Get rich quick e-book on e-bay - Scam?

[TartanPirate]

Hello,

There are frequently items for sale on e-bay by 3 or 4 different sellers that purport to be a way of making money from your digital camera.

All they say is that any old camera will do and people will be more than happy to pay hundreds of pounds for your pictures.

It sounds so like a scam that I'm not going to pay the suspiciously small price asked (£3 to £10 depending on seller). But I'm really intrigued as to what the big idea is. It obviously doesn't rely on quality photographs!!

Feedback to the seller ranges from 'Great', 'nice idea but not my cup of tea', 'dissapointing', to 'absolute rubbish'.

Has anyone here had any experience of this? Bought the e-book? Have you tried it? Does it work?

....and if it's a scam.....what is it?

[Rhys]

Hello,

There are frequently items for sale on e-bay by 3 or 4 different sellers that purport to be a way of making money from your digital camera.

All they say is that any old camera will do and people will be more than happy to pay hundreds of pounds for your pictures.

It sounds so like a scam that I'm not going to pay the suspiciously small price asked (£3 to £10 depending on seller). But I'm really intrigued as to what the big idea is. It obviously doesn't rely on quality photographs!!

Feedback to the seller ranges from 'Great', 'nice idea but not my cup of tea', 'dissapointing', to 'absolute rubbish'.

Has anyone here had any experience of this? Bought the e-book? Have you tried it? Does it work?

....and if it's a scam.....what is it?


I'd imagine the scam is all about selling a book of plans and ideas for selling photos either online or in book form. They'll give addresses, most likely, of "vanity" publishers. It'll just be ideas in a book. The only people who'll make money from this are the people behind the scam. It's never what you know or what skills you have - it's always who you know that gets you the job in Britain (and presumably in America too).

[David Metsky]

Do you really have to ask if this is a scam? Of course it is, the specific details of this scam could be any number of things; this isn't the way real businesses operate.

If you ever have to ask "Could this be a scam?" then it is.

-dave-

[Rhys]

Do you really have to ask if this is a scam? Of course it is, the specific details of this scam could be any number of things; this isn't the way real businesses operate.

If you ever have to ask "Could this be a scam?" then it is.

-dave-

On e-bay is a gigantic clue that it's a scam.

[TartanPirate]

Thanks Rhys and Dave,

I was pretty sure it was a scam but to be fair to the sellers, they were getting a lot more positive feedback than negative. Quite a few along the lines of 'wish me luck, I'm going to give it a try, I'll let you know how I get on' type of comments.

I've heard there is a scam where you can fake these comments too but don't know enough about e-bay to be sure of that.

Anyway, they say curiosity killed the cat and I'd love to know what you get e-mailed.....without paying the scammer. But I suppose that would make me as bad as them so I'll let it go.

Cheers.

TP.

[Rhys]

I was pretty sure it was a scam but to be fair to the sellers, they were getting a lot more positive feedback than negative. Quite a few along the lines of 'wish me luck, I'm going to give it a try, I'll let you know how I get on' type of comments.

I've heard there is a scam where you can fake these comments too but don't know enough about e-bay to be sure of that.


Oh yes. It's so easy to fake bad feedback and good feedback that there's really not a lot of point in believing any online ratings although the negative ratings are usually more believable than the positive.

It's so easy to put negative ratings from spite and so easy to put positive ratings to make youself look good. If I were to wish to set up a con-trick on e-bay (for example) on digital cameras, here's what I'd do...

1. I'd advertise several of the cameras I'm pretending to sell and would buy them using other identities set up and operated by myself. This might involve paying auction fees to e-bay but what the heck, the final sting is worth more.
2. Having developed misplaced consumer confidence I'd advertise several cameras with the buy-it-now option. Then I'd collect the money and vanish.

It's so easy to do and is the mainstay of the ebay scammers. Sure... they get caught every now and then but criminals are gamblers. They play the odds. If they figure they'll get away with it often enough not to bother about being caught and fined or jailed occasionally then they'll continue. To a criminal, jail is an occupational hazard that merely affords them a free holiday at taxpayer's expense and the chance to learn how to be a better criminal in the college of crime within the prisons.

Once released, a criminal has no reputation to uphold so it's off to the computer shop to buy a secondhand computer or even off to the library to set up another ebay scam from there.