Has anyone here bought a bike on the internet sight unseen?

Here is a hypothetical situation: There is a 2006 bike worth $6000, advertised on the internet under City A for $2000. The bike is described to be in showroom condition. It looks good in the pic, but the pic itself is over a year old. It has only 5000 miles on the odometer, and is under extended warranty for 2 more years. The buyer emails the seller about the bike, and the seller tells the buyer that the bike is in fact in city B, 2000 miles away, and to make the situation more complicated, the seller himself is in Europe, and says that the transaction is to be done through a company called Worldpay. The method is for the buyer to pay into Worldpay, Worldpay will ship the bike from City B to City A; the buyer will have 3 days to inspect the bike, and has the right to not go through with the deal if the bike falls short of the description, in which case Worldpay would ship the bike back to City B. The one way B->-A shipping is included in the purchase price, and the A->-B return shipping, if applicable, would be charged against the seller. The buyer writes the seller that a friend who lives in City B could go and check out the bike. The seller wrote back, saying that the bike is in the custody of Worldpay in City B, and Worldpay would not allow the bike to be viewed unless the viewer is accompanied by the seller, who unfortunately is in Europe. The buyer makes an offer by email of $1600 for the bike as described; the seller wrote back and accepted it, and asked the buyer to go through the transaction with Worldpay, giving the buyer the email address of Worldpay@consultant.com. The buyer does not consider this email necessarily belonging to Worldpay, i.e. could be fake although Worldpay does exist on google. The reply from "Worldpay" confirms that there is such a bike in their custody in City B, but, yes, it cannot be viewed unless the viewer is accompanied by the owner, who happens to be in Europe, so, no, the bike cannot be viewed, but as explained by the seller, once the $1600 has been paid to Worldpay, it will be held there until the bike has been shipped to the buyer, the buyer has inspected the bike and okayed it within the first 3 days of the bike's arrival, and finalized the deal, then the $1600 will be paid to the seller, minus the shipping cost and the transaction fee. The buyer went into Worldpay.com and found the following 5 point procedure (verbatim):


Step 1: The buyer and seller agree to the terms and details of the transaction.

Step 2: The buyer sends payment to a WorldPay agent. Payment is verified and deposited into a trust account.

Step 3: We ship the merchandise to the buyer, knowing that the buyer's payment is secured.

Step 4: The buyer accepts the merchandise after having the opportunity to inspect it.

Step 5: WorldPay transfer the funds to the seller after all conditions of the transaction are met.

The thing is this. In this entire convoluted sequence, there is nothing to prove to the buyer that the bike even exists (since the email address could be fake), and once the $1600 is sent (by credit card or whatever), it may just have gone into a blackhole. The buyer does has one more thing to do, which is to call Worldpay's HQ, which is in the UK, when their office opens on Monday.

Has anyone here had any experience dealing with Worldpay in a situation like this? What would you do in such a circumstance?

AM

Scam

All I know is that if this were legit, why would the have to do all this stuff for cents on the $$. Why not just sell it normally? If I were selling MY bike, would I do all that? The simplest answer is that there is something wrong here. Just my opinion though, no personal experience.

Scam

Sure sounds awfully complicated for something as simple as buying a used motorcycle...

if the buyer will not sell to you directly, its most likely a scam

read the 1st sentence and knew it was a scam. I did read the rest and of course it is a scam. Deal locally, I wouldn't want to buy a bike before I saw it anyway, unless they were a friend or if you could have someone trusted take a look.

read the 1st sentence and knew it was a scam.

Ditto... actually I knew it by your question, even before reading the first sentence.

Has anyone here bought a bike on the internet sight unseen?

Here is a hypothetical situation: There is a 2006 bike worth $6000, advertised on the internet under City A for $2000. The bike is described to be in showroom condition. It looks good in the pic, but the pic itself is over a year old. It has only 5000 miles on the odometer, and is under extended warranty for 2 more years. The buyer emails the seller about the bike, and the seller tells the buyer that the bike is in fact in city B, 2000 miles away, and to make the situation more complicated, the seller himself is in Europe, and says that the transaction is to be done through a company called Worldpay. The method is for the buyer to pay into Worldpay, Worldpay will ship the bike from City B to City A; the buyer will have 3 days to inspect the bike, and has the right to not go through with the deal if the bike falls short of the description, in which case Worldpay would ship the bike back to City B. The one way B->-A shipping is included in the purchase price, and the A->-B return shipping, if applicable, would be charged against the seller. The buyer writes the seller that a friend who lives in City B could go and check out the bike. The seller wrote back, saying that the bike is in the custody of Worldpay in City B, and Worldpay would not allow the bike to be viewed unless the viewer is accompanied by the seller, who unfortunately is in Europe. The buyer makes an offer by email of $1600 for the bike as described; the seller wrote back and accepted it, and asked the buyer to go through the transaction with Worldpay, giving the buyer the email address of Worldpay@consultant.com. The buyer does not consider this email necessarily belonging to Worldpay, i.e. could be fake although Worldpay does exist on google. The reply from "Worldpay" confirms that there is such a bike in their custody in City B, but, yes, it cannot be viewed unless the viewer is accompanied by the owner, who happens to be in Europe, so, no, the bike cannot be viewed, but as explained by the seller, once the $1600 has been paid to Worldpay, it will be held there until the bike has been shipped to the buyer, the buyer has inspected the bike and okayed it within the first 3 days of the bike's arrival, and finalized the deal, then the $1600 will be paid to the seller, minus the shipping cost and the transaction fee. The buyer went into Worldpay.com and found the following 5 point procedure (verbatim):


Step 1: The buyer and seller agree to the terms and details of the transaction.

Step 2: The buyer sends payment to a WorldPay agent. Payment is verified and deposited into a trust account.

Step 3: We ship the merchandise to the buyer, knowing that the buyer's payment is secured.

Step 4: The buyer accepts the merchandise after having the opportunity to inspect it.

Step 5: WorldPay transfer the funds to the seller after all conditions of the transaction are met.

The thing is this. In this entire convoluted sequence, there is nothing to prove to the buyer that the bike even exists (since the email address could be fake), and once the $1600 is sent (by credit card or whatever), it may just have gone into a blackhole. The buyer does has one more thing to do, which is to call Worldpay's HQ, which is in the UK, when their office opens on Monday.

Has anyone here had any experience dealing with Worldpay in a situation like this? What would you do in such a circumstance?

AM
I can tell you right now, I at one point in my life got very good at scamming, I dont anymore after I had a bit of a realization of how much trouble I could get in, but this is definitely a scam, and at that a pretty poorly thought out one on the part of the person trying to scam you.

Glad you stopped scamming, but was it really only because of your own interests? No empathy, compassion, remorse for the pain you caused your victims?

I hate scammers. Glad you paused and thought about it before you wasted your hard earned money. Since you asked if it was a scam, I'm sure you knew already that really must be a scam. It is one of those, if you gotta ask...

I wonder how these people live with themselves, but I guess people can learn to turn off their subconscious. They probably get a rush from scamming people. Sick!

If I were king, these people would probably hesitate to continue after I made an example out of a few of them.

I can tell you right now, I at one point in my life got very good at scamming, I dont anymore after I had a bit of a realization of how much trouble I could get in, but this is definitely a scam, and at that a pretty poorly thought out one on the part of the person trying to scam you.

Thank you for coming clean, buddy. So, according to your experience, what is the best way to stop this scam and put the guy where he belongs?

Thank you for coming clean, buddy. So, according to your experience, what is the best way to stop this scam and put the guy where he belongs?

The person who is running this scam is probably located in a no extridition country, alot of these scammers are also very poor located in South Africa working out of internet cafe type places, and if they get ahold of your credit card number, gl straightening that out..I suppose they could be anywhere though, I read alot about the scammers in South Africa though..

Anytime I hear of some kind of deal that has a third party involved, I try and stay away. Def smells like scam.

Anytime I hear of some kind of deal that has a third party involved, I try and stay away. Def smells like scam.

Escrow services are often used for high value/risk transactions, though idiots fall for fake or impostor services all the time.

Look up "P-P-P-Powerbook" to see the story of one guy scamming a scammer who originally tried to con him with a fake escrow service (and fake website).

Even if you look it up and the service is legit with good reviews, be careful because the other guy can always make a phishing scam website that looks like the well respected one and con you out of your money or product.