FIRST PERSON/OPINION Via e-mail: I am responding to Nick Pelhan’s article on April 7, 2005. I just read Nick’s article and something caught my eye. He said that a scammer offered a bidder a “second” chance on a bike. I reviewed my history for the week and remember bidding on a 2004 gsxr600 on ebay Item number 4539524973. The bike had been damaged and the winning bid was $2250. I lost the bid in the last seconds so the next day I was checking my email and saw that I was being offered a second chance to purchase this bike. I declined and didn’t bother to email back because I had already found another motorcycle. In the email sent to me he asked for all my personal information and I never responded. I had a gut feeling something was up. Ebay sent me a warning email a couple days later telling me that it could possibly be a scam. Thank goodness I knew better than to reply to this second chance offer. In 2003 I was scammed trying to sell a bike on the net. It was the nigerian fraud check scam. I wrote in to Roadracingworld.com and they thankfully published my story. But other people are not as lucky. Please listen to people like me who learned the hard way. I ended up paying $6800 back to my bank where the check was cashed. It cost me alot of money and alot of track time. It’s been two years since I owned a bike because of this fraudulent B.S. People just be careful, do your research, and if there is any doubt whatsoever in your mind that it is not a clean deal then let it go and find something else. If you don’t you will be searching the country for a bike that will never show up and a scammer will have your money. And do yourself a favor and your friends across the country, anytime you recognize a scam, report it to the website you’re viewing. If everyone will make an effort at fighting these bastards then maybe we can run them off our sites. Sorry for the length, but I’m fed-up with this crap. I hope one day law enforcement and bankers will help fight this mess. They didn’t help me so now I’m trying to help everyone else. For questions or advice on anything email me. I check it 5 times a day. [email protected]. Thanks Roadracingworld.com for all that you do in the motorcycle community. Also, roll #99! Eric J. Douglass Franklin, North Carolina