January 31, 2005
My Online auction experiences
These days I have been addicted to ebay, the online auction market.
My first sale on ebay was my portable TV, it was bought from empire direct for £ 110. Finally I managed to sell it for £ 90 when it was one year old last March, the ebay and paypal fee were actually quite expensive, so what i actually got was £ 83. When back to China, I sold my DC and mp3 player for around RMB 400 and RMB 300, they got a bargain I think, any way, it was better than dump them into the bin.
I was eventually feed up with my Sony MZ-N1 Minidisc Player, so I decided to buy a new potable player. iPod seems to be a good choice though the batteries life is disappointing. I bought a iPod photo 40G for only £ 295 on eBay, compare to the high street price £359, it was really a bargain! iPod was really a vampire, the main unit is expensive, the accessories come with it are far more expensive. I have sold the original iPod earphone for an amazingly high price £15 because on other auctions it was normally sold for around £10-12. I then bought a Sony earphone MDR-EX81SL from Japan for £35, it was a fantastic in-ear earphone. My first in-ear earphone was MDR-EX70SL(now it upgrades to MDR-EX70SL), bought for 350RMB 3 years ago, a very nice experience but it retired early last year. OK, I will have a good earphone, what about remote? There is no remote comes with ipod. I have to buy one. Amazon sells remote with earphone for £31.99, hey but I have already bought one! Here ebay comes again! Another £22 gone… iPod comes with no backup batteries pack, so another must buy.
Well I have spent a lot of money in a few days. I also have sold some items to recover around half the cost. The Yamaha EX-250 Keyboard was gone, it cost me £230, rarely used, but only sold for £140 (wanna cry!), the Saitek P2500 PC Rumble Force Pad sold for £16. ah… Now my MZ-N1 was on auction, I doubt it worth much money nowadays, so I set the starting price to be 99 pence!! Oh god! It cost me 2600 RMB 2 years ago !!!
On eBay you will notice that many items are very cheap, but beware that some people charge ridiculous p&p, they earn money from p&p. and there are also some guys are selling ipods for some cheap prices say £20, don't believe it and do check de description carefully, you may end up getting only a link (a pyramid program, get rewards for refering new members) for £20 pounds!!!
Although you can get cheap stuff from ebay, but you musy be very careful, you may also get rubbish for a lot of money,
Interestingly I encountered a guy called deane lliot. This guy emailed and told me he wanted to buy a my MD as a present for his friend in Africa, but will only send me the money through Western Union Money order. The trick is, he sent me a email using a free email account, this email pretends to be from Western Union, telling me that I have received a money order from deane, and I must send the item and tell them the tracking number, the I will be able to get the money. The guy’s trick was so naïve since at the end of the phishing email, it contains
“ Free, simple, fast, memorable email
Become you@EmailAccount.com at http://www.emailaccount.com/ “
What a joke! With no doubt, I have reported it to the Western Union officials. Sadly, I have not found any organizations that deal with internet fraud, even on the metropolitan police website, they said “we don’t deal with internet/auction fraud”
Have a look at the phishing email (l@@k at the end the this emai, what a JOKE!!):
===================================================
Dear ***,
Western Union ® Auction Payments hereby congratulate you and at the same time informing you once again that the ® Money OrderSM sent to you from Mr.Dean Elliot has been Approved.® Money OrderSM : £115. 00. Western Union® Auction Payments has received your email address from Mr. Mr.Dean Elliot to inform you of the order to have a £115. 00 Western Union® Money OrderSM sent to you for:
Auction Item : Sony MZ-N1 Blue Net MiniDisc Walkman
Auction Site : Amazon
Please verify that the following address (as entered by the buyer) is correct.
Name : ***
Address :***
City: ***
State : ***
Zip Code : ***
Country : United Kingdom
This order has been approved, we will send the above address payment in 5-7 business day. You can now send the items to the buyer now.If you are a registered seller at www.bidpay.com, These payment will be activated in you account with bidpay.com as soon as you ship and mail us the tracking number and if you are not registered make sure the tracking number is mailed to us as soon as you ship the item to the buyer and as soon as shipment is been confirmed and verified,you will rceive a notification letter which will tell you the date you cheque is going to arrive at your place. ®Money OrderSM, And if you have any question, feel free to contact our customer service (westerntransfered@emailaccount.com).
***Note that payment can be sent to the seller only if the item purchased has been sent to the buyer.***
If you are about to receive any other payment from western union auction payments,and it is not like these,make sure you confirm the payment from western union customercare before you ship the items to the buyer ...
Thank you for using Western Union ® Auction Payments. We look forward serving your online auction payment needs in the future.
Sincerely,
Western Union Auction Payments.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DO NOT REPLY THIS MAIL....
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free, simple, fast, memorable email
Become you@EmailAccount.com at http://www.emailaccount.com/
===================================================
THE END
Some GOOD Stuff for A EBYER
Posted by CY at January 31, 2005 02:08 AM | TrackBack
