Two days ago I bid on several audio items on EBay. The seller looked legitimate, with excellent feedback, and a long history. The items in question were Sequerra FM Reference tuner, Marantz 7C preamp, Threshold SA-1 Stasis monoblocks and a rare and beautiful set of monoblocks and preamp. I was drawn in because of the seemingly great deals, and actually won the Threshold SA-1s for $1,500. The Marantz I lost to someone else, and it sold for 2,400.00, while the winning bidder won the sequerra tuner for 1,800.00Looking at this you'll probably realize these are low prices for such desirable components, and it was this that began to concern me, despite the fact that the seller seemed very legitimate. The warning signs increased when he sent an invoice that found its way into my bulk-mail folder. I sent an email, requesting that the seller call me on my phone to work out the details - really what I was doing was seeing if this was some offshore scam. Sure enough the response was that he was currently at work and couldn't call. His manner of words was also strange, suggesting very broken english (although this in itself is not always an indicator). Furthermore he offered to ship the items for free - I knew something wasn't right. I then got an email from one of the other bidders kind enough to reach out and tell me that this was a scam and that ebay had advised her the invoice was not genuine.

Apparently what had happened was the original user's account had been 'hijacked' ie the scammer was using a legitimate user's file. I don't know about you, but this scares the living s**t out of me, because it becomes very difficult to tell whats on the level and what isn't.

I wanted to reach out to tell all the folks here, because I very nearly fell for it. Ebay seems a very risky proposition these days. To tell the truth I've lost several hundreds of dollars to bad sellers.
Does anyone else have bad experiences such as this. I would like to know, and perhaps learn how to avoid being shafted in the future.

Cheers