FAKE ALERT Taylor Made CGB Max Fairway Woods

Yes, OK, I admit it, I fell for one of the fake club scams. So, I want to share my experience with others so they do not fall foul of similar scammers on eBay.

A lot has been said about fake golf clubs in other guides that I read (too late) here, so just a couple of things to pick out from them, and add to myself:-

1 - check ALL feedback from seller to ensure it is recent, as a seller of similar items and not from similar profile IDs (i.e. low feedback or recent setup)

2 - think of why you were drawn to the auction. Normally too good a price to be true? This is normally the case and will prove to be TOO good to be a true (genuine) club.

3 - start a dialogue with the seller, ask for better pictures, check the website of the manufacturer of the club(s) you are buying and see if they have a fraud/fake page to help identify them.

4 - ignore the location the ID is supposed to be selling from and record the times that questions are replied to, very early in the morning would suggest a different timezone (China). This will not always help as some websites/companies (www.hygolfcn.com) are now drop shipping straight from their warehouses. The guy I bought from was supposed to be in Scotland, but his English was terrible and he answered his emails at around 4 in the morning.

5 - Taylor Made fairway woods do NOT come with a wrench.

6 - ALWAYS pay via PayPal or other methods that have some protection associated with them.
I bought a Stiff shafted CGB Max 3 wood which has a shaft like warm toffee.

Suggestions on how can this problem can be eradicated:-

1 - better verification of people's locations before they are allowed to sell

2 - there should be NO private listings, so other people can be identified and warned off buying fakes. A recent batch of fakes has been sold by another ID (could be the same seller) but had private listings so the potential buyers could not be warned.

3 - auctions for fake items are cancelled by eBay once either an ID closed or there is a hint of foul play. Once again, it would be more useful if they were left open so all those people scammed could band together and claim together. I took great care in bookmarking the auctions of the other items sold by this scammer but they are all now withdrawn, so I cannot get in touch with the the buyers.

4 - it would be useful to have a way of flagging up potential fakes to eBay (or other buyers) via an anonymous contact point in eBay.

I am following my claim up with PayPal at the moment, hoping to get a positive result.