PSA: How to spot deals that are too good to be true.

[starry]

Edit: Upon thinking about it with more than two brain cells I have realized that this belongs in General Discussion. My bad. Please feel free to move, youll get no complaints from me. Sorry for the trouble.

 

So recently I was browsing ebay and I came across a graphics card selling scam that had quite a few sales already. No doubt taking advantage of GPU shortages to make a quick buck. I know a lot of people on this forum want graphics cards really bad, so Im writing this as a PSA on how to not be taken advantage of.

Spoiler

 

 

How do I know this is a scam? I dont, there is no sure way to tell, all we can do as consumers is make the most informed purchases we can, and this is part of that process.

I will be calling it a scam going forward regardless because I find it extremely likely. If something is sketchy, you shouldn't put your money it in regardless of what it could or couldn't be.

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Basic things to look for to spot a scam operation:

 

 

1. Are there multiple listings around the same absurdly low price for the same things?

 

Id say so in this case. If you look closer, they are all new listings as well, which is actually very important. It means that ebay has been taking their listenings down so they keep having to make new ones.

So why doesnt ebay just ban their account? Well that leads me to the second thing on my list.

 

 

 

2. Really look at the sell accounts for each of the listings.

 

 

The first thing I notice when looking at this is that all of these listings are from different accounts. The second thing I notice is that none of these have any history of touching the used computer hardware space. If we delve deeper into their accounts, and look closer at the reviews, this becomes even more apparent.

 

Spoiler

 

You get the idea.

So where do these accounts come from? They are most likely compromised single person seller accounts that have good standing that scammers are using to make the listings look legit. They have traits such as 100% positive feedback, account is many years old, etc. This is also used to bypass a lot of the scam protections ebay has for new accounts.

 

To summarize, dont be one of these people:

 

Never put your money in something so shady, always be skeptical of the person you are buying from, and if its too good to be true, it probably is.

 

Edited March 21, 2021 by starry
oops

[Levent]

Alternative title: How to have a common sense (particularly when buying a computer part).