I bought my ******** Ebay from a seller that had a few years of selling and feedback for $80 shipped to my door. I don't think I would pay $179+tax for it. It is a good jack but not $179+ to me.
Yes, ebay has been playing a game of whack-a-mole and hasn't caught every account that is/was selling these jacks (and Predator engines and other Harbor Freight items - see below) in that price range. New accounts with the listings are popping up every day. Most of the seller accounts had been members for a year or more, usually with little to no feedback activity, and they were from locations all over the country.
The details vary because accounts being used don't appear to have been fake, but rather ones someone had surreptitiously gained access to. The one thing they have in common is that they are all selling the same Harbor Freight items at 'too-good-to-be-true' prices using the same headers ("
3 Ton Daytona Professional Steel Floor Jack - Super Duty, FREE SHIPPING!!!", "
8 HP (301cc) OHV Horizontal Shaft Gas Engine EPA New 100%", "
12 in. Double-Bevel Sliding Compound Miter Saw With Laser Guide System New 100%", "
17 gal. 1.8 HP 150 PSI Oilless Air Compressor New 100%", ... just to name a few) all using the same stock photos, same description, usually starting out with more than 10 available.
In the Harbor Freight Daytona Jack thread there are
quite a few members (
myself included)
who placed an order from almost as many different accounts only to at some point later
received an email from ebay like this one:
That's 12 different GJ members I linked above who got that same email, and that was just what I was able to get in a few minutes using GJ's thread search function which leaves much to be desired. I'm sure there are more.
Many of those who ordered got that email from ebay well after the paypal transaction had already went through and often already had a FedEx tracking number for it showing their jack was coming from Harbor Freight in Dillon SC, however in some cases
Harbor Freight was able to have the item
recalled by the shipper before the delivery was made.
Given that ebay is catching so many of these listings and notifying the purchasers that the seller's account may have been compromised by a third party, and that Harbor Freight has on occasion been able to stop the shipment on items already in transit, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going on.
I too bought mine on ebay because it seemed like a good deal at that price, but now in hindsight had I known then what I do now I wouldn't have purchased it that way.
Jobbers. They buy returns from HF, Northern, etc and make the needed repairs and sell them at a discount. They buy the engines, jacks, leaf blowers, whatever by the pallet which is why they have quantities of 20, 10, etc.
If you check through the Daytona jack thread I've linked all over the place above, you will see that dozens of people have received their jacks bought at ridiculous prices off ebay and they are not used returns. They are brand spanking new being shipped straight from Harbor Freight in Dillon SC. The same scammers are doing the same thing with these Predator Engines, 12" Sliding Compound Miter Saws, Air Compressors, etc. They are almost surely laundering proceeds from stolen credit card data this way.
