Buying on ebay, please help

[SEAL]

Hi,

On ebay i saw that the Nokia n91 is for sale.
This phone is expected to be out in the end of 2005.
On ebay this guy claims to cannot reach his ebay email so contact him thrue a email that he listed in the selling item's description. (so not ebay confirmed/ verrified)
He wants the payment thrue Western Union.
He says he contacted ebay for an invoice. i recieved an email from aw-confirm at ebay but on top of the email it has big fat red letters
"Warning: This message may not be from whom it claims to be. Beware of following any links in it or of providing the sender with any personal information" ; unlike all the other emails from aw-confirm at ebay.

All this together looks like fraud, right? Or am i just paranoid? I'm kinda a nitwit in this so any advice would be helpful.
Thanks in advantage.

[ZeUs!!]

If it looks too good to be true...

[SEAL]

you are implying "if it quacks like a duck.."

what i would like to hear is "listen seal, this is fraud" or "listnen seal, ive done this tons of times and you could/should trust this".

thanks in advantage

[Superted]

Definitly (or highly likely) a fraud, don't buy it.
If you're ever unsure then don't buy it.

[suxxor]

reeks of fraud. western union transfers and ebay fraud go hand in hand.

[Zabuza]

yeah, this is biggest scam i ever heard of... i think i go buy now! ^-^

[bubbles19518]

Looks fishy to me, I'd say dont do it.

[ZeUs!!]

you are implying "if it quacks like a duck.."

Yes, thats exactly what I'm implying. No, really

[K2Grey]

It's clearly fraud, stick with whatever escrow service Ebay uses (I believe it's Paypal?)

[SEAL]

Ok, thanks for the advice ppl. saves me 800 $ (anyone living in NYC can get a beer from me in 4 weeks time :P) It looked like scam, but so far i had positive transactions with ebay.

In the ebay selling item it says "contact me on this email" (so its not ebay verrified) and he wants the payment thrue western uninion. i "assumed" that ebay would look after fraud, but perhaps there are way to many items to be sold to check.

I have this other question. Let's say i sell an item thrue ebay, secure. In all the 'safe' ways to sell. how can you know for sure you get your item? example: lets say i buy a tv. the seller gets the money and send an apple in a package. so officially i recieved something. it's hard to prove i got an apple instead of a tv, right?

anyone know this?

[NaiLed]

that is my fear and why I have never bought from ebay

[Superted]

If it's a wrong item you need to take a photo and send it to ebay (along with emails with the seller, if they have refused to send you the right item).

However, I'd advise that you stay away from buying expensive items through ebay, because that's where scammers make their money. Set yourself a limit per item like 20 or 30 dollars, whatever amount isn't worth crying over for you.

[K2Grey]

Well, the typical method is escrow where both you and the other party send their respective goods to a 3rd party and the 3rd party verifies things and then sends it to the other person. It is not foolproof, but it does prevent huge things like switching apples and TVs.

[Edify]

just wait until the phone actually comes out in public market. right now it seems like a scam. how would this guy get the phone so many months in advance?