A strange thing happened to my auction for a late 40's Bianchi Folgore frame with Campagnolo Cambio Corsa on ebay. I had included a buy it now option of $1100 for the frame and was pleased to see that Nels Cone of Seattle had acted upon it. As is normal, upon completion of the auction, I sent him the final invoice with the payment instructions. I was rather surprised to almost immediately thereafter get a note back from Nels saying that he had never bid on the item.
Ebay has confirmed that his account was apparently compromised following Nels being taken in by a spoof email.
Has anybody else ever been faced with such 'spoof' bidding? Apart for the obvious momentary worries of both parties involved, everything will resolve itself quite quickly and without any lasting problems. This therefore makes me wonder out loud: "why would anybody go through all the trouble of setting up such a scam? It undoubtedly took the scammer more time to orchestrate the whole scam than it did to Nels, Ebay and me to resolve the whole scenario. Must be one truly screwed up mind."
Anyhow, I have relisted the auction and wanted to point it out as a few listmembers had already placed a bid the first time around. The new auction can be seen at:
Bid one, bid all, bid often, bid high!
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Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ