The ebay seller has emailed me because the winner retracted his bid and i won by default? should i trust this?

I am the seller of the MICROSOFT XBOX 360 - FULLY WORKING, CUSTOM CASE - item # 170189786875, and I've just been contacted by the eBay staff who informed me that the winner of this item got rejected due to security reasons (either failed to follow through on the purchase commitment or outright refused to do so). Your last auctioned bid of AU $120.00 prior to being outbided is taken into consideration as eBay policy automatically proclaims you to be the winner by default. Nevertheless,I need your agreement on this so I may contact eBay to confirm your winning position otherwise I'll relist the item. If you're interested please confirm by forwarding this message to e-mail and include your name, address and ebay ID. Thank you

i havent received any notifications from ebay and he likely wants to complete the transaction outside of ebay.

should i trust this character?

those were the exact words from the email he sent me!

I would just ignore

Click on the "Bids" link in the listing, and if you're not the highest bidder ,then ignore it.

Second chance offers are often used by the scammers.

Plus, that email sounds like a load of Bull.!

Contact the seller by going through your eBay mail and ask for the seller to verify your default win. The seller already has your eBay ID due to the bid you placed so asking for your name, address and ID seems rather suspicious.

Good luck!

Go here: http://answercenter.ebay.com/search.jspa...

There should be some pertinent info there.

Sounds suspicious.

Sounds like a scam. EVERY scammer wants to complete transactions outside of ebay. That is a number one RED FLAG. Ebay warns against this...no wire transfers, no checks, money orders, blah, blah, blah. They want to do it outside of ebay so that they can't be tracked.

No ... don't trust this one. There is one scenerio where this might be legitimate, but the way he put it to you is odd.

If something goes wrong with the first bidder, or if he has an identical item, a seller usually has the option of offering you a "second chance offer" But this is something that is done through eBay. He would go to his ended auction and select your name from a list of people who are eligible for a second chance offer.

I can see one reason why he might not do it that way. Some eBayers opt out of those without realizing exactly what they're saying no to. There's a setting where you can opt out of receiving 2nd chance offers. There has been a couple of occasions where I had more than one item, and my 2nd highest bidder did not opt in. You can tell from the bidders list who those people are. So sometimes I will message them and ask them if they want it. At that point I can make it a store listing at their highest bid so they can purchase.

Now, what's wrong with the email he sent you, is that 1) He needs your eBay ID, 2) he wants your address, 3) eBay won't proclaim you to be anything, this is all done on the part of the seller and 4) there's no way he can "confirm it with eBay" ... it doesn't work that way. It sounds like he wants you to buy the item so bad for the price you bid that he's willing to try and make you believe that you're obligated.

You also have to make sure this is a message from your seller. Did you check? Other people can see your bid for this item ... are you sure this isn't just someone else emailing you?

I just realized that you included the auction number, sooperdude :D I find it even odder now that I see that there are 8 others in front of you that bid higher. And I also note that this is a used system that they are showing a picture of ... it's doubtful they're going to have that many of the exact same system extra to offer around.

Yes, run ... run away fast ....

And if you decide to buy electronics off eBay again, you should pick a more experienced seller, IMHO. A score of 33 isn't enough to tell what they're going to turn out to be. You may be okay, you may not. I don't buy electronics on eBay at all, because it's a very risky business.