SCAMS ON EBAY

You hear a lot about "Ebay Scams", but this is a misleading terms. The scams are not of course perpetrated by ebay, but by unscrupulous people taking advantage of the online auction medium and other people’s trust or gullibiliy. Some cases are so obvious that anyone falling for them should really know better, however there are also many clever scammers out there who can make an auction appear completely legitimate and trustworthy.

Counterfeit Saxophones, Mouthpieces etc.

This is where a seller represents a copy of a brand as the real thing. Modern technology allows people to "clone" instruments and mouthpiececs very accurately and the returns can be very high when you consider the prices that genuine Selmer saxophones, Dave Guardala mouthpieces etc. can fetch.

Stolen Images & Listings

This is one of the commonest scams. The fraudster merely copies images (and sometimes the descriptions) of a previous legitimate auction. Everything looks tickety boo (even the feedback) until the unfortunate buyer realises that his or her 5 digit original lacquer MKVI is not going to arrive.

What to look out for:

Image names

An inexperienced scammer may not change the names of stolen images, though images uploaded (as opposed to linked images in the text) are renamed by Ebay.

Feedback

Check the previously bought and sold tems. A string of good feedback for cheap items leading up to a sale of a very valuable saxophone often means the seller has invested a little just to boost their feedback before the big sting.