Chombi1 

MAVIC SSC 851 870 Groupset vintage groupe MODOLO SPIDEL ROLLS | eBay | eBay
Are they so dumb to think anyone would fall for such!??

16Victor

Listing removed... What was the deal?

trailangel

Mavic groupset for $25

qcpmsame 

I simply report these scam artist, pretty much they get quickly removed by eBay. As many listings as they have its difficult to head them off, but it would be grand to see one or twenty of them get busted for fraud and theft.

Bill

zammykoo

I still see them pop up all the time but luckily are easy to spot. Just gets annoying that they flood the listings.

nlerner

No need to get your knickers in a twist.

Spaghetti Legs 

They occur in waves, easy to spot. You'd think they would hook more gullible folks by listing for a more believable price. Maybe they're thinking $20, people would just walk away from it without making a stink.

davester

How does the scam work? What happens if you hit buy it now then they don't deliver and you request a PayPal refund?

mapleleafs-13 

paypal will always refund your money if you didn't get the package or make a claim generally. As a joke i bought something that was listed as a fraction of the price. I had a feeling it was a scam but tried it anyways as there was nothing to lose. I'm an experienced ebayer but it was more or less a test. Of course the item never came, i filed with paypal and money was returned.

Majority of the time paypal sides with the buyer if he/she has a valid complaint. I'd say from what i've seen and heard it's about 9 times out of 10 paypal sides with buyer. I myself have not had many claims ever against myself and i've done thousands of transactions bike related and none bike related. In that time frame i've had about 3-4 claims against myself. I've had ebay actually side with me on all times because of my feedback and the way i describe the item. If you have clear photos and detailed descriptions of the items and ship with tracking then you're saved most of the time depending on your ebay reputation.

MaximumCoast

I actually just bought something using Buy It Now on eBay, a very worn Dura Ace 7400 mini group. Once I hit buy it now eBay suggested something else I may like... the exact same listing, except from a REAL seller with a real price (like $140) versus the Buy It Now I just confirmed at $28 dollars.

I reported the listing I just purchased, asked to cancel the order, then went on a hunt and found lots of other listings from sellers with 0 feedback, shipping from China and where I could easily search for the same thing and find the listing they copied to make their own bogus one.

For a second there I was on top of the world with my purchase, haha.

clubman 

The Golden Boy 

Why is it always $28?

sdn40

Cheap enough to lure - expensive enough to make it worthwhile

CroMo Mike 

$28 is probably just below a threshold where they don't get into any serious trouble under China's laws.

pcb 

If the buyer cares enough to file a dispute, since nothing is ever shipped, ebay should always side with the buyer and refund the buyer's payment.

I'm not fer sure how the scam works, but I'm guessing the sellers open up a paypal account under an alias, try to sell a lot quickly, hoover the funds out of paypal as soon as they hit, then vanish before ebay processes the dispute and paypal tries to claw the funds back. You don't care about your negative paypal balance if it's a bogus account, as is surely the backup bank account linked to the bogus paypal acct. Anyhow, that's the only way the scheme makes senses to me.

So ebay/paypal are the parties that lose.

francophile 

This is what it is, in a nutshell, and it's a hassle. I report at least two dozen a week I'll find in the evening/morning and eBay removes pretty quickly. It's obviously still lucrative enough they're posting dozens per day in misc categories. Vintage bikes just happens to be one of the two categories I watch where I'm seeing it.

For anyone reading this far, here's how you can protect yourself, this is the signature of the listing you want to avoid:

- Listing is less than $50 for something normally costing 5x as much or more (like, you and I would qualify as a "steal".)
- Listing is always buy it now/OBO with free shipping, both are absurd for the already-low price
- Seller is from China
- Seller is new / 0 feedback
- Seller's name is complete gibberish or random looking
- Looking at seller's 'other items' returns nothing OR duplicates, or several similar lowballs

As it is, a zero feedback seller should be a huge red flag. The fact that, for example, a full Campy or Mavic group is being sold out of a communist country not necessarily known for its exquisite taste it high-end vintage cycling stuff should be another huge red flag. The insanely low price with a "Best Offer" option should be another big red flag. The fact it would cost more to ship the item than the actual buy-it-now price should be another whopper of a red flag.

Two red flags on one item should be enough for 90% of us to turn away. I went ahead and bought one anyway when these first started listing just to figure out the angle. Now I'm hoping these idiots aren't also harvesting buyer information to, for example, attempt to hijack your PayPal account or sell for identify theft purposes on the darkweb. Remember, your address, email, PayPal ID are all given to the seller when you make the purchase. Usually when the well runs dry on a cyberscam, the scammers are smart enough to look at it from another angle to continue milking money. these guys aren't stupid - so you shouldn't be either... don't play ball with them and you can't lose...

francophile 

PS- if anyone on eBay is reading this, y'all need to pay me with how much money I've saved you during the last couple months flagging these for you!!

mapleleafs-13 

but here's the thing. A lot of time for new accounts or some accounts they withhold the money for a month or so before they release it to you, so i don't think ebay or paypal loses.

They're far to smart and big of a corporation to lose money, they're all in this to make money. I'm sure they would have figured a way to correct people trying to withdraw and scam the money quick.

francophile 

According to the last guy I bought a bike from that "couldn't afford to ship it because eBay was holding the funds as a new seller", they released them in 7 days. After 7 days, he came after me for more money because he wasn't happy with the shipping he collected after getting quotes. Ended up in dispute, he lost, I got my refund, he got his negative feedback for being sketchy.

Side rant: This whole "miscalculated shipping" thing seems to happen far too often with eBay bikes, another reason I wrote off eBay recently, only to have my first bike purchase week before last from New Hampshire ending the same way - buyer wants me to local pickup and he'll refund 60% of the price I paid for [bike+ship] but I'm nowhere near Alstead, New Hampshire and don't know anyone near there willing to facilitate. Awesome bike too. Killer price. Seller won't even let me pay the extra for shipping.

But anyway, back to topic... Thing about stuff from China is, many eBay sellers from China will tell you it takes 6-8 weeks to ship. They cut the window exceptionally close to the time period you have to file a claim with eBay. I've actually lost out by waiting. Most buyers will start to worry after 5-10 days of no shipping, but they could be gone with it by then. These sellers could also mark it shipped and tell you shipping is slow and you won't know until weeks later.

eBay cancelled my sale within 24 hours, so apparently someone reported it before I bought and eBay investigated (thanks, kind stranger). They also failed to refund my money so I had to file a claim.

But yeah ... I see a lot of ways you could get away with this. They can't hold your money forever.

Fishergrad08

Thanks. I'm new to this, and not sure how to do that, but i'll look around. Thanks!

BillyD

One of the staff is working on it. Soon.

StanSeven

Post moved as a new thread in Appraisals/What's it worth

randyjawa 

I was just doing an advanced search on Ebay for a Shimano Arabesque group price...



and was shocked to see that over 14 complete groups, from China, sold for roughly $20.00 a set. I had no idea the scam from China was that bad. I do wonder how they do it.

MaximumCoast

I just spent the last 20 minutes flagging fraudulent posts on eBay. Just doing a search for "shimano group" there's an insane amount of mini groups, groupsets, new, used, etc. from China sellers with 0 feedback and a similar random string of text and numbers as a user name. What's funny is that when you click on one of these "eBay suggests" something I may like since I'm viewing this. The suggestions are actually the original listings they're copying, word for word, pictures and all, except the original has a seller with feedback and they're asking market prices, not $25 dollar buy it now deals =P

It's shockingly rampant!

qcpmsame 

One quick clue, besides an insane price and zero feedback, is the picture(s), as @MaximumCoast alluded to above, usually a single picture though and its stolen too. They pick a good image for the item they are pitching, and just copy and paste it. I've seen images from here used by them also. Like many have said, you can spend hours just picking these up and reporting them. I have way too much time on my hands early in the morning.

Bill