Ebay alert! Looks like another seller scam!

[heydude-migration]

Yes, good job.

[Ze-man]

Thought I would add this.

She told me she just read the thread.. and will create an account to post tonight.

Hope she does.

 

And she sent me the first email from this Sandy person about hiring her to sell items .

 

It is ok to post emails sent to me isnt it?

 

I hope so....

 

To: Jamie

Subject: Re: Ebay Selling Assistant / Internet Broker Wanted- Quick

Train

 

Hi.

I run a online small business selling books, comics,

baseball cards and coins through Ebay. You should be

familiar with Paypal and ebay's features and have

verified, active accounts. You should be able to check

your email several times a day. I provide complete

descriptions and pictures of items for auction. You

will serve as a broker of my items and are responsible

for posting,maintaining auctions and sending invoices.

Please keep detailed logs of all information including

Ebay fees and final end price. All Ebay fees are paid

by me. At the end of every week, please forward me

your detailed logs of fees and commissions. Your

commission is 20% per sale. As the broker you are

provided with tracking information for all purchases.

Payments range from $50 to $4000 and I only sell to

customers in the United States. Workers start on a

probation period with test auctions. More auctions

will be directed to you if your performance is

satisfactory.

[kahml]

Now why - oh why - would someone who already has a business selling comics need an eBay Trading Assistant?

 

eBay's TA program is designed to let sellers resell other people's goods (usually from people who don't want to be bothered by learning eBay's ins and outs) and make money from the commission.

 

TA's are supposed to be registered with eBay and are supposed to take hold of the property before they sell it.

 

This sounds like such an incredible scam that it is frightening!

 

Ze - I really hope you get this person straightened out.

 

Larry

[rube11]

Lets not forget who brought this to life!!

 

What needs to be done right now is she ends all of the auctions so people aren't scammed out of money. Don't you think? If Ze has some type of dialogue going with her he should let her know.

 

Rube

[Spidercents-migration]

 

Hey everyone...new to the board...I just wanted to know if anyone has contacted any of the bidders through ebay to warn them so they may have a chance to retract their bids...I was thinking of doing that...not sure if its a bad idea or if ebay has contacted them already...I myself would not count on ebay to contact them...If I was in the same position as these bidders I would hope someone would contact me so i could retract.

[innocentwoman-migration]

Hello everyone, and let me start by saying thank you to Ze-Man for making me popular on this site! j/k. This isn't the way I would have liked to become a part of this forum, but I guess I do not have a choice. To the people who made all the comments about me, I hope that my explanation below will answer some of your questions and erase your doubts about me. Here goes...

 

My name is Jamie, I am 30 years old. I live in Queen Creek, Arizona. I am a Medical Transcriptionist and I have three daughters. Being a Medical Transcriptionist is a very time consuming job that requires a lot of discipline. I have been doing it for about five years off and on, but it is really not as much money as I want to be making, so I am constantly looking on the internet and in the paper for something else. I do know of many Medical Transcriptionists who praise the profession and would never think of doing anything else, and say they make excellent money at it, but with me having three kids, the smallest being 9 months, I do not find that to be the case. When I saw the ad for an "Ebay lister" on Craigslist, I decided to reply in hopes that maybe this would be an opportunity to make some extra money. Ze-Man listed the original email I got from "Sandra Lovell." I started by listing eight auctions. I asked her what to do when I got questions from buyers and she told me to just forward them to her and then she would respond to me with the answers. After a while I started being able to answer some of the questions on my own, like "Is this comic restored?" The answer was always no. Soon the bid amounts started to go up and I busted out my calculator often to find out how much I was making at 20% commission. I kept thinking to myself that this is too good to be true. I actually had my dream job, I could make money and all I had to do was answer a couple questions. In fact, I went to dinner with my oldest daughter the other night and I said to her "My job is so good that I am making money while I'm sitting here eating!" I also told her several times, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is---to which she would always say "why do you have to be negative about it?" Now I feel like an insufficiently_thoughtful_person. In my defense though, I was not completely naive about it. I did ask her questions from time to time about her "business" and where she lived, if she had anyone else doing this for her, etc. She told me she had two other assistants for many years. I even looked up her name on whitepages.com to see if her name was in there in Arizona, and sure enough, there was a Sandra Lovell in Phoenix. Still, I did not know if that was her or not. I emailed her quite a few times thanking her so much for the awesome opportunity she had given me. At one point, I got an email from a guy who told me that he had worked for her and that he was scammed by her. I responded to him (I still have all of those emails too) and told him to please give me any information he had because I could not afford to be scammed. I never got a reply from him. I then forwarded that email to Sandra and told her that I would really like an explanation. She reponded by telling me that the person had never worked for her and then proceeded to forward me two emails she had gotten from someone that stated things like "when can I start?" and "are you ready for me to work yet?"...and said that the person who emailed me was the person who sent those emails and probably just trying to scare off the competition because they had not been picked by her to be her assistant. Little things like providing a guarantee, telling me she would provide me with tracking info on each package, her business experiences, knowledge in general about comics, etc., made me believe she was legit. But, on the other hand, things like not ever calling me on the phone and not really needing any background information on me, even though I would be the one getting all of the money initially, made me wonder. Again, I guess I just wanted to believe I had struck a golden opportunity.

 

I don't want to bore all of you with every single detail, but in short, I do believe I have been scammed based on what all of you are saying. Of course, I am hopeful that she will have a perfectly good explanation for all of this. I have yet to hear from her today after all of the emails I have forwarded to her. It's a shame that my name is being trashed. You guys are pretty quick at it too by the way!! ! But, I thank you Ze-Man for bringing this to my attention. It was actually a perfect time because I have not made any deposits into her accounts yet. Actually, I was on the phone with the bank this morning finding out how much I could withdraw at one time so that I could go deposit into her WAMU account today. Good timing!

 

In closing, I guess I have to accept the fact that I actually have to WORK to make money like everyone else! ! It sucks though!!!! To Rube, the reason I did not send you pics you requested right away was because I had to ask her for them first---and she does not always reply right away. And to the guy who lives 20 minutes from Queen Creek---I really DON'T have the comics in my possession. Everything I have ever said is true. Oh yeah and, I seriously didn't even know what CGC really truly meant until today.

 

P.S. I have EVERY SINGLE email ever written to Sandra Lovell and from Sandra Lovell. If she is a scammer, I hope to nail her hard. And to everyone who is reading this that actually won my bids, you ARE getting your money back and I am truly sorry. And for all of the people who keep posting smart [#@$%!!!] questions on Ebay to me, give a person the chance to explain before you jump to conclusions. I am completely innocent here and you all will see that in the end.

 

If anyone has any advice or comments, please feel free.

 

Thank you for reading.

 

Jamie

[innocentwoman-migration]

OF COURSE I AM GOING TO END ALL BIDS AND GIVE EVERYONE THEIR MONEY BACK!!!!!!!!!! JEES PEOPLE, GIVE ME A BREAK---I AM NOT THE GUILTY ONE HERE!

[innocentwoman-migration]

I do not know the answer to your question "why would someone who already has a business need an assistant?" but, I do know that many people make their living that way---so it can't be all that uncommon. In fact, after I started to make money at this, I went onto Ebay's link that explains all about assistants because I thought, if it's this easy, I will start selling for more people! Again, things are not always as they seem---just because I am technically the "seller" does not mean I am the scammer.

[sterlingcomics]

Sandra's answers just seem to good to be true; very convenient.

 

Thanks for taking the time to post here, although you had no obligation to do so. The guys here are sharp when it comes to comic scans and scams...we've just about seen it all.

 

RedHook---time for another 'Bay Commandos' appearance?

 

Good luck and keep us posted.

[FFB]

I do not know the answer to your question "why would someone who already has a business need an assistant?" but, I do know that many people make their living that way---so it can't be all that uncommon. In fact, after I started to make money at this, I went onto Ebay's link that explains all about assistants because I thought, if it's this easy, I will start selling for more people! Again, things are not always as they seem---just because I am technically the "seller" does not mean I am the scammer.

 

You need to log in to ebay and pull all the auctions NOW. Several of them are almost done.

[innocentwoman-migration]

I ended all of the ones I could. Apparently they do not let you end auctions if there is less than 12 hours remaining---so there are still 8 on there. What should I do? Should I contact each high bidder individually and let them know what is going on and to retract their bids? I have no idea what I should do.

 

Thanks,

Jamie

[innocentwoman-migration]

I know I did not have to post here, but I felt I should since there is so much talk about it and I really wanted to set the record straight. I agree that her answers were "too good to be true." I guess I can take the blame for being stupid enough to believe it. You all are going to have your own thoughts and beliefs, but in the end, I know that I am a great person and I am just trying to get by like everyone else. I hope Sandra Lovell goes down for this.

 

Jamie

[The Brain]

Hi. We have a little custom here that goes like this:

 

HELLO AND WELCOME TO THE BOARDS!!!!

[THE_BEYONDER]

WELCOME TO THE BOARDS!

[FFB]

I ended all of the ones I could. Apparently they do not let you end auctions if there is less than 12 hours remaining---so there are still 8 on there. What should I do? Should I contact each high bidder individually and let them know what is going on and to retract their bids? I have no idea what I should do.

 

Thanks,

Jamie

 

Yes, retract all the bids and then try cancelling the item.

[kiltman]

Welcome to the Boards. Wish it could have been under better circumstances though!

[Spidercents-migration]

I ended all of the ones I could. Apparently they do not let you end auctions if there is less than 12 hours remaining---so there are still 8 on there. What should I do? Should I contact each high bidder individually and let them know what is going on and to retract their bids? I have no idea what I should do.

 

Thanks,

Jamie

 

I think you should contact them to get them to retract...that means every bidder because If the highest bid is retracted Im sure it will still go to the next bid in line.

 

Good luck!

[Ze-man]

Jamie.. glad you made it here.. Welcome.

 

First off.. dont take offense at the comments made about your here.. they were made before anyone knew about your situation. They saw what was going on and commented about it. While you are correct in saying people should not jump to conclusions.. it is what we do best here.. to a fault almost.

But with the intention of getting to the bottom of the matter at hand.

So no harm no foul.

 

 

Secondly.. can you just edit your auction descriptions? State that you want to pull the auctions due to the reasons you stated here? But are not able to with less then 12 hours, and bids on the table?

Tell no one else to bid on the books... and deal with the bidders who have already bid individually?

 

I am also sorry you did not hear back from Sandra yet..but I think it is safe to say she aint flyin straight with you. And you have a reason to pull the plug.

 

Hope it works out, and hope ya catch up with Mrs. Lovell.. I would love to be a fly on the wall when when that conversation takes place. She will have a doozey of a story ready for you.. if she even replies to you at all.

 

Keep us posted on what goes down .

 

Ze-

[innocentwoman-migration]

Ok----well I guess I deserved the conclusions you all made--so no worries. I did get a reply from her on 4 of the emails I forwarded to her. This is what they said:

 

"The pictures were taken by suppliers and are owned by them. Im sure there are similar comics out there. But yours are authentic." (regarding CGC questions)

 

"The book is ungraded, Im not sure what your seeing, maybe the way the picture was taken." (regarding Silver Surfer)

 

"the pictures are different, there comic is better condition" (regarding Fantastic Four being hijacked from pedigree)

 

"its not graded, what are you seeing, because Im not seeing what you see." (regarding one of Ze-Man's emails I forwarded to her).

 

Also, just while I was typing this, I got another email, which was in reply to my email to her...here's both emails:

 

> Sandra,

>

> I would really appreciate it if we could please just talk on the phone

> and get to know each other a little bit. I really love this job and

> the money is great, but this is the second time that I have gotten an

> email that is suggesting a scam. I don't want to believe it is true,

> but I have to protect myself. I want this to work out more than

> anything, but I think you and I have to talk and get things straight.

>

> Would you please call me?

>

> Thank you,

> Jamie

 

Im sorry but I cannot use a phone. I dont like discussing this, but I have an inner ear disease, which causes pain distorts my ability to hear.

Consequently, i do not own a phone and don't use one.

This is why I only use email. In regards the questions about a CCG holder. If these comics were in holders, I would definitely show them with their holders because they would go for at least double. In regards to the pictures. Understand that there are thousands of these exact comics, hundreds with even the same grade. But the pictures are different. Im sorry your having worries but whenever money is involved in auctioning, people get crazy. I usually ignore it because when everyone gets their items, their happy and satisfied.

 

Ok, call me stupid but is there ANY possibility that this is not a scam? Is there a way to find out before I tell her I'm quitting? Seriously, how can I find out if this is a scam for sure? What if I get a new user name on Ebay and buy one of the comics that has no bids or is low in cost---then see if she actually ships it to me? Would that work or am I seriously losing it here?

 

Jamie

[FFB]

It's a scam. Call the cops. Seriously.

 

"Inner ear disease"? That's a new one.