A good friend of my husband's was recently ripped off.... he bought a Rolex on Ebay (first mistake.. I personally would never buy such a big ticket item on Ebay)... the guy had perfect feedback - he paid around $3,000 for the watch - sent a money order - received the watch - took it to a jeweler to verify it's authenticity - and he found out today that it's a fake.
My husband called me from work today to see if I could do a little research to see what he can do to recover his money, if he can at all.... and I started looking closely at the seller's "feedback left" - and this guy has been buying fake Rolex parts and tools on Ebay since July. It looks like he has been collecting replica parts and built the watch himself. Not to speak poorly of his friend - but I don't think he did enough research into this guy before buying the watch, otherwise he would have seen this and it would have thrown up immediate red flags.
Also... he is no longer a registered user - but it isn't due to feedback issues, his feedback was perfect... I believe he unregistered himself. It also looks like this is the only Rolex he has sold there - I think he was just seeing if he could pull it off, then unregistered ASAP.
Bad deal all around, and Ebay usually isn't much help in these cases. He's going to file a police report, and also will be filing a complaint with the USPS Postal Inspector for mail fraud. Hopefully he'll be able to get some sort of resolution - at any rate, it's a lesson learned that's for sure.