GNS 530 for $1000?!?!? Am I Missing Something?

These guys are pretty convincing! I haven't done an eBay transaction
in a while, so these scams (not scams in general) are new to me. I
hope I'm just naively surprised and that others aren't falling this!

I saw another add for a garmin 296, with 23 hours left and no bids on
it. The add looked professional and didn't have the "five at this
price" hoakiness about it. It was allegedly being sold from
California, and had all of the accessories. Another too good to be
true deal??? I sent an inquiry (using my GMail account), to confirm my
suspicions and got the following response.

==================================================
I'm willing to sell it for $500 . At this time I am located in Romania
and I can only take the payment through Western Union money transfer. I
will ship within 24 hours from the payment using the UPS Air Services
so that you may receive the unit in less then 72 hours. For our
protection we will do this deal trough ebay square trade company and
our transaction will be supervised by ebay safe harbour team. You will
be 100% protected against description error and fraud. I never make any
deal outside ebay. I will pay the shipping and handling taxes.
==================================================

Although, clearly a total scam... What's with the "eBay square trade
company", and the "eBay safe harbour team"? I haven't done any
research on this, but I'm assuming it's all out the window once you've
wired money Western Union?

I can certainly see people getting lulled in with a false sense of
security (not most people, but some)...

Bummer!!!

Best Regards,
Todd

In a previous article, "three-eight-hotel" said:
Although, clearly a total scam... What's with the "eBay square trade
company", and the "eBay safe harbour team"? I haven't done any
research on this, but I'm assuming it's all out the window once you've
wired money Western Union?


Yes, the guy is lying through his teeth. He's trying to do the deal
outside of eBay's auction system and outside eBay's payment system so that
you have no protection.

Another scam that sellers get hit with - somebody from outside your
country buys your item, but then they contact you to say "So and So in
your country owes me money, so rather than having to make two
international transactions, he'll send you a cashier's check and you
forward me the item plus the difference between your selling price and how
much the cashier's check is for." You go ahead and do that, but a few
days after you sent the item and the money, the bank tells you that the
casheir's check was a forgery and you owe them the money back. But in the
meantime the scammer got your item plus a hunk of your cash.

And you know all all those spams floating around saying "there is a
problem with your ebay account, click here to log in"? Anybody stupid
enough to click on the link provided has now given their eBay account
details to somebody who can and will now use it to buy or sell
fraudulently.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Today while watching people complain about the latest Windows worm outbreak, I
likened Windows users to people stuck in abusive relationships: they get beat
up over and over again, but they won't leave. -- Steve VanDevender

Anybody stupid
enough to click on the link provided has now given their eBay account
details to somebody who can and will now use it to buy or sell
fraudulently.



No!! anyone stupid enough to plug in their username & password, when you get
them keep them busy just start filling out the user name and pass with BS
info,