A New Online Scam

A New Online Scam COMPUTERS Computers 31-5-5 A reader called me the other day for advice on how to get his money back from an internet deal gone bad. Here's what happened: He saw a used Kubota tractor for sale at a price that seemed too good to be true. He contacted the seller to buy it. The seller suggested they execute the transaction through eBay in order to "protect" them both. He moved the listing over to eBay and then told the buyer exactly when the listing would come up so he could click on the "Buy It Now" price and complete the deal. Once that had been accomplished, the seller required the buyer to send a Western Union money order to an address in Florida, although the tractor was supposedly in North Dakota. "This was the first time I ever bought anything off the internet. I figured he was a dealer and that was how it worked," the reader told me. Once he had sent the $2,500, the seller stopped responding to him. And he soon found out there was no tractor in North Dakota. He was out of luck. "Maybe the worst thing about the whole experience is that I keep seeing this scammer's ad online," he told me. "Every time I see it I contact the website where it's listed and they take it off. I know I was gullible but I'm sure there are other people out there like me. So beware."

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