It's hardly surprising.
Luckily or unluckily I have a lot of time to spend on researching these frauds and I'm currently looking at a fraudster operating four different ebay accounts. I couldn't prove that they're the same person behind them all in a court of law but my evidence leaves little doubt. Being able to do this means that the person can run fake auctions and pump up his feedback scores. I've even found examples of the same car, with the same description being offered on the different accounts. It puzzles me that the person appears to have even managed to get adverse comments removed.
Frankly the scale of fraud appears even greater as he also advertises cars on Gumtree but the adverts rarely last very long there before they get scrubbed. The number of phone sim cards he has is impressive and I'm having to record them on a spreadsheet.
I suspect it's quite a large gang and I believe that they have other associates using the same ploy.
I could take up the issue of the 4 ebay accounts with ebay now, but I'd prefer to watch and research what they're doing. I could also post examples of the ads they've been using, but that is most likely to scare them off and just cause them to assume other identities. then I'd have to start all over again.
This isn't unique to any one ad site and all those I've looked at have had scammers operating on them.
Not many people have the time and patience to do what I do, but as long as scammers have to worry that there are any people like me about, then they better be careful, and the more careful they are, the less successful they'll be.
I've just checked on Gumtree and the problem I have is that there are so many scams ads on there it makes it difficult to isolate the group I'm looking at, and I'm just looking at one specific city.
Just tagged a corker - an ebay seller with a feedback score of 2 ran an auction and sold a car to a buyer with a feedback score of 5 and the same car is now on Gumtree using the same wording as appeared in the original seller's ad.
It could be quite legitimate - and perhaps I'll see a formation of pigs flying over my house this afternoon.
This latest one has some interesting features that are potentially quite disturbing. Again It's best I say nothing or I may tip him off.
This is such a neat trick, I'll describe how it works.
With two ebay accounts a disreputable car trader runs a fake auction on ebay and appears to sell it to someone else. It is then put for sale on Gumtree after a log book loan has been taken out. Of course if someone buys it, it appears that the auction winner has taken out the loan and anyone who buys the bargain on Gumtree gets their car repossessed and the trader is laughing all the way to the bank as the victim chases a seller who never existed in the first place.