Is it a scam? Cautionary tale?

Last week I came across a listing on eBay for a 552 & PS with a starting price of £399 + £49 postage.

Thats too good to be true I thought.
But stuck a bid on it anyway :grin:

And won - at £1599!

So I sent some messages & got no reply - strange?

I then went through the listing & its a bit weird…
It was listed in Businesses for Sale, on a 3 day listing, the item location is listed as “NEW” & the expected delivery date is 24 May.

After some googling I found that there is a scam where if its listed in Business for Sale, you pay but they don’t send you anything, eBays Money Back Guarantee doesn’t apply.

I’ve not paid anything & raised the issue with eBay - I now have to wait 3 days to see if the seller responds & then talk to eBay again about next steps.

Just thought people should know.
Beware black boxes that appear too cheap - they probably are!

Beware. Many years ago I put in a bid for a Naim 300, at a reasonable price (not terribly cheap, but a good price). This was on Craigslist. Paid the money (I know - I was young(er) and innocent(ish) then). Heard nothing. Talked to the seller’s bank (Barclay) - not interested.

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I’m always suspicious of short sale times because anyone selling would normally want to maximise exposure, but I was totally unaware of thar loophole for scammers - thanks for the heads up, and do keep us posted if/as anything develops.

Where exactly did you find it stating it was under businesses for sale? If using the search facility, as I type a list of options appears below, so Naim comes up with
Naim
in home audio & hifi separates
And presumably one could appear that says “in businesses for sale”, but when you have the listing already open how do you find that info?

They can legitimately have a low starting bid price, as often that actually promotes more interest and a hence higher end price, though the seller takes a risk (unless they set a reserve price).

If you just search for “Naim” the default is “Home Audio Systems”.
If you change the selection to All Categories you get everything on eBay for Naim.
Then right at the top you get (in very small font) Listed in category: …

There’s a long list of categories that aren’t cover by the money back guarantee - but being eBay its not exactly obvious!

I wonder if there is a way of seeing the “listed under” when you’ve already opened the item listing

Yes, at the top…

That is searching, not checking the listing you’re already looking at.

However, I’ve spotted the key thing, more important perhaps than the category it is listed under given that, as you said, there are multiple exclusions. If it is covered by tge money back scheme you should see this:
image
Also of course, for anything pf significant cost it is always a good idea to check out the seller’s feedback, though these days not as useful as it used to be, and ask some pertinent questions about the item to see if it ‘feels’ right.

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