We thought we were going to be there. We were so excited! We thought we had four tickets to the AFC championship game in Denver. We were going to be at the big game to witness the Broncos beat the Patriots and advance to the Super Bowl. Well, the Broncos did win the game and will advance to the Super Bowl but we were not there to witness it! We got scammed on our tickets! It all seemed so right. The seller said she was using eBay with the buyer protection program to protect both of us during the transaction. I received official-looking papers from eBay stating that Western Union would be our exchange agent. We sent our money to Western Union and began packing our bags. Well you can guess the rest of the story. The money was picked up at Western Union by the agent but no tickets were overnighted as promised. All correspondence ended from the seller. After checking with ebay and Western Union we were told that we really had been scammed, so we unpacked our bags and counted our losses.

There are some adult life lessons we have learned from this experience that we would like to share with you: eBay never uses a third party agent, and if you are concerned about a transaction with eBay, contact them. Never use Western Union as a money agent. There is no way to track the agent if there is a mishap. When buying online, especially from Craig’s List, know the various fraud and scam tricks that are used. Don’t let your emotions override common sense. Use as many checks and balances as you can so you know it is legitimate deal.

Liz Oetter

Bayfield