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The basic scam line goes something like this:
"I represent some high up official in the company abcxyz.com (often a dummy website with fake content that appears real). We noticed your very high feedback and believe you are trustworthy enough to go into business with.
We are an online sales company located in some foreign country (Russia, Romania, Indonesia, etc.) and we specialize in selling very expensive products (stuff like cameras, electronics, laptop or desktop computers, etc.).
We are currently overstocked or have just received a massive shipment and need your help selling these items in your country.
If you sell these goods for us on ebay.com we will give you a large commision on every sale and pay all your listing fees, final value fees, etc.
Once the item sells, all you have to do is accept the payment and send the money to us in some foreign country or to some foreign bank account.
We will then ship the item to the buyer via some very fast, very expensive, delivery service (Often claiming they will ship via Fedex or UPS overnight) and you will gain even more positive feedback."
Well, here's the scam, this fake company tries to get the seller to list their items on ebay using the seller's account.
The seller accepts payment from the buyer for the item, then takes his "percentage" of the sale, and sends the fake company the rest of the buyer's money.
This is where the problems begin. The company either simply never sends the buyer the product, or the company sends damaged or poor quality goods.
Since the buyer only has the seller's name and address to give to investigators, (this is because the buyer sent the money to the seller, not to the fake company in the foreign country.) the buyer reports the seller (not the fake company) for fraud.
The seller soon finds himself being investigated for various fraudulent activities, (mail fraud, ebay fraud, theft, etc.) and is unable to contact this non-existent company, because they have already taken the buyer's money and ran.
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