Try before you buy

[SwissJon]

I saw in my local small ads (Equivalent to Gum Tree) someone was selling a D700. Nothing unduasual about that.. Until I saw the price.. It was about half what they normally sell for.. Ok, so it's probably stolen or found thinks I, or maybe the guy is desparate to get rid of it because f the iminent arrival of the D800 (we hope!).. Anyway, I sends the guy an email, asking for more details, as the photos look pretty good.

The response made me start to question (Translated from French which had obviously been translated into French from another language)..

Dear Sir.

I am selling this D700 hardly used because I have upgraded to a D7000. The price is set to be competitive for other similar cameras like the D70.

Unfortunately I'm travelling in Asia at the moment and am unable to show this to you, but if you send me the payment via Western Union, I will ask my neighbour to send the camera to you.

Jim

Now anytime anyone wants me to send payment for something unseen that's at a price too good to be true, alarm bells ring.. Even at half the going price, a broken or non-existent camera is not worth the money. So I send another email and saying that I'm happy to hand the money to the neighbour in exchange for the camera, or go with the neighbour to the Wetern Union, but I really need to see the camera before I buy it.

I got a response last night:

Dear Sir,

Unfortunately my neighbour is old and unable to get out of the house to the Western Union with you. Please send me a deposit of half the money and I will ask the neighbour to send you the camera, and you can send the rest when it arrives.

Jim

Odd.. how is his neighbour going to get to the post office to send it if they can't get out of the house? Alarm bells were ringing.. I'm not going to hand over cash without seeing what I'm buying. At the same time I got a message from the small ads company stating

Dear Sir,

We notice that you have had dealings with this user. Unfortunately we have had to withdraw their account and everything that they had put up for sale because their activity was suspicious and we have reports of transactions not being completed. We recommend that you have nothing further to do with this user and simply don't reply to their communications.

Kind Regards

Anibis (The Small Ads company)

Well that sealed the deal.. I'll have nothing further to do with this person.. Shame.. I wanted a D700. No such thing as a bargin in this world.. I guess I'll have to wait a bit.

[gturner]

Crickey Jon... it took your 3 emails to work it out?
half price, travelling in asia and the famous - western union payment method. LOL

[John Hendry]

Originally Posted by gturner

Crickey Jon... it took your 3 emails to work it out?
half price, travelling in asia and the famous - western union payment method. LOL

Yea!!!

[NgaiHill]

A similar thing happened to me a couple of years ago. We have an auction website in NZ called Trade Me - like EBay I guess. Anyway I hit the Buy Now on a compressor, don't remember how much it was but more than lunch money. I got an automated email shortly after with the direct deposit payment details. I have in the past immediately made payment prior to contacting the seller. In this case I decided to wait and make the payment the next day. No other reason than it was after 5pm so the payment wouldn't go through that day anyway. Next morning I got an email from Trade Me admin saying pretty much the same thing, that the seller's account had been suspended and all auctions withdrawn due to suspicious behaviour and some complaints.
So I never made the payment and didn't even bother to contact the seller. And they never tried to contact me to complete the sale. But lucky that I decided to delay making that payment!

[SwissJon]

LoL.. I'm not that niaive.. I had it sussed from the moment I saw the price.. $900 for a "almost new" D700?? Yeah right.. But on the off chance it was legit and the owner had no idea what it was worth, I figured I'd give it a punt. 2 mins of my time to send an email to find out what's what, with the potential of a real bargin.. No skin off my nose, costs me nada.

Just thought I'd post this here because recently there have been a lot of people asking about cheap software and stuff.. You know what they say.. If it looks too good to be true, it usually is.

[BuddhaPi]

and the really positive side to this is he has now sold your email to 1000's of spammers, so in the end he still makes something for nothing, and your account get s blasted...

[NathanFranke]

Saw this a few years ago, and I think it applies.

Fight fire with fire. Give them the rope to hang themselves.

[SwissJon]

Originally Posted by BuddhaPi

and the really positive side to this is he has now sold your email to 1000's of spammers, so in the end he still makes something for nothing, and your account get s blasted...

Anibis does not forward email addresses to recipients for communication initiated through their website. So I don't have his, and he doesn't have mine.. Al communication was done through an intermediory mailbox on their webserver. LoL.. I haven't given away my secret address yet!