16 May
1999
16 May
'99
7:26 a.m.
On Sun, 16 May 1999, Chuck McManis wrote:
This may or may not be a scam. At least two (and like
cockroaches if you
see two you know there are really dozens) surplus electronic shop owners
use Ebay as follows.
o Follow the auctions that people are holding for stuff they
have.
o When the auction finishes offer their own stuff to
the second through - 'n' bidders (depending on qty
and price)
This is an excellent point, and yet another dark facet of e-bay I
hadn't thought of... maybe for good reasons. And I spent years in
the electronic and aerospace surplus business.. I've been at
thousands of auctions of all kinds, good, bad, and really ugly.
But in the case that I transplanted, note that the bidding was for
a ham radio Repeater, a device that is a) not made in quantity
because b) not that many people have use for them. And the other
'scam' tip-off to me was that the scammer is here in California,
where a good portion of the repeater frequency pairs have been
allocated for years. And note that he solicited money orders from
people who were obviously bidding on a one-of-a-kind item. I just
thought it sounded fishy.
Okay, I don't want to start a big sort-of-off-topic flame fest,
just to give my Listfriends some info. If anyone is reading this
who wants more info on just what a 'repeater' is and what it does,
e-mail me off the list and I'll be happy to provide.
Cheers
John