Strange Bike Ads in Used BIkes - BEWARE?

[karlibaba]

Hello

 

Has anyone else noticed that there is a growing number of strange/suspicious ads in the Used Bikes section? Do a search for Class 2 bikes and you will find a number of ads for bikes at incredibly low prices. Like this one:

http://www.singaporebikes.com/used_bikes/28062/ducati_superbike_1198/

 

or this one:

 

http://www.singaporebikes.com/used_bikes/28069/yamaha_yzf_r6/

 

But look closer...all of the ads are posted in the early hours, all the bikes are for very low prices, they all have low mileage, the photos of the bikes do not look like the bike is in Singapore (looks like US or Oz) and there are never any contact details except SB e mail.

 

I replied to one and received a set of e mails from a guy telling me the bike was in Denmark and I needed to send money via Western Union Transfer. Maybe the ads are legit but it all looks very suspicious to me and I'd really like to know what other people think.

 

It seems SB no longer moderate the classifieds. You can't contact them but you can contact AdsPress who manage SB. I did this and reported the ads but have had no reply. I also informed them that the Used Bike section is now dominated by ads from dealers for new bikes and is therefore defunct but they don't seem to care.

 

Interested to know what others think.

[Tachnicolour]

Aye, has been discussed here.

 

http://www.singaporebikes.com/forums/showthread.php/418653-What-the-hey-!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?p=8204435#post8204435

 

Basically a scam, where they ask you to transfer funds for "shipping fees" or "agent fees", usually through Westeren Union.

[karlibaba]

Thanks for the clarification. It's a shame that SBF don't seem to care about these scams or the misuse of the classifieds by dealers. It's making the classifieds a waste of time.

 

Cheers

[PaLmEr]

Thanks for the clarification. It's a shame that SBF don't seem to care about these scams or the misuse of the classifieds by dealers. It's making the classifieds a waste of time.

 

Cheers

 

Why don't you use the "Report Post" feature found at the bottom left of each posting? It will enable our volunteer moderators to work on suspicious postings. We cannot be everywhere to police and monitor every single thread / post.

[karlibaba]

Great advice thanks Palmer. I did not realise that either moderators were volunteers or that there was a report function. The reason that I said SBF seem to not to car is that I went to the trouble of e mailing AdsPress and received no reply.

 

Many thanks

[karlibaba]

Hi Palmer

 

I get your point that the moderators are volunteers and thank them for the work that they do. However we are not really talking about trawling through 1000s of ads to find the bogus ones. A quick 2 minute search for Class 2 bikes in the Used Bike Mart reveals 25 out of the first 30 ads as being bogus. 25 are false ads trying to scam SBF punters of hard earned money and 4 are for new bikes from dealers.

 

I do sympathise with the fact that moderators are volunteers but given those statistics perhaps SBF needs to rethink the model. Just my 2 cents worth and genuinely given as constructive feedback.

 

Cheers