1954 Jaguar XK-120 Low Profile Scam On eBay Motors

1954 Jaguar XK-120 Cached Ended Page

I had been following this one last month after a bidder posted a question on the eBay Motors discussion board.

The discussion was actually about a classic Mercedes 190 SL that the seller also had listed. The thread was quite active and even most of the regulars thought the listing was legit. The seller had also bought some European car parts on eBay Motors so it looked like a legit listing done by someone without a lot of eBay knowledge. I still smelled a rat in the woodpile!

One of my tipsters was a bidder on the car that ended with reserve not met at $51k. Soon there after the seller made contact with that bidder offering to sell the car for $18k, and sent a link to buy the car on eBay. Only problem was it was a duplicate listing on a scam website!

Scammers will list a vehicle on a hijacked eBay sellers account, or register a new eBay account using a stolen credit card. They then list a basic listing with a few photos and a very generic description. Then as a rule do not answer questions from proposed bidders until after the listing ends.

The scammer want’s his auction will run it’s full time and end with a bunch of bidders to send second chance offers to. If they answered a question when the listing was running, someone would spot the scam and turn it into eBay, who would eventually pull the listing blowing the scammers cover.

1954 Jaguar XK-120 Listed On Scammers Website

So the scammer waits until the listing ends and sends out emails to all the bidders, working each one of them at a time.

A scammer could potentially have 42 suckers to prey on as that’s how many bids this Jaguar received.

Also as you can see in the below screen video, this scam website is somehow authenticating an eBay Members User ID and Password.

Scammers have somehow been able to use eBay’s API or otherwise somehow be able to externally access eBay to authenticate a members user info. I did a trace route and this fraudsters website is somewhere in the UK. So my question is, How is a website in the UK able to connect to eBay and authenticate a members credentials?

AND once that User ID IS Authenticated, just what can a scammer get his hands on? This is a serious breach of eBay Security.

Best bet when looking at eBay Motors Vehicles is to keep an eye on your web browsers URL Window. And clever scammers will start out the url with something eBay to fool you.

Web Browsers URL Window Showing Scam Website cars-trucks.us.to url in the UK!

It’s the whole url string you should look at. Sometimes the target website is hidden to the right of the browser window out of site. Put your mouse cursor in the window and use your right scroll key to get to the end of the line.

Official eBay Email That Auction Was Cancelled. Note The Wording In This Email.

Note the wording in this Official email from eBay. It is worded in the scammers favor. So in a situation like this one eBay is inviting the bidder to be scammed!

So just beware when shopping for a car on eBay Motors, or any other website on the internet. Remember the motto – Trust No One! If you can’t personally inspect the vehicle and it’s supporting title documents, or hire a 3rd party inspector to do it for you, forget it!