eBay used to be safe, and for the most part, I suppose it still is. The honest people in the world still outnumber the dishonest ones, and I hope it stays that way forever. But anyone who has used eBay a fair amount has gotten scammed at least once or twice, or at the very least, received emails from people fishing for a gullible seller/buyer to scam. I myself paid for a relatively expensive item that was never sent to me. Luckily, in that case, I was protected because I went through eBay and they refunded my money. Of course, I was out a few hundred bucks for about three months while I went through their fraud process. That pretty much sucks for someone on a shoestring budget like me (though one has to wonder just how shoestring my budget is if I can spend hundreds of dollars on eBay… yup, I’m enigmatic like that…).

Anyway, I saw a story on Slashdot about an eBay scammer, and eventually found this site, P-P-P-Powerbook.com, that chronicles a relatively recent (April/May 2004) scam story. It’s really really funny, and there are some awesome pictures to go with it. I have the PDF document shared on here, but I’d really recommend checking the site as well.

It’s tough to explain quickly what exactly happened. I guess the really important thing is that the seller, who was trying to sell an Apple Powerbook, was contacted by a scammer who wanted to buy the Powerbook through an Escrow site. Eventually the seller decided to scam this scammer, and eventually sent him a P-P-P-Powerbook, picturres of which are below. Anyway, the story is quite long and involved, but very humorous, so I’d recommend checking it out. Some of my favorite picutres are below (there are more in the PDF and at the site). Oh, and there’s also a hilarious site that offers P-P-P-Powerbooks for sale. It looks pretty legitimate…

Get the PDF story here.