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Garmin 480 on eBay

logansc

Well Known Member
I've been shopping for a Garmin 480, but they rarely come up for sale. There was one on eBay this week, but it was pulled last night with about an hour to go on the auction. Perhaps it looked to the owner like it wouldn't sell for enough?

Anyway, I wonder if that was anyone on the RV website or if anyone knows about it? I'm still interested. If anyone has a good 480 or knows the seller of the one that was pulled from eBay so I might make contact directly, I'd appreciate the information.

Thanks,


Lee...
 
Was it pulled by the seller or Ebay? If Ebay it was probably a scam.....

If you had placed a bid you will have a record as a confirmed bid thru email...You can contact the seller by going to the auction site on that email even though it has ended.....
 
Be careful, there are a lot of scams on garmin panel mounts on ebay these days. I've been watching the 430s and have seen interesting patterns.
 
Could you elaborate?:confused:

I can. I have been watching Aera's and 696's and for every good auction there seems to be 2 or 3 frauds. Usually is a scammer who hijacked someones acct and is trying to get money from a buy-it-now. They probably have access to the user's Paypal account or might ask the person who won the auction to send money an alternate way.

Read the eBay feedback carefully before you bid. Watch for a seller who hasn't sold anything for a long time but then all of a sudden has a 696 up for sale for $1500.
 
Red Flags

If it is too cheap-----

If the seller wont give a phone number-----

If the seller wont give a location------

If the seller wont allow "hands on" inspection----

If they want to use an escrow account------

If they claim to have suddenly gone out of state/country-----

If they claim the sale is due to sudden crisis------

If they have an incredible "sob story" ------
 
Not clear why the 480 I was watching was pulled. I had not bid yet and it was down to one hour to go. The price was not where I expected it to end up, so I had some "overhead" in my bid plan. All of a sudden, it disappeared and the dialog box said it was no longer available. I did not see anything that alerted me that it might be a scam.

Like I said, 480's are hard to find in part because it is generally thought they are hard to program. That's because they are somewhat backwards from 430/530's in the way you input flight plans. I've never had either one of those though, so I don't expect the 480 to be a problem for me from that perspective. They have a larger display than 430's but smaller than 530's. I followed them for months on Barnstormers, Avionics List, and eBay. Lost two to higher bids on eBay several months ago and no others have appeared since then. I bought a 530W a month ago and was about to install it when this 480 appeared on eBay Thursday.

I would still rather have the 480 even though there is now a mandatory factory SB out on them. Thanks for the ideas and for the record, I'm still looking but may have to give up and install the 530W and be thankful for that!

Regards,


Lee...
 
Mike has a good list of red flags, many of which I would have listed if he hadn't already. I would add a few:

The description talks about a buy-it-now figure but the auction doesn't actually have the buy-it-now feature enabled. Often this figure is in the too-good-to-be-true price range ($2000 seems popular), and eventually leads to an email discussion off of ebay. You send an email, and they convince you to wire or otherwise transfer money to them outside of the ebay-paypal sphere. This is something they could potentially do to multiple buyers at the same time, getting multiple payments for a single non-existent item.

As Mike suggested, the seller has no history of other aviation or avionics sales, suggesting an account hijack. They will send out a fake phising email that tricks people into providing their username and password to an ebay look-alike site. If they send out 10,000 spam messages, they might get credentials for the one account that they need to run the scam. Who knows, maybe they send 100,000. Either way, chances are good that they won't get the account of someone who has ever sold avionics before.

I've noticed the same picture in auctions by different sellers, usually with the first feature above. This one isn't entirely reliable for scam detection, but I am less suspicious when I see a view that I haven't seen before.

If I was planning to buy something that big from ebay, I would want to talk with the seller on the phone (as Mike also suggested). You could tell in a minute if they knew anything about avionics. Even if they do have the unit on hand, I would like to be convinced that it isn't stolen. A few questions with non-intuitive answers would be useful. For instance, "I'm planning to put it in my RV" should mean different things to us and to non-aviators, since non-aviators will probably think of recreational vehicles.

Sorry if this is too off-topic for the for-sale section.
 
Yes, this was a scam and that is why ebay pulled it. Luckily for everyone involved it was pulled before the auction ended and money exchanged hands. The scammer probably stole somebody's ebay id, listed the item... and when somebody sent the seller a question, the real owner of the ebay id probably got a automated email.... looked into it, and contacted ebay to let them know their id was stolen.

Like others have mentioned, it is getting real bad on ebay. Garmin Panel Mounts (430/530) and portable 696's are the worst. I think at times the majority of auctions are scams. If you monitor them enough, it's pretty easy to tell the scams from the legit auctions. Always ask questions before bidding.

This particular auction was being talked about on the beechtalk forum and I also commented there while the listing was active.
http://www.beechtalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=49948
Bob C
 
.....Like others have mentioned, it is getting real bad on ebay. Garmin Panel Mounts (430/530) and portable 696's are the worst. I think at times the majority of auctions are scams. If you monitor them enough, it's pretty easy to tell the scams from the legit auctions. Always ask questions before bidding......
Also please report any auction to Ebay that is questionable....I've done this many, many, many times over the years. More so lately....There is a link on every auction to make a report....:cool:
 
Once you learn it I find it actually more user friendly than the 430. I have flown both for several 100 hours and currently use the 480. Not only do I find it better, but it will also do holds and fly airways which the 430 will not do.




Not clear why the 480 I was watching was pulled. I had not bid yet and it was down to one hour to go. The price was not where I expected it to end up, so I had some "overhead" in my bid plan. All of a sudden, it disappeared and the dialog box said it was no longer available. I did not see anything that alerted me that it might be a scam.

Like I said, 480's are hard to find in part because it is generally thought they are hard to program. That's because they are somewhat backwards from 430/530's in the way you input flight plans. I've never had either one of those though, so I don't expect the 480 to be a problem for me from that perspective. They have a larger display than 430's but smaller than 530's. I followed them for months on Barnstormers, Avionics List, and eBay. Lost two to higher bids on eBay several months ago and no others have appeared since then. I bought a 530W a month ago and was about to install it when this 480 appeared on eBay Thursday.

I would still rather have the 480 even though there is now a mandatory factory SB out on them. Thanks for the ideas and for the record, I'm still looking but may have to give up and install the 530W and be thankful for that!

Regards,


Lee...
 
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