So I listed my iPhone on eBay this past Monday hoping to sell it and buy the new iPhone 3G S. I went to bed that night and when I woke up, I checked my email to find that someone had committed to “Buy it Now” for $450.
The buyer, whose alias was kammanns828287, had a 0 feedback score on eBay. After contacting this person all day and receiving no reply, I received an email the next day from a so-called “Stella Jones” claiming to have paid me via PayPal and asking me to ship the iPhone to her son in Nigeria:
Greetings to you. I am Stella Jones from US. I’m contacting you concerning your item on EBay, I’m presently in London on a business trip and intend sending this item to my son who works with the United Kingdom Embassy in Nigeria as a gift, I checked through USPS (WWW.USPS.com) website and found out that the postage cost to Nigeria is $100, so i have just made a swift payment to you via PayPal.
Read the full iPhone scam e-mail here.
After that, I received a fake PayPal email, with subject PAYPAL PAYMENT CONFIRMATION ID#30688737FG3075722, claiming “You have an Instant Payment of US $550.00 from Stella Jones to your account for an eBay item through PayPal.”
There was, in fact, no money in my PayPal account. So I have relisted the iPhone and reported the user who scammed me so that eBay doesn’t charge me the fees I have been billed.
It concerns me that on my current iPhone auction on eBay, there are a couple of persistent bidders with 0 feedback scores. I want to sell this iPhone already, because I’m leaving on a trip tomorrow for a week, but I have little confidence that I won’t be scammed again.
A search on Twitter confirms that I’m not the only one who has been scammed on eBay trying to sell/buy an iPhone.
Has anyone else been scammed on eBay when trying to sell OR buy an iPhone? Please share if you have had a similar experience.