EBay Scam

[melbxs]

There's a company (or two) re-hashing wikipedia pages and having them printed to order as "books". These books are showing up on EBay and even Amazon at crazy prices.

Some of the book subjects are motorcycle related:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Yamaha-XS-Ele...ht_1068wt_1139

I have seen these for all sorts of subjects and there is no value in owning one as all of the content is already on Wikipedia.

Some more details here:

http://en.wikipedia..../VDM_Publishing

http://www.chrisrand...ipt-publishing/

I would ask that members of other forums (motorcycle related or otherwise) warn fellow members of this scam.

[fredintoon]

Originally Posted by melbxs

There's a company (or two) re-hashing wikipedia pages and having them printed to order as "books". These books are showing up on EBay and even Amazon at crazy prices.

Some of the book subjects are motorcycle related:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Yamaha-XS-Ele...ht_1068wt_1139

I have seen these for all sorts of subjects and there is no value in owning one as all of the content is already on Wikipedia.

I would ask that members of other forums (motorcycle related or otherwise) warn fellow members of this scam.

Hi melb,
"Scam" may be a touch harsh. AU$68 may be a whole whack of cash for a hard copy but it ain't like it don't say exactly what you are getting.
The first line in your link says:-
"High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! "

[melbxs]

Originally Posted by fredintoon

Hi melb,
"Scam" may be a touch harsh. AU$68 may be a whole whack of cash for a hard copy but it ain't like it don't say exactly what you are getting.
The first line in your link says:-
"High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! "

Any right-minded individual would call it a scam.

The contents for all of these "books" aren't carefully selected they are automatically downloaded by a software robot. All you are getting is a hardcopy of wikipedia articles that starts with the original article and then deviates off at any old tangent dependant upon what links also happen to be on the page and the next page and the page after that.

It's worthless crap and it is sold purely on an intention to mislead the buyer. A confidence trick.

Just because there's nothing technically illegal about it doesn't stop it from being a scam.

Just thought I'd warn people about it.

[b.walker5]

Good to know. Thanks Melb.

[psycoreefer]

on the topic of ebay - always carefully read the description, then read it again, then have someone else you trust read it just to be sure. I had a friend get taken for a couple hundred bucks a few years ago - description said "you are bidding on a brand new xbox box" he assumed it was a typo as the opening bid was like $25, and won the bidding against several others finally paying 150 or something for an empty box.

Just like these books, nothing illegal about it but clearly an attempt to mislead unaware buyers.

[natemoen]

Originally Posted by psycoreefer

on the topic of ebay - always carefully read the description, then read it again, then have someone else you trust read it just to be sure. I had a friend get taken for a couple hundred bucks a few years ago - description said "you are bidding on a brand new xbox box" he assumed it was a typo as the opening bid was like $25, and won the bidding against several others finally paying 150 or something for an empty box.

Just like these books, nothing illegal about it but clearly an attempt to mislead unaware buyers.

OUCH! I bet that guy was like "WTF are these guys doing! SWEET!!!"

[CatatonicBug]

Originally Posted by natemoen

OUCH! I bet that guy was like "WTF are these guys doing! SWEET!!!"

Nah. He did it on purpose, to snag the people who don't read the full listings carefully. There are TONS of these all the time, whenever a new high-dollar toy comes out. In a few months, you'll see empty boxes for the new iPhone being sold too.