New Scam: probably not, but new to me

[SailingStNick]

Local used car ad in local paper that's too good to be true probably is! When I inquired, I received an email response. When I asked where the buyer lived the second response was the "the thing is, I'm in Indianapolis, IN, but I have worked out a way for us to make this transaction through eBay that will guarantee our deal..." etc, etc, etc.

I've heard of running scams through eBay, but actually paying for a local newspaper ad is going to great lengths. I guess it's not really surprising, though.

[bljones]

ahhh, the good old escrow scam.

lemmeguess, he said you could pay using ebay's guaranteed system, and when the car gets to you, if you don't like it, no problem, the seller can simply find somebody in your area to buy it and then he will refund you your money, right?
Your money is GONE the moment you send it. The car never arrives. The contact info you have for the seller is a dead end in 29 days.

The fact that it was advertised in the local paper is a new twist. makes me wonder if the scammers are simply oversaturating the market place, causing an insurmountable noise to signal ratio, leading to a return to old school methods.

[edguy3]

While this is probably a scam, I found funding your paypal transaction via AMEX gives you two levels of protection. I got a healthy refund on a rental where the other party thought they didnt need to respond b/c of the usual paypal insulation. AMEX gave me more back than I requested because the other party simply did not respond to the second inquiry. It seems that with AMEX the customer is assumed to be right where other cards give the benefit of the doubt to the merchant. If you fund paypal from your bank account, you're S.O.L. and the paypal protection has many limitations in the fine print. On the other hand, this merchant was a bona fide vendor.