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

Battle... here's the ebay page...

It's not Power Seller Status which
is affected, it's the Top Rated and
Top Rated Plus which can be affected...

Loss of Top Rated affects Evaluation
Period's FVF discount percentage...

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinforma...andards.html

Thanks for the correction. I got the two mixed up I my head as I have neither. I have 100% feedback and great star ratings, but since I don't provide tracking on 90% or more of domestic shipments I don't get top rated status. I use stamps for postage and not the ebay label system. Plus the majority of items I sell are fairly low priced and tracking is an unnecessary cost for buyer or seller.

You're quite welcomed...

We ship everything with tracking...
we have to in our business... and
the 20% discount we get on our FVF's
for Top Rated Plus is very important
to us, as it adds up to quite a dollar
amount with the volume we ship on ebay...

The new "Defect Rate" will be a sword
over the heads of many sellers... some
sellers will have strong concerns over
its effects, others will not...

We can only hope the new system will
provide for a positive result in all
endeavors... which, of course, remains
to be seen over the long run...

Randall

All,
Here is some additional info on this seller. He bought a US $1 Perry, 1895 Scott #276 in the Siegel Sale #1057, Lot 862, on 07/11/2013. Note that it is listed as lightly hinged with 1989 PFC cert by Siegel.



This same exact stamp is then listed, and sold, by him but suddenly it is now magically 'never hinged' in this ebay listing with a catalog value of $1800 and sells for $1439.



If anyone questions the scope of bad stamp transactions on ebay simply tally up the sales for ogstamps/rushmore_bargins/HGmorgan. And this is just a few of his names AND he is just one person of many who do this kind of thing.

Don

Sorry for the double post...
Please also note that he has a 100% positive feedback rating with 368 feedbacks. Do people really think that the current ebay feedback system is meaningful or that it gives them some actual indication if a seller is legit?
Don

Is he an APS member and did you report him?

That's great detective work Don. Isn't there a saying about pre-1900 never hinged single stamps ?

I do not believe he is an APS member and I only listed this in Stamp Smarter.
If ebay still had a meaningful method to report a seller I would report him there but how do you do this when the only way to interact with them is to use their succinct form with its limited drop down box choices? How do you supply any kind of detail within this reporting form?
Don

I just don't think ebay cares. They don't administrate their site to help people present a case when something like this is found. They don't bite the hand that feeds.

Caveat emptor. The light hinge is clearly visible on the backside image in the ebay listing. Anybody purchasing stamps at this level deserve what they get. The seller had a return policy, and ebay had its guarantee that it was as described.

The buyer could have returned it, and gotten their money back under the ebay guarantee. What else would you have ebay do?

I'm not denying that this seller may engage in dubious practices. But ebay can only do so much, to protect buyers from themselves.

That's a shame. APS would have been the only real venue to report activity like this. If you could contact the buyer you could present them with the information you found, but ebay has made that difficult as well since they hide ids now for privacy.

I don't think that ebay doesn't care. I don't think ebay has the means to do anything about it under there current system. It's mostly automated and when you do get a live person they won't know anything about stamps to do anything about the situation. You might as well ask an art director to fix a plumbing problem. They need to hire some philatelic experts to overlook cases like above. ebay's probably struggling to deal with all the other frauds and scams that plague the other categories - sports signatures, fake handbags and other "brand" name items that are knock offs, empty video game console boxes, cell phones, etc etc. The problems with stamps as a whole is probably really, really small compared to the rest of the site. I can't imagine trying to buy or sell a laptop on ebay. I know the sellers of laptops are plagued by scammers from Nigeria and elsewhere. As stated before ebay needs to hire someone who knows stamps. It would also help sellers to be able to list Third Reich German or pre-embargo Cuban stamps without fear.

As other stated before, the vast majority of ebay sellers are excellent and problem free. Hopefully, people will shop wisely like one would do any venue for any product in existence. You'll always have bad sellers and fraudulent products in any selling venue. Who hasn't bought something at Wal-Mart or other big box store that hasn't turned out to be garbage? As for stamps, I've seen dealers at the APS show sell fakes and there's a well know auction house on the SAN that repeatedly will sell fake French colony overprints as legit even when the certs come back labeling the stamp as fake. Buyers can be taken anywhere. Hopefully, potential buyers do their research, make sure to read all the information in a listing and make sure a selling venue has seller protection and an amble return policy. ebay does provide for the latter.

Limit and disallow multiple accounts.

Re-implement a method for reporting bad listings (they killed off not only the original program Stamp Community Watch (SCW) committee with APS but now also the Enhanced Member Reporting Program (EMR).

Otherwise be responsive to reports, I know that I have reported no fewer than 50 listings and have never even gotten an email acknowledging that they even received them.

Take measures to prevent shill bidding (many, many things they can do with the info they already have).

Improve the feedback program and include more objective data points. (Most people don't put as much weight into subjective feedback line of text as opposed to adding better metric like % of returns).

Provide some metrics which show that they are working towards reducing bad listings and transactions. Something, anything that can be tracked from year to year to see if improvements are being made.

Just to name a few.
Don

Battle,
I concur that much is automated, but ebay has previous had 'human' methods for dealing with some of this. But they killed them off without giving any official reasons. Many theories are floating around by I think that it was under legal advice. ebay had been 'semi-policing' bad listings which means that if someone had gotten taken badly with an ebay sale they might have legal recourse by arguing that ebay only 'kind if' protected the buyer. It could be that legally ebay is better off taking the position that blcjr states; it is totally 'Caveat emptor' and they make absolutely no claims in the legitimacy of any listing.

I view ebay, or any other online auction, like the person who owns the local flea market. They are profiting on the sellers there and simply cannot not turn their back on what goes on. For example if one of the sellers there is selling stolen goods, drugs, or kiddie porn every weekend it isn't just 'Caveat emptor', the flea market owner has at least some responsibility with what goes on with the sellers he is making money on that are operating on his property.
Don

Don: Do you have the ebay link for that listing of the $1 Perry stamp that ended July 11th? I can't find it.

However, I did find the same exact stamp as above "sold" by ogstamps for $1430 -

http://www.ebay.com/itm/United-Stat...047675.l2557

Very fishy. He's got a second $1 Perry out there that is also suspect. First listing ended on June 27 under ogstamps with zero bids, but then sold July 6 under the same name for $1025.

Battle,
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...BUAA:US:1120

Don