Last week I was browsing through craigslist to see if i could find a reasonably priced vehicle in my area. I came across a silver 2001 Honda Civic EX Coupe for right under $3,000. The price seemed very nice so I contacted the owner via the craigslist sale email address.

The person replied a few days later with the following email message:

Hi there and sorry for the late reply.

The car is still available for sale. This is a 2001 Honda Civic Ex Coupe, 1.7L 4-CYL VTEC, 5-SPEED Manual Transmission, Silver, 112000 MILES, VIN 1HGEM21951L088189.

It is in EXCELLENT condition; the body and paint are great, no scratches and no dents; the interior is clean; it has never been involved in an accident.

Here you can find more pictures with the car:
http://picasaweb.google.com/joel8matrix/Civic

I’m an US Air Force Lieutenant currently stationed in UK. And the car is here with me. It was bought in the US and shipped to Europe, but it was never permanently registered here, the car is still registered in the US.

The car is for sale locally as well, but there are slim chances of this to happen. First of all this is a US model car, with the steering wheel on the left side, as opposed to a UK model, that has the steering wheel on the right side. And second, in order to be able to register this car here in UK the buyer would have to pay very high import/custom taxes that will double the price. So I decided to sell the car back in the US.

As I’m unable to travel in the near future and I don’t have anyone back home to help me with the sale I decided to make this transaction through eBay.

So how this actually works? Simple: the buyer sends the payment to eBay and they hold the money until the car is delivered; I ship the car to US; I get my money only after the buyer receives the car and makes sure everything is as agreed. I believe this protects both buyer and seller and it’s the right way to do this.

The final price is $2,999 including shipping from Europe to the US and delivery to your home address.

So if you decide to buy this car or need further information please get back to me as soon as possible.

Thank you and have a great day,
Lt. Joel Miller
joel8matrix@hotmail.com

At first it seemed like a very good deal. A great car for an even greater price. I even got a Carfax check on it and everything looked good.

I then replied to the person and asked for more details regarding exactly how it works, going through eBay and all. They replied with pretty much the same information that was in their first email. It seemed a bit vague, so I started getting a little suspicious.

I told him I would give it a shot and I went ahead and emailed him my address and contact information. Shortly after sending him my information, I received 2 emails, both appearing to be from eBay Motors. The emails looked very legit and included my information, a picture of the car and the sellers information.

The thing I noticed, however, was the email addressed they were sent from. They werent sent from eBay.com or any subdomain of eBay.com. The emails were sent from protection-ebaymotors.net. I forwarded the emails to eBay’s spoof department and just as I suspected, the guy is a scammer. He almost got me for $3,000 dollars.

There is no telling how many people actually fall for scams like this. Posting a car or other item that is worth far more than your asking price, just to get alot of replies, making it easy to scam unsuspecting internet shoppers such as myself.

If you receive any emails from protection-ebaymotors.net or any other email address that you suspect may be fraudulent, forward the emails to spoof@ebay.com. They will review the email and tell you if it’s a legit eBay email or if its fake.

> Email this story to a friend so that they don’t fall victim to this same kind of scam!