Originally Posted by schwinnderella
Here is my strangest experience as a seller,nothing to do with bikes.
I bought a inboard boat brochure (I do not remember the brand) at a garage sale for 25 cents and listed it on ebay.I was most surprised when the auction ended at $108.00.
Shortly after the end of the auction I received an email from someone saying if the deal fell through he would give me $200.00 for the brochure.
Shortly after that the winning bidder emailed to say that no one would pay $108.00 for that brochure!He offered something around half of the winning bid.I was not sure where he was coming from as that is what he bid and won the auction.
At this point I began to wonder if there was some sort of scam at work but I could not see what it was.I thought perhaps once I let the winner off the hook the other person would no longer be interested.I did not see how I had much to lose as it looked like the winner would not pay for it anyway So
I told the winning bidder that if he did not want to pay the $108.00 I would let him off the hook and relist it.After 10 days when I had not heard from him ,nor received his payment I emailed the guy who offered $200.00 for it,told him the deal fell through and I would sell to him for $200.00.I was certain he would no longer be interested or would offer to pay the winning amount of $108.00 or even less.Not so he sent me a money order for $200.00 and I sent him the brochure.
That is indeed strange.. it _almost_ sounds like two other type of scam situations, but not quite.. The first being where somebody sells a *photo* of an item rather than the item itself. Somewhere in the text of the auction they say that they are selling the picture, not the item, but most people don't see it or ignore it because it seems absurd. You send them the money, they send you the photo.
The other is the fake bank check scam, where they offer you more money than the item sold for, and want you to refund them the difference along with the item. A month later, your bank tells you the check was fake, and you're out all the money and the item.