Last year I was reading a private "divorce support" blog. This was a group of ladies discussing their STRESS problems and some ways they developed to raise money to pay for extras after their bum of a hubby left them etc. I sent one of them some Cardboard and Christmas palm seeds and a few other things from my garden and they let me in to read the blog. They had some good ideas that I used in my own ebay selling account. The story was of a gal selling her handmade craft items on ebay and from a small website. She also sold seeds, plants and bulbs she grew from her garden in Florida. She was doing great and everyone in the blog was cheering her on. One day she was very upset. A seller on ebay stole her pictures and some of the wording from her website... and her sales were falling. The seller took her wording from her ebay listings and turned it around. They were careful not to steal her ebay pictures but they took the pictures from her website and copied her designs etc. They made some changes that sound similar to these ebay sellers in your story. Ebay never replied to this gal. And the nasty seller was very nasty to her. Anyway evidently the blog members are located all over the USA... and around 15 members living outside the state of this victim... all bought one item from this seller... the cheapest items offered. After the purchase, they baited the seller with silly questions and comments... and the seller got upset in an email with each of them... threatening wording and snotty remarks from the seller to these buyers. So each buyer had a good reason to give this seller Negative feedback and ratings of 1 and 2 DSR stars. What do you think happens if a seller gets 15 negatives and 1-2 DRS stars? Ha! Ha! Ebay will protect their MEGA sellers by changing ratings but not any seller under that catagory. If a seller gets that many 1-2 star DSR ratings, then ebay suspends the seller... so simple. I was laughing my head off reading the blog story. It happened over a 45 day period. They all used credit cards in Paypal and all got refunds on a DOA or crushed auction. Several buyers claimed they never received the auction when they saw there was no DC on the package. The blog members spaced out the negative feedback so it would not look obvious and each had a different comment depending on what the seller said to them in the email. The nasty seller probably suspected something was up but there was no way he could complain to ebay. In eBay's eyes, he was now a bad seller. They spotted this same seller under a new ID and 10 more blog members stepped up to the plate with 10 different ebay ID's. This seller was still using their blogmate's pictures and wording. They put this guy down within 30 days this time. It was great mental therapy for all these women too... banding together to protect the economy of one of their own members. The women all thought it was a good deed because the seller was also using the pictures from other websites and other ebay sellers too. I would hate to be the ebay seller that stiffs any of these divorced ladies in the future.

Jay good to hear from you.. Glad to hear that this is a 'procedure' and All is okay with DH... Enjoy your internet time...lol Take care and - Hugs back to you and miss you too. jane

Oh and in case you're curious, these scammers make a TON of money! Just to give some additional information on John Boko. As I write, I have been in contact with "John" posing as a fellow scammer looking for work. John has just offered me a job as just one of several of his European representatives to help cash and transfer payments from scammed victims for him. I was offered between $2,000 and $3,000 per month just for the simple job of gathering victim's payments together and forwarding the money into his bank account. During our conversations I John told me he was making around $45,000 a month on average from his various scams, ranging from standard 419 type scams to cheque and Credit Card fraud. His team consists of around 20 individuals located in various countries around the world. I was also able to discover the name and contact details of John's artist and managed to contact him to confirm he had indeed been paid for his work, although he wouldn't tell me how much he was paid! I'm still in contact with John, who calls himself Tony, who incidentally just collected a $15,000 payment from one of his "guys" in Switzerland. Any information I can find will be handed over to the relevant authorities. I hope to update this page a little more soon.

Here's the warning from CL, boldly posted in the 'cars/trucks'section: How to recognize a vehicle scam attempt on CL: Shipping a vehicle to you is suggested by seller eBay Motors or another intermediary is specified by seller Payment by Western Union or a money wire is requested Price is unusually low (fraction of blue book value) If you see these tell-tale signs, flag ad as "prohibited" and avoid Offers to ship a vehicle are virtually 100% fraudulent eBay has no involvment in craigslist for sale ads, and any eBay or similar emails or web pages you receive are fake Never use Western Union or wire transfer to pay for goods - only a scammer will ask for this, and any funds sent will be lost Do not buy vehicles sight-unseen, regardless of low price. The vehicle does not exist, and any money you send will be lost. Stories about divorcees or departing servicemen needing to sell quickly at a low price are generally fraudulent If a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is! More information is available for avoiding scams