'81 308 gtsi: $7,200 buy it now price???

I have seen these scams before. Notice that the ad states that the Buy It Now price is $7,200 but there is no "BUY IT NOW" option and it states that the buyer must be "pre-approved" to bid. I think the way this works is you contact the seller to get pre-approved and he tells you his REAL price is something much higher, but he will give you a "good deal" to go along with the scam. This keeps his eBay commission down, as if he sold the car for $7,200 but he actually sells it for more. If it doesn't sell, that's OK, he got some cheap advertising on eBay for his car and lots of people who know nothing about 308's and what they are worth are e-mailing asking if he still has it and can they buy it.

In short...a scam.

Even if his "real" price was reasonable, I wouldn't buy a car from this guy because he is dishonest. Being dishonest with advertising means he will be dishonest about the car.

Birdman

 

Almost definately a scam or hijacked account. This same car was listed on August 14 out of Toronto by a different eBay user. It had the exact same pictures, but a legitimate buy-it-now price of $29,900. It was relisted in September and ended yesterday with no buyer.

Here are the original auctions.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6212&item=2487136191

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2489167233

The seller in that auction looks serious. Has a really high feedback and has auctioned lots of Ferrari parts. The current auction just doesn't seem right.

 

It's almost worth sending an email to find out how you get "pre-approved". My guess is that you give them a valid credit card #, so they now you are real, and not live in the state they claim to be in. At $7200 for a 25k car, they will collect well over a hundred I would think. Then, about the time the auction ends, all will be charged $7200. No one will report the transaction as a stolen card, h*ll, if the bank calls they will say it's me, run my card. Then "The soonest we car ship your car is 2 weeks and 1 week on the truck, so you will have it in 3 weeks" and you wait......that's 100 x 7200 plus maybe 1000 in shipping, so $820,000 to them and 3 weeks for funds to clear the bank and to get gone before anyone even misses their money. That's the way I would play it.

 

Its been pulled.....Quote from E-Bay...

Invalid Item
The item you requested (2490305248) is invalid, still pending, or no longer in our database. Please check the number and try again. If this message persists, the item has either not started and is not yet available for viewing, or has expired and is no longer available.

I think the scam has been Busted!

Ill bet the payment plan was a "Western Union Wire transfer", which translates to major scamjob = kiss your money goodbye.

 

This is exactly what scares me about buying anything from eBay, especially cars.

 

I've seen other Ferraris listed this way as well. The first one I saw, I emailed the guy to get pre-approved and more of the story shook loose. In that case, the car was supposed to be in another country but the person was in this country, or some such thing. I'll bet it's a hijacked account. As my mother (an FTC lawyer in her day) used to say, "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."