peoples.

Well think of it this way. China is the US of Asia. The metaphor actually works quite well. Americans and Chinese share quite a few personality traits that they don't share between say Americans and Japanese which are culturally farther apart.