Hot W/F Block Listing... Dang... Almost $3k In Bids...

Randall....
Im gonna say the 499 booklet is FAKE!

I agree, it does not look good to me either. And all the others appear to be perf 11's.

Might-could be... would take alot
of work, but not out of the realm
of possibility...

There are a LOT of things that are not out of realm of possibility with this seller. Insist upon being able to return the lot if anything is amiss and get it in for certs as soon as you receive the lot. Understand that he is in Great Britain and that the material is shipping from US. This could complicate many things if you need to resolve any disputes; ebay USA and ebay Great Britain have different approaches and operate under different laws.

For whatever reason material seems to move between this seller and the sellers Rushmore_Bargains and Ogstamps. And they too are all 'Based in United Kingdom; but all material is located in USA. If the listings in questions were not of high value it would be one thing to roll the dice; but (at least for me) the vast majority of 'their' listings represent a lot of money to risk.
Don

The seller sounds a lot like a take off of "Dewey, Cheatem & Howe" of the Three Stooges Era.

Art

disi123
There are a lot of fake AEF booklets of both values out there, the basic imperf is still a very common stamp, so creating them has been possible all these decades. I have seen several over the last few years.

Hi,

Also, the bidding on this item looks suspect!

Bidder "_***b (111)" placed a lot of bids, with the highest being $2,776.00. Within a hour of him/her placing these bids, Bidder "o***j (1408)" placed a single bid of $2,999.99, and was the highest bidder with the amount of $2,826.00 ($30 above the prior highest amount). But then Bidder "o***j (1408)" retracted his/her bid and left a bid of $2,775.00, just $1.00 less than the prior highest bidder (as the bidding increment at this amount is $30, this $1.00 difference was intended). Obviously not wanting to win the auction, but to maximize the amount bid by the other bidder.

The retraction is listed at the bottom of the list of all the bids.

Very suspect!

Would be interesting to see what would happen if the "_***b (111)" bidder would retract his bid!

Peter

If you look at the history of "o***j (1408) you will see that he has had 12x bid retractions in the last 6 months!

Basically he/she places a high bid to find out the maximum bid by someone else, then retracts his/her bid and then places a new bid slightly lower than the other bid to fully maximize the payment. This bidder may be associated with the listing person, but I have also seen people just doing it out of spite and also to increase stamp values.

- stamporator -

I am unclear why so some folks feel 'safe' with ebay's feedback system and seller scores. I sell have sold on ebay for many years but am not a power seller, I have a 100% feedback and I never charge for shipping. I am acutely aware of what it takes to keep a good score. But while I certainly understand the importance of a seller making this a priority; in my opinion it is not too hard to abuse this system. And I would never take it as a 100% guarantee that I would be safe buying from a seller just because this was the case.

Everyone has seen the ads which implore buyers to not leave negative feedback but rather contact the seller and resolve the issue. Obviously it's good business practice is to try to work out the differences with a transaction; can't argue with that. But it also provides an opportunity to bury bad transactions without any kind of track record.

My wife and I owned and ran a retail shop for 18 years, obviously returns are a part of doing business. (Believe me, I have seen customers pull just about every trick there is including using an item for their purpose and then returning it later.) But a large percentage of returns is a warning sign that something is amiss and ebay can easily determine this. Yet this critical info is excluded. Would you not think twice in buying from a specific seller if their record showed that they had over 20% returns? And this one small thing would go a long way in preventing shill bidding. And unlike the subjective feedback comments, this is simply an objective data point.

But there a few things that I think everyone can agree on. We know that there will always be some people who have the time and motivation to figure out the exploits in ANY system. And I think we can all agree that the ebay feedback system could easily be improved with the addition of information they already have at hand by including a percentage of returns for each seller.
Don

Indeed, but that fellow is a light weight compared to someone like this guy
http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI....one_ViewLink

This guy places bids on common plate blocks lots that consistently (for last 2 years) 'sell' for many times over face value while the rest of the market struggles to come close to face value for the same material. How does this not raise a flag at ebay?
Don

Hi 51studebaker,

Wow! This bidder certainly pushes up the price! Then, when he finds his competitors maximum bid, or if he ends up winning it, he then retracts his bid! He has 437 bid retractions in the last 6 months alone.

You would have thought that ebay could easily notice high bid retractions! But there again, it is in ebay's interest to increase the final hammer price as their commission is based on the final sale price.

- stamporator -

This auction of Washington franklins is currently active by rushmore_bargains

http://www.ebay.com/itm/30123425317....m1423.l2649

The same item has bounced between ogstamps and rushmore_bargains. It is also interesting that one of stamps moved in the image

http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Washingt...047675.l2557

http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Washingt...047675.l2557

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw...H_Complete=1

Very revealing info Don. Thanks for posting. But sadly, if someone took the time to report these conflicting sales to ebay, they wouldn't even get the courtesy of a response (unless a form letter)let alone getting the listings removed or the seller suspended. They just don't give a rat's ass regardless what they claim in their publicity releases!

Don: Next month ebay will start to use return rates in determining the status of sellers. I'm sure you've seen the announcement, "the defect rate". It will affect top rated status and as a side affect maybe help to get rid of some of these shilling scams I've read up above.


Made a correction to the above - top rated status, not powerseller status.