I trade on ebay all the time and have never had a problem. The best way to buy on ebay is to only buy from reputable sellers. Ebay has a feedback system that works wonders. If someone has a large number of positive feedbacks you'll be just fine. If someone has a low number of feedbacks insist on escrow for large items or use a credit card through ebay billing or paypal. I have a merchant account through ebay billing and had to go through a credit check to get it established. trading online is a safe way of buying or selling items, if you use the tools that ebay has set up for your protection. -----Original Message----- From: Bob Austin [mailto:thataway4@cox.net] Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 12:35 PM To: 1trawler world Subject: TWL: Purchase on E Bay I belong to a photographers forum where there have been a number of scams on E bay. Many valid idenities have been stolen, including Pay Pal accounts. Things that were cautioned to watch out for: If a deal seems too good to be true--it probably is a scam. If the seller wants cash, cashiers check or Western Union, instead of an escrow account, Pay Pal or a credit card. If the seller will not give you his phone number and address--so you can check it with a reverse trace phone book. Ask for photographs of the item in different positions than in the E bay listing. Arrange to have a friend or yourself meet the person to make the transaction--or to varify the condition of the item. Look of it the seller has a large number of expensive items for sale. There are many good sellers, but after having seen some of these scams tracked down I would be very cautious Regards. Bob Austin

Kevin, I may have not made my point clear--I am speaking of identity thief--The scam artist had some how hacked a legitimate seller, with good E bay standing's Identity--and had scamed over $7,000 in a couple of days! I suspect this is just the tip of the ice berg. If you want to read the entire dialogue of what happened this is the web site: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1019&message=2468385 from start to finding out about the scam--very frightening! Bob Austin ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Sanders" <KSanders@gci.com> To: "'Bob Austin'" <thataway4@cox.net>; "1trawler world" <trawler-world-list@samurai.com> Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 3:59 PM Subject: RE: Purchase on E Bay > I trade on ebay all the time and have never had a problem. > > The best way to buy on ebay is to only buy from reputable sellers. Ebay has > a feedback system that works wonders. If someone has a large number of > positive feedbacks you'll be just fine. > > If someone has a low number of feedbacks insist on escrow for large items or > use a credit card through ebay billing or paypal. I have a merchant account > through ebay billing and had to go through a credit check to get it > established. > > trading online is a safe way of buying or selling items, if you use the > tools that ebay has set up for your protection. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Bob Austin [mailto:thataway4@cox.net] > Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2002 12:35 PM > To: 1trawler world > Subject: TWL: Purchase on E Bay > > > I belong to a photographers forum where there have been a number of scams on > E bay. Many valid idenities have been stolen, including Pay Pal accounts. > > Things that were cautioned to watch out for: If a deal seems too good to be > true--it probably is a scam. > If the seller wants cash, cashiers check or Western Union, instead of an > escrow account, Pay Pal or a credit card. > If the seller will not give you his phone number and address--so you can > check it with a reverse trace phone book. > Ask for photographs of the item in different positions than in the E bay > listing. Arrange to have a friend or yourself meet the person to make the > transaction--or to varify the condition of the item. Look of it the > seller has a large number of expensive items for sale. > > There are many good sellers, but after having seen some of these scams > tracked down I would be very cautious > > Regards. > > Bob Austin >