"Hello ...,

Warning !!!Please do not bid. My password has been hacked. Police and eBay are informed……..!!!!
- jenny1234* name has been changed.

item
Artikelbezeichnung:
Je 1 0.7 l.Flasche Chateau Petrus 1999, 2001 und 2002
Artikelnummer: 290206074920
Artikel-URL: http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290206074920 "

Emails similar to this one are often sent to us, because we closely watch every Fine Wine auction on eBay for our Auction-Price-Index we run at winecollect.eu. Such items are often reported to eBay. EBays security team is seldom ahead of the fraudsters but still cancels these auctions and restores accounts for the original members. Most often buyers transfer money to bank-accounts that are not corresponding to the same name of the seller. EBay warns to send money to such accounts because the name of the eBay account owner and name of bank account owner should be identical. Many eBayers don´t know that fact and are often delighted to have made a great bargain. A bargain which will never arrive after having paid it! A bargain which more than 20, rather experienced, eBay members believed to have made. When it comes to wine, some passionate wine-lovers lose their head. A spectacular case with a 5 to 6-digit amount of frauded customers occured in Germany last year.

A case without consequences?

 An eBay member with – believe it or not – 26 negative feedbacks was able to sell even more items to some credulous prospective buyers. The first negative feedback was given on 29/08/2007: (original text) “No action from seller after payment. Article not received. Fraud highly possible!“, More and more feedbacks like „This seller frauded over 20 Ebayers in August 2007 receiving over 45.000 Euro!!!“ did not prevent others from bidding. Really incredible! The “seller” with eBay account name polospieler1789 sold wines and renowned champagne at eBay auctions. Money was transferred almost by all winners of these auctions without any `ifs and buts´.  After some buyers started to warn the seller by email and threatened him with informing an attorney and eBay, the reaction was more than meager. In fact there was none! Some buyers decided to start the „item not received process“ on eBay, informed the local police about this scam and gave corresponding feedbacks for this member. Surprisingly the seller turned out to be a young man (let´s call him Mr. Frauderer) from a good family and used the eBay account of his mother without her knowing about this. He knew her password and modified the data of the bank account.  All payments were subsequently transferred to his account. His mother (owner of a prosperous clothing store) did obviously not know anything about her son´s activities on eBay, although he had been known by the authorities already for the same kind of scam he did one year before. In 2006 he "sold" a complete wine cellar for € 40.000.-! He was paid in advance by a client that was blinded-by-wine!  In this case the quite wealthy family of Mr. Frauderer repaid the total amount and he left the court without any problems. Not so 2 years later! Polospieler1789 was blocked and the user had no access to his eBay account anymore.

One of the most frauded wines worldwide: Petrus of the vintages 1921, 1947, 1961, 1982

Just an individual case?

Although eBay tries everything to improve security for all members it is rather easy to open an account. You just need a valid email address (even free mail) that´s all! Any name and home address and you can start bidding. Encouraged by all this Mr. Frauderer opened a new account. This time he chose the eBay member name reindeerhunter1 and again sold some inconspicuous items to get some positive feedbacks. Later he began selling Fine Wines and Champagne again and a buyer who coincidentally purchased one of these wines was very alert when he read the name and address of the seller. Same address as polospieler1789. The buyer informed eBay and the account was closed again.  Mr. Frauderer was sentenced to 1 year and 11 months on parole for 4 years. Whether all defrauded eBay buyers got back their money we do not know, but we are sure they will be more cautious in the future when bidding on Finest Wines. It is important for all online-shoppers to know that before sending money to a nickname one should know the person behind that nickname! Don´t rely on eBay rules and take some personal responsibility instead.  For eBay cases like the mentioned are negligible. Most sellers are reliable. And it is always your personal decision where to buy a Mouton Rothschild!