iPad Frenzy Is In Full Swing on Ebay – But Beware, Fraud Is Rampant

As mentioned by most tech sites on the web, including PadGadget (see here), iPads on eBay sell like hot cakes. However, what most people do not know is that a large portion of the iPads for sale on eBay are actually scams. We received several emails from some of our readers telling us horror stories about their purchase experience, especially for folks located outside of the US.

Scam? The trick is simple, and is not specific to the iPad. A scam artist sells 2 or 3 legit iPads on eBay in order to get some good feedback from other members, or even builds up his/her positive feedback by simulating sales between different aliases, all owned by the artist and/or his accomplices. After gaining some decent reputation, the scam artist floods eBay with tons of listings, pockets the money from honest buyers, never sends the iPads, and disappears.

To see how eBay is reacting to this threat, we decided to put one of our iPads for sale on eBay.

We used the account of one of our staff members (200+ positive feedback, over 5 years), and posted the listing earlier today. Note that the listing is legitimate, we actually have the iPad on hand, and we will honor the sale when the listing ends. About an hour after the listing was posted, an eBay employee contacted us by phone to ask us basic questions about the listing, such as details about the item (not just the fact that it is an iPad, but which version), our username, our location, etc… To be honest, besides the fact that the phone call felt a little like talking to a cop, we were pleasantly surprised to see that eBay was reviewing all iPad listings on its site. At the same time, eBay/Paypal also perform these checks to weed out the listings that could potentially make them shell out large amounts of money when the victims of scams file a claim.

If you plan to buy an iPad on eBay, you may want to follow these basic advices:

• Only buy from a reputable seller, stay away from sellers with only a couple positive feedbacks, especially if all this feedback is very recent. You may also want to stay away from sellers who just opened an account within the last month or so.
• Stay away from sellers with tens of iPads for sale.
• Use Paypal only. Paypal offers many guarantees other payment methods do not offer, including partial reimbursements if you are the victim of a fraud.
• Always contact your buyer in order to see how responsive he/she is, and how knowedgeable he/she is about what you are buying. Most scam artists do not know much about what they sell, compared to the legitimate sellers who likely used the device.
• Make sure you ask for a copy of the sales receipt, only way for you to make sure Applecare will come with the device.
• Always check the return policy, in case a problem arises. The devil is always in the details.

Note that we give our kudos to eBay, who seems to be doing a great job at pro-actively trying to weed out the scam artists from its site.