Item misrepresentation is often a cause of much distress for winning bidders. As the title indicates the item that the buyer has bought has been misrepresented or is not what the buyer assumed it to be.

One such example of this scam is described below:

• A scammer buys a pair of cheap discount bin sunglasses on sale at a discount store.
  
• The scammer then paints a replica of the Oakley's logo on the bridge of the nose of the sunglasses.
  
  
• The seller then lists the item for sale as a pair of Oakley's sunglasses on ebay. (For those unfamiliar with Oakley's Sunglasses, they are designer sunglasses and often cost over $100 or $200 US funds for one pair)

• Now some poor bidder (the victim) thinks these cheap $2.00 sunglasses are the real thing and pays between $100-$200 for them.

When the victim receives the glasses they find they have been duped, and if they can contact the seller they get am ignorant response like:

"The auction never stated they were authentic Oakley's Sunglasses it only said they were Oakley's sunglasses."

The victim is often left with a cheap, poorly made product, worth far less then the amount paid.

Other ways items maybe misrepresented are:

• Item is damaged, but damage is not mentioned in auction.
  
• Item description is very vague or deceptive. (item described as "Gold C Chain" the scammer tells the buyer after he pays that the "C" meant "colored")
  
• Pictures are fuzzy, or deceptively taken to hide flaws (dirt, stains, holes, tears, cracks, chips, wear, etc.).
  
• Descriptions such as "appears in good condition" used (whereas "appears" means if you only look at one side, etc.)
• Buyer receives burnt, illegal, bootlegged, or pirated copy of software, etc. Instead of the real thing. (Ebay prohibits the sale of illegally copied software)

Though victims of this scam have the ability to try and recover their funds, or have the item replaced, the odds of a succesfull transaction after receiving misrepresented goods are very slim.