I very nearly bid on an unlocked Nokia N80 I saw on ebay tonight but decided to check out the 39 sources of the 100% positive feedback the seller had built up. I’m glad I did. All those leaving feedback had either bought or sold items for 1p.
Wait a second, what could possibly sell for 1p, even on ebay? Well, it seems a lot of “ebooks”, many of them with titles like “the secret of the 1p auction” and “unlimited online profits“. I looked around a bit, followed links to a profile, then another, then another, only to find that they’d each bought “1 penny ebooks” from each other, built up a positive profile over time, then (in many cases) started listing more expensive items – like the Nokia phone I almost bid on.
Of course I’ve always been aware of scams on ebay and even once had my account used by someone to fraudulently list items for sale, including laptops, that don’t seem to have ever existed. But this is the first time I’ve spotted the penny scam to such an extent – some of the profiles in this network of penny ebook sellers have well over a thousand positive feedback points.
I have no doubt that this level of positive feedback is enough to fool newbies into parting with substantial amounts of cash and reckon ebay really should do something to stop penny ebook sales. It’s obviously a scam to build positive reputations without expending more than, in this case, 39p whilst doing so. That’s not bad for a few listings that could net hundreds if not thousands of pounds.
(please note: I haven’t at any point suggested that the items don’t, in this instance, exist. I’m only suggesting that the sale of items for 1p should be stopped to avoid potential fraudsters from using those items to build a positive reputation rating.)
[listen to the podcast version of this post]
It may be good to note that ebay have changed the rules on selling 1c items. Also the powerseller requirements have changed so that one must sell $1000+ per month (before it was 100 items).
Also, its interesting to note that user “No longer registered with eBay” :-)
Thanks for the post.
the 1p items on ebay are not scams you fucking retards…they are legit ebooks_pictures_info products for sale.
In my experience, most of them are simply networks of usernames that buy and sell from each other for long enough to build up a good level of feedback before moving on to more expensive items that don’t exist.
Where that isn’t the case, the people selling stuff for 1p on ebay are usually preying upon people’s inexperience of buying online and are selling little more than a link or an email. Perhaps, John, you might want to try my new 1p ebook on posting comments on blogs without resorting to juvenile use of profanities…
not all of these are scamming, i personally wrote a 150 page finall fantasy 7 guide, and put it on ebay for a peeny. I was offering a legitmat service which sold, it also helped me build up the required feedback, monthly sales to become a trading assistant! Im sure its 50/50 on these, some people but to resell for feedback and some for services listed! I think you should be carefull not to tar everyone with the same brush, Why should people pay more than a penny for electronic mail?
Some of the ebooks aren’t scams themselves, it’s the process of selling hundreds of copies of them for 1p to build up feedback that is a scam.
I don’t think power seller status is important to newbies as they don’t know what that means, it’s all he positive feedback that is important.
I have bought loads of these myself – not to get feedback but so I can make them all available for free download from
http://www.floodle.net/extra/ebayinfo
I’ve complained to Ebay about this twice now after nearly getting caught out by impressive feedback scores, luckily I checked what items had actually been bought. Anyone who says it isn’t a scam is no doubt part of it.
It’s amazing how much traffic this posts gets – a few visits a day. I’ve often wondered if it’s people looking for other places to sell 1p books or people who have been stung by it.
ONE PENNY AUCTION
The 1p or penny auction is certainly a legit auction that is well worth the price for the information that is given. That is if it were done for a legitmate purpose or reason.
THE PROBLEM
The problem with the 1p auctions is that it is being used in a dishonest manner by greedy scammers who are only looking out for themselves. 1p auctions should be done away with since it it being taken advantage greatly by these eBay scammers.
DESCRIPTION PAGES
When you look at some of these auctions selling ebooks they’re filled with ladies in “G” strings and practically naked on their description pages. They do it to obviously attract attention to their site and to build a positive feedback rating status in order to be able to come back and scam someone later while maintaining a HIGH POSITIVE FEEDBACK STATUS. These are the more perverted descriptions. Other auctions have some very poorly written descriptions offering you this ebook with a guarantee…for a 1p auction?!
WHY THEY DO IT
If I were to scam someone of a nice chunk of change and I wanted to keep my “powerseller” status and be above 98 to 99% positive feedback status then I would have to sell a few hundred if not thousands of 1p auctions to keep my percentage high.
If you get 2000 positive feedbacks from these 1p auctions and scam a half percent (.5%) that’s 10 people. Let’s say in a months time you got $100 from each that’s $1000 in a month. That’s being conservative. So I do believe that even though they may look like they’re giving you something for nothing or in this case giving it to you for a penny, you’re giving the scammers a way to keep they’re status good with eBay while at the same time being supported by those people who may one day get scammed by those scammers who abuse this for their own greed.
FINAL WORDS
Did you ever wonder how these 1p auctions could even exist while eBay charges you more than .15 cents plus all the other add-ons that go with it on top of PayPal getting their cut too. Well, it’s worth it to these scammers who know they’ll get much more for giving you 1p auctions to keep them in business.
ebooks1p :- well , i dont scam , 308 feedbacks @ 100% must say something….check out http://www.ebooks1p.co.uk >no scam there !
regards:-ebooks1p
And that’s a scam?
Get this.
I found a buy who sells “Feed Back Designs” for up to 4.95 USD and after you bid and win the only thing you have to do is copy and paste from the auction description to your computer [MS word file].
I complained to ebay about the situation, this person has over 50 people who bought these designs, which are in all listings indentical. Also, more than half of those auctions were bid on by a small number of people, no more than 10.
I once buyed a 1p item for another legitimate reason: I had an ebay gift certificate which I wasn’t sure if it was working, so I had to find something very cheap to buy just to verify my gift certificate code
Soma next day.
Soma overnight. Soma sun pilates. Soma. Buy domain onlinevcvpl soma.