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"Hello...,

Warning!!!Please do not continue bidding. My password has been hacked. These are bogus bids by some hacker gang. The police and Ebay have been notified. Ebay does not react. Warning!!!!
- jenny1234* Name changed.

Item and membership dataItem description
:
1 0.7 l.bottle each of Chateau Petrus 1999, 2001 and 2002Item number
: 290206074920Item URL


:
http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290206074920 "

E-mails (original text!) like this reach me again and again, because I bid on suspicious offers and forward the item number to eBay. These items are usually blocked after the eBay security team has checked them. Unfortunately, however, there are always ended auctions and bona fide buyers who even transfer money to account holders whose names do not match those of the seller. Ebay warns against transferring money in such cases. Every seller must provide eBay with identification and the credit card or bank account must be the same as the eBay registration. Many buyers don't know this and are delighted to find a cult wine bargain. A bargain, however, which they never receive after payment! The fact that more than 20 rather experienced wine connoisseurs fell into the trap of such a fraudster proves how carelessly some people act when buying wine on the Internet auction house. In one sensational case, five to six-figure sums were involved.


Fraud without consequences?

A member with no less than 26 negative ratings was still able to sell some goods. The first negative message was on 29.08.2007 "No action from seller after payment. Article not received. Fraud highly possible!", others followed with texts like "PUNISHMENT NOTICE FOR CREDIT AGAINST MOTHER AND SON GO OUT ON MONDAY!" and the last one on 27.09.2007 "This seller frauded over 20 Ebayers in August 2007 receiving over 45.000 Euro!!!". The "seller" with eBayname "polospieler1789" auctioned wines & champagnes he didn't even have over a long period of time. The money was transferred by almost all winners of the auctions without any ifs and buts. When, after several interventions because of not having received items from eBay, there was little or no reaction, some buyers decided to file a complaint with the local police or Kripo against the seller. To their surprise, it turned out that the seller was a young man from a supposedly good family and used his mother's eBay member account for the auctions without her knowledge. He knew the password and consequently changed the bank details deposited with ebay for incoming payments from sales by depositing his bank details with eBay. The amounts transferred by the buyers then went into his account and because the names (surname) were the same, this was not particularly noticeable. The mother (owner of a renowned fashion shop in southern Germany!) later assured the police that she had not been active on eBay for a long time and therefore did not know about her son's sales. When questioned, he declared that he did not own a cent of the "sales", as he had spent everything and given it away. He was released for the time being.

One of the most counterfeited wines worldwide: Petrus of the vintages 1921% 1947% 1961% 1982

Little control over new registrations

Since ebay tries hard to close security gaps, but is downright naïve when it comes to proof of identity for new customers, one can become a member of eBay at any time with a fictitious name and an email address (freemail operator without identity check) and make the first purchases after just a few minutes! The person or the address are not checked for the time being and yet the Ebay account is activated. Encouraged by this easy game, the banned polospieler1789 started selling on eBay again in the summer of 2008 with the member name reindeerhunter1 and initially auctioned off ballpoint pens, Dom Perignon and a digital camcorder. The first positive reviews came as he also shipped these goods. Then he sold Roederer Cristal and a buyer who happened to be among polospieler1789's aggrieved parties also noticed the same address on reindeerhunter1! Again, only the first name was different. The surname and address matched. The buyer immediately informed eBay and the member account was blocked again.

With the large number of buyers from various countries (Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, Italy), it was not possible to file a class action suit, because the differing legislation of the individual EU countries also deals differently with fraud attempts on eBay. So each aggrieved customer had to file a lawsuit himself. Ebay did block the member account and sent the usual automatically generated emails to all buyers. "We are sorry you had problems with one of our members..... etc.". Florian Dieb (name changed) was recently legally sentenced to 1 year and 11 months - conditionally to 4 years. A happy customer who bought a whole wine cellar from Florian Dieb for about 40,000 euros - due to an advertisement in the Süddeutsche Zeitung - got this money back from the wealthy parents of the young man under threat of legal action. Whether the aggrieved eBay buyers will ever see any of their money again remains to be seen.


The risk of buying online

Logical thinking is often switched off in auctions on eBay by otherwise very responsible people shortly before the auction ends. Many believe they have to make a bargain at the last minute without reading the description more carefully. It happens again and again that especially inexperienced bidders fall for hidden traps on eBay. On the basis of a nice photo with 2 bottles of Latour, bids are made for 2 bottles of Latour 2000 for up to 1270 Euros, although the description states (albeit in very small print) that the auction is for 1 bottle and that the photo is only a symbolic photo. So-called show bottles are also often sold. These are EMPTY bottles from a tasting or replicas of the real bottles of the most expensive cult wines as souvenirs from Bordeaux. In the item description, it is often mentioned that the wine received 100 Parker points and is a dream for connoisseurs and investors. An absolute investment! Somewhere in the text there is a small note: "You are bidding on an empty bottle. Do not bid if you do not agree with it." Nevertheless, we observe again and again that these empty bottles achieve unbelievable auction results. Last year's case in France seems to show that empty bottles are refilled and that enormous profit can be made with them. 2 bottles of Romanée Conti 1937 were auctioned for just over 1000.- Euro. The fill level was so low that there was no longer any question of drinking. The assumption of a new filling made the rounds at the time. A well-preserved bottle of this rarity fetches between € 10,000 and € 15,000 on the market! Celebrities of the wine scene have also been accused of falsifying wine labels and wines. However, a few lines in some magazine prove nothing. Bad research and reports actually only discredit an industry that, in the fight against counterfeiting, is looking for new ways and means to really give the end consumer what he or she hopes to pour into the glass! There are fewer wines worth counterfeiting than there are watches, paintings or articles of various luxury brands.

So it is important that all internet users know exactly the risks that lurk on auction platforms so that they can live up to their own responsibility, namely the need for self-protection.

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