There are some dodgy people out there, and despite our efforts to keep them from Auction saboteur and protect you, one day a bogus ad or buyer may slip through. Read here for some common scams on the net to watch out for.

• Brand name spoofing/phishing: You get an email that claims to be from Auction Saboteur, eBay, Western Union, or another company and offers buyer protection or an online payment system or perhaps a cash prize. These emails will typically request that you send money or provide personal information. Any emails which combine urgency with some need for personal details should be treated with caution, no matter whom they purport to be from. Auction Saboteur and most other companies will never send out such emails. If you send money via these sites you are likely sending money to the fraudsters.
If you receive an email alleging to be from a company offering a service then go directly to the company’s official website and look for details of the service.

• Cheque overpayment: A buyer or seller will send you a cheque worth more than the value of the items/ rent and then ask for the surplus money to be returned to them or a third party, for example “to pay for shipping”. The cheque will clear into your bank, only to be stopped/refused weeks later. At this point, the Banks/Building Societies will take the full cheque amount back out of your account. Not only will you have lost the goods, you will be out of pocket for the amount of the cheque and the amount you passed on as the difference.

• Payment for brokerage/importing: A seller claims that there are brokerage fees, import duties, or other such fees required to get an item into the country. Do not pay such fees, as you will most often never get the product and will have lost any money you paid. Again, Auction Saboteur is designed for local, face to face trading.

• Fake escrow sites: A buyer or seller suggests using an escrow service to complete the transaction. Often these escrow web sites are run by fraudsters (even though they may look "official") and they will take your money and never send you the product.