Clever ebay scam (I reckon)

Ok so, the story.

I owned, until last night, a pretty nice Samsung D600. Camera phone with all the gubbins, inc. a 2Gb miniSD card. All my contacts on it, pictures of the kids (and of chester zoo that we went to yesterday).

So it comes to the evening, and my 2yr old son, bless the little ******, decides to flush it down the toilet. I've checked in the toilet (under the U-bend etc) all the pipework from the toilet to outside the house, and the nearest manhole cover, where there's a T juntion that it should of stopped. I can only conclude that my phone is now half way to Ireland. Bugger.

So looking on ebay for a new phone. I noticed the V3 Razr for a whopping £12.99, free postage Some of you will remember that one of the lads here in the office is particularly succeptable to scams (I'm planning on selling him some 'heavy water' when I get the chance). So I'm checking out this ebay posting, thinking "This has to be a scam! Why is it so cheap!?!?!"

The sellers feedback is 100% positive, and has in the region of 30 odd comments.

The details of the particular ebay auction I was looking at, says it's a Police/Baliff auction etc etc, which kind of explains the price. However, there's NO details about the phone itself.

A little closer looking, and the end of the auction title is "... £12.99 RRP ebook". Aha. So they're not selling a phone, they're selling the phone's manual, in an electronic version, which explains why there's no postage costs.

No laws broken, because they're advertising selling a book for £13. Pretty craft beggars aren't they.

Lucky escape for me... and still looking to buy a phone (ideally SIM free, camera phone with bluetooth, would also like MP3 support). Also, can't be cross with the lil one, because, well, he's ace. No exceptions.

link or item number please ?

Mods, if this is forbidden on the forum for legal issues or anything, please, feel free to edit this post accordingly.

Linky link.

Oh there are loads of these Auctions on eBay selling eBooks with information on where Police auctions are held.

First one I've seen (don't use ebay much as it is). The way I see it, there's no reason to state in the auction about the Razr specifically, unless you're trying to fool people into buying the phone. Or rather, fool people into thinking that's what they're buying.

To be perfectly honest, I just skipped over the text in the auction, and it's only now I see that part. At that price, with ebay being an auction, seeing a phone like the V3 Razr and a price of £13, I can imagine a lot of folks hit the 'Buy it now' icon before really stopping to think about it.

they had somthing similar when the xbox 360 came out.

£299.99 they were, listed all the specifications etc. and in little text at the bottom of the page it said "you are bidding for a picture of an xbox 360" quite a few people fell for it

[lukemillar]

A chap here at work paid £300 for an xbox360 box!

i got out bid on a camera,lucky me thinks cos i then noticed small print not working

[northwind]

Originally Posted by lukemillar

A chap here at work paid £300 for an xbox360 box!

That was a classic... Caveat emptor, folks, it's just a question of reading the ads. This one here, I can't see why anyone would think it was an auction for the phone, you need to really not be paying attention in which case, best of luck

General rule is if it is too good to be true on eBay it probably is.