So right now I am selling loads of stuff on ebay, that I won’t bore you with the details of. One of the items is a 60GB ipod, which I had an offer for via email. The potential buyer wanted me to give them £250 for the ipod. They were happy to accept Paypal, but they didn’t want to buy the item using Buy it Now. This must be enough to set alarm bells ringing. Why would someone want to take a payment through Paypal and pay Paypal fees, but not want the additional protection of buying though an official Ebay channel. Come to think of it, why would you want to buy a two year old ipod for £250? This is what ‘Paypal’ have to say:
This message is originated from paypal company.We have received an order from our client “(Eric Smith)”eric.smith001@yahoo.com regarding the payment made to your paypal account.
The payment has been successfully made but due to security reason we have to receive the shipment tracking number before the next 24 hours for the processing of your order.
This a new measure we are taking to protect both our sellers and buyers against fraudulent customers.
Once you have shipped the item send us the shipment tracking number for verification after the number has verify your account will be credited instantly.
Please. Just ask yourself a few basic questions.
Thankfully, I am not an idiot. Whether its idiocy or pure greed or a mixture of both that lures people into these kind of scams, I don’t know. Its probably a mixture of both. Is it the case that people simply fail to apply every day reasoning when confronted with a computer? The message box asks you ‘Is your printer plugged into LPT1′. You don’t know what LPT1 is, but then who cares. If you were confronted with the question ‘Is your car parked in a schmler?’, you could reasonably answer, ‘No. My car is in a car park. What is a schmler?’.
But a quick buck is different – it seems to bypass any form of reason – and this applies as much within computing as it does within every other aspect of life. ‘I want what Dave has, so I’m going to get a credit card with 40% APR to buy it. When I default, its everyone else’s fault, because they didn’t stop this from happening to me’.
Suddenly, an individuals inability to grasp the concept of compound, damn, even simple interest rates is a reflection on a decaying society – the ‘fault’ of the credit providers who back up entire economies, or the magical internet that eats children for breakfast and steals you money via Paypal.
So fuck the morons who fall for this. If people want to give their money to eric.smith001@yahoo.com who will buy your piece of shit ipod for £250, or Eric Smith the guy in the pub who has a load of Rolex’s that fell off the back of the lorry, or Eric Smith the mortgage lender who will let you buy the house and give you 110% of its value, then let them. Its the thoughtless, fuckwitted greed of people who buy into these scams who cause the problems. Kill the demand and the supply will disappear.