My dream car

As we all know, ebay is THE place to find almost everything you are looking for at a reasonable price.I found my dream car on ebay. A beautiful shiny purple XR 8 falcon. Andlook at the starting bid price! WOW!! I can afford that! and look atthe buy it now option. That can't be right?? these things are worth 5times that! O.K. I'm interested. No, more than interested. I WANT IT! YESTERDAY!!Lets contact the seller (the seller wants you to contact them to beplaced on the approved bidders list). Contact email was sent throughebay together with an O.K whats wrong with the car question. Email promptly returned with the response that there is nothing wrongwith the car, just can't be registered in the USA. Alright then, soundsreasonable. Me thinks that there is still something suspicious aboutthe deal.The next series of emails happen outside of ebay as the seller usesyour personal email address for all further correspondence. O.K said I,I'll buy the car from you and have it shipped back to Australia. IProvided the requested details of who I was and where the car was to beshipped to the seller. Bingo the cars mine I thinks. I return to ebayto complete the buy it now option. Thats strange. The advert hasdissapeared. Oh, well me thinks. The seller has removed the ad due tome offering to buy the car.The next email requests that I send via Western union, a deposit tostart the shipping ball rolling. Um, sorry mister seller, can't do thatits outside the ebay rules and not safe to do so. No problem repliesthe seller, we'll use an escrow agent appointed by the shipping companyto handle the transaction and that way your money will be safe andwon't be released until the car arrives and you're satisfied with it. Ihave arranged buyers insurance to further protect your money for you.The car will arrive in 5 - 6 days. Alarm bells start to ring. A shipthat can sail from America to Australia after waiting to be loaded thatquick!WOW!! I think I want the ship intead (It's obviously faster thanthe car!!). Bugger it, I want the ship so I can enter the Americas cupand win it for Australia. We're going to be GUARANTEED to win it again!I send the seller another request email to obtain all the essentialinformation about the car. i.e. Registration number, VIN number Enginenumber etc. I think I'll play the game and see where it leads. Itshighly unlikely that I'm really going to get the car that cheap butstranger things have been known to happen. You know the story, a friendof a friend of mine bought this car real cheap as the result of divorceproceedings etc. The ad is at least no longer on ebay. The seller saisno problem, here are the details of the car you require.Shortly thereafter, an email arrives from a US shipping company. Anindependant escrow agent has been appointed and the Western Uniontransfer needs to be made to this 3rd party in order to commence theshipping process. OK, the email looks official, has a shipping trackingnumber that can be traced. Even has a fax number to send the paymentdetails to.I decide I best look a little deeper. A good search engine locates theshipping company for me no problem. I enter the tracking number andalas its no good. It's Sunday in the US the shipping company is closeduntil Monday. It's possible that the details haven't hit their systemyet.I decide that speaking to the seller is a good idea at this point andrequest a telephone number. It is provided no problem. Gee, the numberis even in America (and the right part of it). So is the faxnumber. I check the World time and find the time that isn't themiddle of the night over there. It is here though!I place the call and the phone rings. An answering machine picks up soI leave a message. At least the number I have been given actuallyexists.I get another email from the seller. Sorry I'm not home yet, give meyour number and I'll call you when I get home. OK. Sounds fair I sayand provide my number.An hour or so later the phone rings. Alright the time difference is spot on! I'm on the phone to the seller at 3am our time.Why are you selling so cheap I ask? The explanation that followedsounded reasonable enough. The car was won in a raffle while on holidayhere and looked great, so I shipped it home with me. Found I couldn'tregister the car here and since it doesn't owe me anything..........O.K. The story all fits together very nicely. The seller has madesomething that seemed highly unlikely seem very possible indeed. I maybe getting the deal of my lifetime after all.Next step. I'm armed with all the necessary numbers to start checkingthe cars history. Before I spend any money, lets find out if the car isstolen. (You would think so at the price!) No, not stolen and thenumbers I have been given all check out. Hey wow! the car really doesexist!! This is starting to look a little more promising!I decide I'll have another late night and call the shipping company onthe phone number I got from their legitimate web site just to be sure.I decide that following the email link probably wouldn't be wise. Thatbell is still making some noise!Hey, the car exists and the numbers I have all match up with the rightcar and the reason for selling makes sense. The car hasn't beenreported as stolen. I have an email from a shipping company that islegitimate and their website tells me about their escrow methods andthat also rings true with what I've been told so far.The little bell starts to fade further as my fears are slowly beingeroded away by the legitimacy of what I'm discovering. I get a feelingcome over me that I have seen this car somewhere before. Still have torun the securities check yet to make sure the car isn't subject tofinance, but since I haven't spent any money yet I may as well speak tothe shipping company just to be sure. Its only going to cost the priceof a phone call and a little more lost sleep!I'm sitting in front of the computer waiting for the shipping companyto open. Got their US telephone number in front of me on theirlegitimate website. Toll free number too!I'll just have a look around and see what these cars are currentlyworth in the dealers while I wait for the time difference. I have alook at the cars guide website and type into the search what I'm aboutto hopefully buy extremely cheap!WOW!! Look at that!! Its the car that I'm getting shipped from the US!!How can that be possible? The rego number is in the picture!Sensational! I don't have to stay up and call the shipping company asthe car is already here!! AND the showroom that its sitting in is only10 minutes away from me!! I hurriedly fire off an email to the dealer.Do you still have the car? Can you call me when you open? Can I have itfor $8500.00? Get a call from the dealer early the following morning.HA HA, sais the sales rep. VERY FUNNY! We can certainly accomodate youin the purchase of this vehicle sir, we can even offer immediatedelivery. I' m looking at the car through the window at the moment. Butterribly sorry on the price old chap!I let them in on the story. Suffice to say they weren't overly happy asthe dealer just happens to be a long established and very reputabledealer!I suddenly realised at that moment, that yes I had indeed seen this carbefore. The pictures of it on the dealer site were the exact same onesfrom the ebay ad and I had actually looked at this car on the web a fewmonths ago.The article you have just read, is true in every detail.All I can say is that if a deal appears to be too good to be true itprobably is. I went into this sale with my eyes open and was preparedto check every detail of the sale before committing any of my hardearned. I even checked the sellers feedback score and comments. Theseller hadn't actually sold anything recently but had a GREAT feedbackscore and comments.PLEASE, if you happen on a deal like this one, tread carefully and beprepared to check everything before spending any of your money. Makesure you get all the right information and check it thoroughly. Don'tfollow email links. The emails that I received from the shippingcompany appeared authentic. And HEED THE WARNINGS ISSUED BY EBAYREGARDING MONEY TRANSFERS.It is better to have a few late nights checking information beforeparting with your hard earned money than the hassles you would havetrying to get it back!I imagine I would have discovered the truth anyway when I spoke to the shipping company.Fortunatley, this episode has only cost me 2 short phone calls to theUS and a bit of lost sleep. It would have cost me a lot more had I notbeen prepared to check the authenticity of the deal.Hope this helps you avoid the sharks in some small way and saves you a few dollars as well.The incident has been officially reported to ebay.