Thousands of people buy and sell items on e-Bay every day.
And unfortunately, some of those people fall victim to scams,, even those who take steps to be careful!
Heather Kelly of Lebanon got an e-mail from someone claiming to be from e-Bay, they even put the words 'e-Bay' in the return e-mail address.
The sender, who turned out to be a crook, wanted her to bid on a laptop computer.
You can guess what happened next.
HEATHER KELLY: "I didn't end up winning it some other guy off of ebay supposedly won it and the guy gave me a second chance offer for my highest bid because I had good feedback and I had made a lot of purchases off of ebay before."
The seller claimed she could get it because the winning bidder didn't pay.
The computer originally sells for $2000. The original bidder got it for nearly $1600 but Kelly was offered it for just $800 and she thought it was a great deal.
KELLY:"I had to send it through Western Union Wire transfer instead of PayPal. It was about $880. AND WHERE'D YOU SEND IT TO? The United Kingdom."
The seller had warned that Western Union is designed for sending money to friends and relatives so she can't say she's sending it to an eBay seller.
She followed the directions exactly, but the seller claimed he didn't get the money-- even though Western Union told her he did.
Kelly: "I told him I was like I know you're a liar I know you have the money just send me my computer and I won't report you and he stopped making contact with me."
Kelly filed a complaint with eBay but the company is unable to help her because her purchase took place outside of eBay.
Again, the emails she received had an eBay address on them, but they were not from eBay.
eBay says you can sign on to its website and check to see if it has sent you any messages.
Finally, never, ever wire money to anyone you don't know. Remember, once you wire money you can't get it back.
