Ebay SCAM Alert on Nexstar 11 and possibly other Telescope Equipment

Ok, here's the story:

To start off with, take a look at this listing on Ebay,
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tegory=31 745

I contacted an Ebay seller, topsalles, last week about the exact same
listing to purchase of Nexstar 11, Ebay #3151688507,
and received a response to purchase the item outside of Ebay.

If you check for item #3151688507 you'll notice that it
doesn't exist anymore leading one to believe that Ebay has taken
some action. This is an assumption that cannot be verified.

The e-mail from topsalless originated from a UK based company
whose website, www.wtrade-shop.com, was created on Oct.24,2003.
This is based on the Whois internet database
(http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index.jhtml).
It looked really suspicious and I started to investigate it
further. As I dug deeper, it was looking more and more like a sham.

First, the Whois revealed the following about the website this
seller was associated with:

1.Registrant:
2.Mr sattam al noaim
3.17800 E Colima RD
4.Rowland Heights
5.CA
6.91748
7.US
8.
9.Domain Name: WTRADE-SHOP.COM
10.
11.Administrative Contact, Billing Contact:
12."Mr sattam al noaim"
13.Phone: 6267808183
14.Fax:
15.Technical Contact, Registrar:
16."Mr Easyspace Hostmaster"
17.Phone: +44 1932 350 097
18.Fax: +44 1932 350 222
19.
20.Record last updated on 2003-10-23.
21.Record expires on 2004-10-23.
22.Record created on 2003-10-23.

Ok, so we have a company in the UK, according to the website,
that was registered by someone in the US on Oct. 23, 2003.
Next, the contact for this fellow is through a yahoo account,
line #12, which makes it terribly difficult to track down
the individual. Lastly, on line #2, it shows a highly suspicious
name for the administrator based out of Southern California.

Now let's take a look at the e-mail that was sent to me from the
seller topsalles:

1.Received: from webshield.cihi.ca (smtp.infonex.com
[168.143.114.4]) by mailtor.cihi.ca with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange
Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2655.55)
2. id 40R9DY94; Sun, 26 Oct 2003 13:26:36 -0500
3.Received: from smtp.infonex.com(168.143.114.4) by
webshield.cihi.ca via csmap
4. id 5b0e07d4_07c0_11d8_898f_003048245df9_6133;
5. Sun, 26 Oct 2003 14:26:15 +0000 (UTC)
6.Received: from localhost (rigel2.cyberpass.net [168.143.113.102])
7. by smtp.infonex.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id C28EC34804F
8. for ; Sun, 26 Oct 2003 10:25:10 -0800 (PST)
9.Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 20:24:58 +0200
10.From:
11.Reply-To:
12.X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
13.Message-ID:
14.To:
15.Subject: Question for seller -- Item #3151688507
16.In-Reply-To:
17.References:
18.Mime-Version: 1.0
19.Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
20.Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
21.X-NAI-Spam-Sco 2.5
22.X-NAI-Spam-Level: **
23.X-NAI-Spam-Rules: 5 Rules triggered
24. PRIORITY_NO_NAME=1.2, MAILTO_LINK=1.2, NO_REAL_NAME=0.6,
25. EMAIL_ATTRIBUTION=-0.5, SIGNATURE_LONG_SPARSE=-0
16.X-NA
17.Hello rcabrita,
18.
19.Would you be interested in buying this new item now ? My prices
are
20.fair and I am willing to negotiate.
21.
22.You can do that instead of all bidding process which takes time
and
23.give you no reassurance you will win the item.
24.
25.Let me know at your earliest convenience, sir/madam.
16.
17.--
18.Best regards,
19.
20.Wtrade Ltd.
21.
22.Offices in Europe
23.Phone: 0034661051283, 00447747715980
24.E-mail:
25.Web: http://www.wtrade-shop.com

16.Friday, October 24, 2003, 10:49:54 PM, you wrote:
17.
18.rcc Need info on your sale of this item.
19.
20.rcc Cheers!
21.rcc scabrita
22.rcc --------------------
23.
24.
25.rcc Question from: scabrita
16.rcc Title of item: New Celestron Nexstar-11 GPS
Telescope
17.rcc Seller: topsalless
18.rcc Starts: Oct-24-03 02:41:14 PDT
19.rcc Ends: Oct-29-03 01:41:14 PST
20.rcc Price: Currently $102.50
21.rcc To view the item, go to:
22.rcc http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3151688507

Look closely and you'll see that this e-mail originated from
rigel2.cyberpass.net e-mail server on line #6. The domain name
"cyberpass.net" is owned by Anonymizer,
http://www.anonymizer.com/docs/faqs/sshfaq.shtml, and used by
those who do not want to be found.

At his point it was enough for me conclude that this whole thing
was a scam. What's scary is that there are some unsuspecting buyers
that are going to get fleeced big time. I've contacted Ebay and
hopefully this listing will be taken down before the bidding closes.

As I was finishing this message I was alerted to two additional
listings of the exactly the same but with different seller id's
based out of Europe.

Let's get the word out and prevent some innocent folks from
getting taken in.

Cheers!
RC

PS: Check out this link on an Ebay antiques scam that is similiar
to this one:
http://www.maineantiquedigest.com/ar...3/indo0603.htm