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EBay Auction Turns Into Highway Robbery
Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
2006-08-31
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
Meeting a seller face-to-face is a great way to avoid shipping charges on an online purchase. Cash payments can also preempt online arrangements - sellers would rather have your money, now, than someone else's money at some point in the future. Of course, some sellers prefer to take your money and keep the goods, which is what one British man discovered.
Shahzad Ali Shah had been eying a Mercedes Benz Kompressor C180 that was up for sale on eBay. "The man said if I paid in cash he would not offer it to anyone else," Shah told a newspaper. "He said if I had the cash, the car was available and we could do the deal straight away. I put in an offer for £5,500 and he accepted."
At the current rate of conversation, that translates into a little over $10,400 - more than what most people would consider a comfortable amount of "walking-around money." Shah, his mother, and his brother-in-law took this sum to East London to make the exchange.
"When they got to the meeting place, four men got out of a Vauxhall Corsa and surrounded the car," an article in the Sun stated. "Mr. Ali Shah said an Asian man produced a gun and took their car keys and demanded the money for the Mercedes."
According to Shah, "One said ‘I'll count to three and if you don't hand over the money I'm going to do something. He started counting and got to two and I shouted at my mum to hand it over. It was a terrifying ordeal."
Shah's group surrendered the £5580, a purse, some credit cards, and a mobile phone. It seems unlikely that Shah will ever again attempt to carry out an online transaction in the "real world."
Tag: eBay robbery
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About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for SecurityProNews, InternetFinancialNews, SearchNewz, and WebProNews.
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