I got this email today.
This is  not are good friend jim.

Hi There,

I am the seller of " Item Number:150165186653                Sega Viper Night Drivin Pinball Machine...FAST!!!!." ,and I've just been contacted by the eBay staff who informed me that the winner of the item I sold, withdrew his bidding and was rejected due to security reasons (either failed to follow through on the purchase commitment or outright refused to do so).
In compliance with eBay policy ,I offer you the item thru Second Chance Offer program at your LAST BID PRICE.
The eBay policy automatically proclaims you to be the winner by default.Nevertheless, I need your agreement on this so I may contact eBay to confirm you the winning position, otherwise I'll relist the item.
I am sorry for the inconvenience, but I need an answer as soon as possible.Your last auctioned bid prior to being outbid is taken into consideration.
If you still interested, please email me at: l98798n@hotmail.com or reply me at this e-mail.
With Best Regards,
Sincerely

This is not Jim Stay away

I received a similar Phishing expedition after bidding on Jim's Stargate.  I don't normally advocate violence, but these people need a bullet to the head.

It now seems that every pinball machine you bid on, you get one of these emails. The only way to know if they are in fact true, is that all second chance offers are also received in "My Ebay". If you receive it there, then it is actually real.

I got a similar one this weekend for something other than a pinball/arcade machine. I had bid on something but didn't win in the end. I knew it was fake from the get-go as real second chance offers come directly from ebay. Well that and I had been emailing the seller while the auction was on going because of some questions I had and the email address were completely different.

Simply forward the email without adding any comments to "spoof@ebay.com" to report it to ebay.

The thing I find more disturbing is how in the hell did they get our email address and associate it with our ebay ID's? Possible someone hacked into ebay and got all that info some how? Would suck if they did.

BZM

How does a newbie ever buy his 2nd machine and keep his sanity

Thor

Quoted from BZM

I got a similar one this weekend for something other than a pinball/arcade machine. I had bid on something but didn't win in the end. I knew it was fake from the get-go as real second chance offers come directly from ebay. Well that and I had been emailing the seller while the auction was on going because of some questions I had and the email address were completely different.

Simply forward the email without adding any comments to "spoof@ebay.com" to report it to ebay.

The thing I find more disturbing is how in the hell did they get our email address and associate it with our ebay ID's? Possible someone hacked into ebay and got all that info some how? Would suck if they did.

BZM

You don't need to hack into ebay to get a bidder's email.  If the bidding is open and the bidders' id's are revealed then anyone can check your feedback profile and email you fomr there.  It's a failing in the system.

Quoted from Thor

How does a newbie ever buy his 2nd machine and keep his sanity

Thor

Buy from a collector.

Quoted from websherpa

You don't need to hack into ebay to get a bidder's email.  If the bidding is open and the bidders' id's are revealed then anyone can check your feedback profile and email you fomr there.  It's a failing in the system.

Nope. Very wrong. Doing it that way you would only be able to send an email through the ebay system and at no time will ebay give you the persons email address. The emails we got came directly from an individual and not through ebay. Ebay will only give you someones email address if you are the winning bidder or seller.

That is Jvegas' machine, though, right?

That is my machine!  I get tons of these too...the best way is to ONLY respond to emails and/or second chance offers that appear in your EBAY inbox...if they're frauds they won't be there...