In message c50.1510a198.33b24ea7@aol.com, GandalfG8@aol.com writes:

Never buy anything from a userid that has zero feedback.

--
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phk@FreeBSD.ORG        | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer      | BSD since 4.3-tahoe
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

At 14.06 26/06/2007, Poul wrote:

... and, in particular, if he registered to ebay just the same day!

73 - Marco IK1ODO / AI4YF

GandalfG8@aol.com wrote:

Nigel, probably yes.  Some of the characters go on for weeks or months
with the same phony ads but with new or newly hi-jacked seller
identities.  There was one Racal dual receiver ebay ad, originally for
real,  that appeared over and over again at intervals for months, maybe
thirty or forty times in all...  It  sometimes used to take eBay days
to pull and NARU them, I would sometimes bid just to see how long they
did take, and also tell eBay, but that is a pretty thankless task.

The tell tale signs are many, asking for Western Union Money orders,
soliciting direct contact and so on.  Looking at the seller's other
items will give a clue often, if there are pages of lots of presumably
desirable goodies like Plasma TVs, laptops etc., listed very cheap.

The 5071 is quite a sophisticated item for the usual run of the mill
scammer though.  An odd choice.

73
Dan
ac6ao / g3ncr

One possible way of sorting out the scammers is to ask a simple question
which will get a "yes" from a scammer.

For example:  Please confirm your 5071 has the jack labled NTSC INPUT on
the back.

Tom Buehl

At 07:43 AM 6/26/2007 -0700, Dan Rae wrote:

Reminds me of a very funny exchange between John Miles and an eBay spammer:

Item: HP 8566B SPECTRUM ANALYZER (140015503492)
This message was sent while the listing was active.
jmiles(at)pop(-dot)net is a potential buyer.

Hi -- Does this 8566B include the optional waveguide gonkulator? Thanks!

From: ARTHUR MOORE <HYPERLINK
"mailto:arthumoore%40yahoo.com"arthumoore@yahoo.-com>
Subject: Re: Question for item #140015503492 - HP 8566B SPECTRUM ANALYZER

Yes include the optional waveguide gonkulator. What price you have in mind
for it?

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of buehl
Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 10:11 AM
To: danrae@verizon.net; Discussion of precise time and frequency
measurement; Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Ebay 5071A scam back again?

One possible way of sorting out the scammers is to ask a simple question
which will get a "yes" from a scammer.

For example:  Please confirm your 5071 has the jack labled NTSC INPUT on
the back.

Tom Buehl

At 07:43 AM 6/26/2007 -0700, Dan Rae wrote:

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time-nuts@febo.com
https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts

Hi All,
I've reported this listing (as I'm sure others have done). The scammers
do often list unusual items of high value and rarity. I think it's
because they get better visibility, not just another TV or laptop. I've
sold jet engines on eBay and had my photo's and description copied by
scammers. The best question to as is "can I (or my mate if it's in
another country) pick it up and pay cash?" If they say yes then do go
and pick it if you win. Another thing I've done is to use a "spare" eBay
account to run the price to an extremely high level.

Robert.

-----Original Message-----
From: time-nuts-bounces@febo.com [mailto:time-nuts-bounces@febo.com] On
Behalf Of Dan Rae
Sent: 26 June 2007 15:44
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Ebay 5071A scam back again?

GandalfG8@aol.com wrote:

5071A

Nigel, probably yes.  Some of the characters go on for weeks or months
with the same phony ads but with new or newly hi-jacked seller
identities.  There was one Racal dual receiver ebay ad, originally for
real,  that appeared over and over again at intervals for months, maybe
thirty or forty times in all...  It  sometimes used to take eBay days
to pull and NARU them, I would sometimes bid just to see how long they
did take, and also tell eBay, but that is a pretty thankless task.

The tell tale signs are many, asking for Western Union Money orders,
soliciting direct contact and so on.  Looking at the seller's other
items will give a clue often, if there are pages of lots of presumably
desirable goodies like Plasma TVs, laptops etc., listed very cheap.

The 5071 is quite a sophisticated item for the usual run of the mill
scammer though.  An odd choice.

73
Dan
ac6ao / g3ncr

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I think you were probably right, Nigel.  About eight people bid for
it on the final day, and it eventually went for over a thousand
pounds (~$2000).  However,  while I had it on my watch list, it has
now disappeared, and can no longer be found - unlike other items I
had been watching and which were sold with no problems.  I had been
interested to see what the feedback to the seller was like, but I
presume it was, as you suggested, phoney, and ebay removed all trace
of the sale.

TTFN,

	Peter

Peter,

one day before the end of the auction i put forward the question to the
seller whether he was willing to demonstrate me the working order of the
device at its location Hockley/Sussex. It would have taken me

1/2 hour driving to Bremem airport

2 hours flying to London/Hansted for 29.99 € with RyanAir

1 hour of driving to Hockley

and the same route back, which would have been worth the device.
However, I received no answer and my question did not appear on the ebay
page. So, you are MOST probably right!

73 de Ulrich, DF6JB