OT: I'm scared of bidding on eBay

[David Bovill]

In my vain attempt at overcoming paranoia I'm trying eBay - yes for the
first time - and well I'm already scared :)

My first bid was/is for this phone I've always fancied prior to the iPhone
arriving here on December 15th... so i bid £30 - not a lot, figuring I
wouldn't get it and that if anything dodgy went on the Paypal insurance
would kick in... and now I have a bad feeling about it as the guy has only
been a seller for a few weeks and his 100% rating from 10 people looks
strange to me.

I mean would you trust a second hand car salesman called "hottseller2007" -
even if he had 10 recommendations from people like "kentcardealer " or
"everydayimbuying " or "titi2002-88". Now not being familiar with eBay
etiquette maybe I'm missing out on something here - do all eBay punters have
nicks that sound like spammers?

Anyway it turns out the seller does not take PayPal - and i'm contractually
bound to stick to my bid and pay into this guys account before he ships due
to some story about having lost

I DO NOT ACCEPT PAYPAL BECAUSE MY LAST 2 EXPERIENCES OF PAYPAL WERE SCAMMERS
> USING STOLEN ACCOUNTS TO MAKE UNAUTHORISED PAYMENTS.
>
> I LOST £500 BECAUSE OF THIS SO I HAVE CLOSED MY PAYPAL ACCOUNT. I WILL NOT
> MAKE ANOTHER ONE. I DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, ACCEPT PAYMENT BY
> PAYPAL.
>
> I ACCEPT PAYMENT BY BANK DEPOSIT OR BANK TRANSFER ONLY.
>
> MY ITEMS ARE DISPATCHED FROM A DISTRIBUTOR IN THE UK VIA 1ST CLASS POST
> WITHIN 48 HOURS OF CLEARED FUNDS


Reading this and travelling around the links of comments it looks like no
one much has been a member more than a few weeks in this little self
congratulatory circle - including the putative "NIGERIAN FRAUDSTER" - its
that language of it all that my paranoia objects to...

Well I guess - I'll stick to paying up and seeing what happens - is it
common for people to set up scams with multiple accounts all voting for each
other?