This is one of those stories in which you struggle with knowing where to point the finger of blame. On one hand, you have an eBay scam artist who is selling printed photographs of MacBooks on eBay, but on the other you have the guy who actually fell for that trick. Plus, judging from the above photograph, he still has Christmas lights up in his house. It’s February. I think the jury’s out on this one.
38-year-old Paul Barrington found what he thought was a pretty incredible bargain on eBay when he discovered a MacBook going for £300 on the auction site. Unfortunately, then the “MacBook” was delivered to him, it turned out that it was just a printed photograph of the machine tucked away inside a small box (at least the scam artist didn’t have the audacity to send it an envelope).
Mr. Barrington said he is an avid surfer, and sold his surfboard in order to pay for the device which he wanted to use to set up a wedding DJ business. Speaking to the North Devon Journal, he said: “It’s the first time I haven’t had a surfboard since I was 10 years old.
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“But I need a laptop so I checked the listing and the seller’s rating. He’d been a member for a few years, so there was nothing to be suspicious about.”
However, Mr. Barrington should have been suspicious, as it transpired that regardless of the user being a long-time member, they still didn’t think twice about pulling off one of the oldest scams in the eBay book.
“Why bother sending a picture in a box?” he continued. “It doesn’t make any sense. I almost had to laugh.”
Mr. Barrington has been in touch with eBay, who are now consulting with him to resolve the issue. A statement from eBay given to the Telegraph reads: “We were very sorry to hear about Mr Barrington’s unusual experience, we’ll make sure he gets a refund as soon as possible and investigate the circumstances around this sale.
“The overwhelming majority of listings on eBay coming from honest and law-abiding sellers.”
It just goes to show that you should always read the fine print.
