David Brent

Cheers Red Squirrel.There certainly is a lot of fraud out there!!!
I have since been contacted by another buyer who lost his money on E-Bay to the same seller as myself. He lives in Newcastle, the same area of NSW as where the fraudsters are apparantly based and intends notifying the local police of this fraud.We've exchanged details and it seem's the fraudster's have used a number of different named accounts through the same bank in NSW to collect their ill gotten gains.Usually banks will not open an account unless suitable ID's are produced.So this would certainly be the place for the authorities to start their investigations.
Let's hope the NSW Police can track these fraudster's down.

Dave.

samkydd

Some just want to embrace the free market economy! Running taxis with no driving licences, insurance, road tax or MoT, and not even registered in their names is a sure way to cut down overheads and maximise profits (no camera or congestion charge fines either)! If they get caught by the rozzers they just give a false name and walk away from their £40 knackerbox of a Xantia or Mondeo and go and buy another from the free ads or car auctions! If they want more profit they just recruit the younger female population of their town back home and put them into sex slavery! Great innovators and entrepreneurs! But who can blame them when it's so easy to do as you please now in the UK! I'm thinking of becoming a Lithuanian citizen so I can come back here, get rich quick with no comebacks, and treat myself to a monster 4x4 with blacked out windows!

But to be ever so slightly patronising, the honest ones are brilliant. We have many East Europeans working in pubs and restaurants to pay their way through college and they are always polite, smile at the customers, wipe the tables empty the ashtrays, and work very hard with enthusiasm and speak proper English. Not like the English surly lot who just stand about texting their mates and watching the clock and talk like that Vicky Pollard thing off Little Britain!

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

samkydd

On a more positive note, if you've got an old banger with about ten minutes MoT left on it, as long as it has plenty of road fund licence remaining it will command a much inflated price at the auctions because they've realised that Taxed Car = Less chance of being stopped by the Old Bill!

A policeman acquaintance and two other coppers stopped a suspicious car with four adult males for not wearing seat belts, and the car looked like a scrapper. They searched the car and called the armed response unit. The boot was full of automatic rifles, and get this, the ammunition was armour piercing! Needless to say the men (who were from some former Soviet bloc country and didn't speak English) were all arrested and will probably get a caution for not wearing seatbelts!

I think it's just co-incidence that all the major vice and drug crime is now being controlled by such enterprising chaps! They'll be buying football clubs next! E-Bay fraud is just for a bit of practice before they get over here! However they will meet some competition from the homegrown UK rogues we've nurtured in the past few years; Mark Thatch, Jeffrey Archer, Sir Anthony Blunt, Blunkett, Blair and old Two Jags!

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

Fellwanderer

And certainly taken as a joke by me just in case anyone had any doubts.

FELL [who does have close friends in both the Manchester area and Doncaster as it happens

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

samkydd

People always take the p*ss out of where you come from anyway, and being born in Birmingham and brought up in Norfolk I have had to learn to be a bit thick skinned about my own hometowns!! If you're a Brummie everyone thinks you're stupid, and if you're from Norfolk even the Brummies think you're stupid!

Personally I don't think I could rip anyone off like those E-Bay fraudsters, it's just not in my nature. I'm not wealthy, just working to earn a living and pay the bills like everyone else, and no matter how desperate I was for money I just don't think I would resort to crime. I think it's to do with upbringing, and if you get guilt knocked into you from an early age ie. you think you're guilty even if you haven't done anything, then I suppose you're less likely to "go over the edge" and offend.

It takes me ages to park anywhere because I'm always double checking to see if I am allowed to park there or not, or do I need to pay at a meter? Others just pull up in the first disabled slot or on a double yellow line and think nothing of leaving the car there all evening! I've had two speeding fines in the past via camera, and when you get flashed it feels like someone's poked you with an electric cattle prod, and the guilt is so overwhelming you can't sleep for days! What a terrible way to live! Can you get your guilt gene removed on the NHS? I'll write to my MP he'll know!!

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

David Brent

Sam,
What about that video recorder you sold me last year? You promised me that it was one of the better models.
When I received it - it was a BETA model.
You've got to laugh - otherwise I'd cry.

Mate, I was also born in Birmingham. That makes yow a top bloke.

Dave.

red squirrel

Orlrroight, euws it gawin! One of the few pleasures we get in Cov is taking the pee out of Brummie accents. Mind you the yokel accent eya is pretty course itself.

My posting the BBC link wasn't intended to incite xenophobia, but it seems to have been taken that way. I doesn't bother me in the slightest it people from Eastern Europe (or elsewhere) wish to work here. (Coventry has long been an immigrant city - we even let the odd Brummie in - lol!). For the most part they do insecure shitty low-paid jobs that most natives won't take. Its an invisible economy to most of us. If the scam had been carried out by Yanks (who, ahem, 'manage' e-bay), Aussies, Kiwis, Canucks or other Anglophones would it have given licence to the same prejudices?

Fellwanderer

I'm on a Helen Mirren mailing list [well, you've got to support the "local girl done good", haven't you?]. Most of the members seem to be US females and they took great exception to an article in a newspaper - probably one of our tabloids - that made some unflattering comment about Dame Helen. My reply that being an Essex Girl, she probably thought it hilarious went whoosh straight over their heads like a 707.

FELL

All the best
FELL

A signature is no substitute for a life

samkydd

My mate from the Wirral always has a go at Scousers for being a bit shady, but I spent a few weeks working up there and the people were so friendly, the pubs were great, and I went to some great parties! But he always has a go at them "Dey call me Batman like, 'cause I can't go out without f***in' Robbin'!"

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

Aenima

There was a Tonight with Trev McDonald on Friday on the topic of Ebay fraud. There was one guy from Pontypridd who had made thousands of £'s selling goods that didn't exist. He really lived it up on his ill-gotten gains too!!

One thing which was pointed out by one of his victims was to look at the details of +ve feedback. Apparently feedback can be related to buying and selling. What the guy from Ponty had done was buy loads of cheap items to boost his +ve feedback. People saw this and assume it was selling feedback.

I'll 'av 'arf

DB7

My mine gripe with ebay is why sellers refuse to commit to feedback until the buyer has written his. It's like a form of blackmail to ensure the reasonably happy (but maybe disappointed) buyer wont write anything negative for fear of having his own rating dip.

samkydd

My gripe at the moment is some idiot who bought something expensive from me 10 days ago won't send a cheque in the post because it's "not secure", and he hasn't got a PayPal account activated yet! What can I do?

My other gripe is the professional supplier on e-bay who supposedely sends his stuff next day delivery, and here I am 5 days later still waiting for it and £34 out of pocket!

Tossers

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

DB7

Has he access to online banking? Give him your account no. to transfer the money to.

sanndevil

Sounds very fishy! What's not secure about a cheque? He's stalling you! Worse case he can ask for a signature on his letter for about 50p

samkydd

It's disappointing because he won it with a bid of £100 more than I expected so I don't want to lose him and have to relist the item which will inevitable go for less than I want for it. I may opt for the direct payment into my account, as long as he can't clean it out!

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"