Strange ebay Gaggia offers

This fact pattern stinks loudly of ebay scam . Run, do not walk to the nearest exit. If you have bid, cancel it. If you've "won", don't send any money.

Don't depend on "buyer protection" - presumably you want to buy an espresso machine and not a lengthy claims process to recover your own money, and your chances of ever getting an espresso machine from one of these "sellers" is close to zero.

Someone should notify ebay immediately of the suspicious nature of these sellers. Although they don't appear to have done anything wrong YET, it appears to be only a matter of time before they harvest some money from the unwary. The images and I assume the descriptions are from the Amazon site, another sign that the "seller" has never actually seen one. If you look at their other auctions, they are not only "selling" Gaggias, but Amazon's whole lineup - Capresso , FF, etc.

They don't have to be concerned that the machines are going cheap due to low feedback, as they ain't sending none anyway. Whatever money you send is pure profit to this scammer - potentially many thousands of dollars.

I would guess these sellers are all pseudonyms for the same person. I wouldn't touch them is used. If new, I would be careful how I paid.

Basically, you have a significant chance of fraud. Is the savings worth the hassle and possible loss? That is a personal decision.

J> I noticed this as well

Or they fell off the proverbial truck.

Also be wary of offers from the sellers to those who did not win the auction to sell the item at a reduced price. A while back there was an eBay scam involving Krups Superauto machines where the seller requested direct payment via wire transfer to a bank account in Eastern Europe. It was shut down pretty quickly. As noted, the best defense is to be cautious.

In article , Ted8984 @hotmail.com says... ~ I have noticed a large number of Gaggia machines offered on ebay over ~ the last few days. They all seem to be offered by a few sellers who ~ have been members of ebay for just a few days. They all have zero ~ feedback. The sellers claim to be located in PA, WI, IN and CA. ~ Their names are strange: sybosyl, dyvab, hitarav, wevedyd, nixenyf. ~ (Are these sellers on this list to defend themselves?) ~ ~ Of course these are warning signs of potential fraud. But the prices ~ on their machines may be lower because of their lack of feedback and ~ the oversupply of machines they listed simultaneously. Would you take ~ a risk here? I've read about buyer protection on the ebay site. But ~ how does it work in practice? ~ Buyer protection works if the item is not delivered, or if the item delivered is very different from what was advertised. It doesn't work if the item delivered is the same as advertised but is not in the condition advertised. I bought a machine advertised as "clean throughout, mint, perfect working order". It was filthy, inoperative, scratched and dented. I provided photos to eBay, PayPal and Square Trade. All the buyer had to do was say he didn't share my view and wouldn't go to arbitration, and that was the end of it.

I've since reconditioned the machine and it works great, but I overpaid for it because of the supposedly great condition.

Rick

No, the scammer would like you to think that. Part of every "con" game is than the "con" man takes you into his confidence so that the two of you can "scam" a third party. In fact the only person being scammed is you.

I repeat again, there are no machines, period.

Chances are that "winning" this auction is just part one of the scam. Part II would be, that, as you say, the non-winning bidders would be contacted and offered the same "bargain" (for which there would be no ebay protection at all). Part III would be for them to get you to send your money in some untraceable way, via Western Union , to a fake escrow site, by wire transfer, etc.

I agree.

I was curious because the description of the Gaggia Baby was obviously written by someone who had used it, or at least looked at it carefully. Google revealed the seller had lifted the descriptive text from

- Owen (who doesn't really *need* another Gaggia in his life right now...)

Ive noticed the same thing, but the usernames are not the ones you listed. The ones I am seeing look to be one person selling under 2 or more different usernames. All in Virgina,they have listed Gaggia Babys, Francis Francis, Juras and others.

No feedback at all (new member on the day they listed auctions) Descriptions of items are copied from online reviews. Look at the bidders, the same people seem to be "bidding" on all of what is listed.

I emailed about one auction, I guess we will see if I get a reply, somehow I doubt it.

The shipping prices are too low, also.

Boron

One of their auction descriptions is taken right off of WLL's website word for word.

--Terry

indeed, I was watching some of them and they simply disappeared!

how about using paypal to make payment?

I bid and won a Briel EG281APG Multi-Pro.

so I sent the following to the seller: =======you are a new seller and not registered and you description is a direct copy from

I would like to use an escrow account for payment. any problem with using an escrow account? ============ I will wait to see what the response is!

Dennis "who is not even sure what an escrow account really is" Reed

write back again and tell them you'll pay when you receive merchandise......

Gary (my new/used grinder is on its way!!!)

Ask him to mail you a digital photo of himself holding the machine. Also name address and phone number where you can call him directly. Also an explanation for why he is selling so many machines under different names . Keep us posted on the BS stories he will tell you. Or he may just disappear as he is looking for easy victims and will drop anyone suspicious like a hot potato.

But, repeat, DO NOT SEND MONEY. Not paypal, not escrow, not anything. You will get all kinds of c*ck and bull stories out of this seller, but you will never, never see a machine. Do not allow yourself to be "taken" because you think you have bought a "bargain".

BTW, there's no such city as "Montgomery, PA". Be sure to contact the ebay investigation dept. to alert them to the scam.