Looking For A 15c Scott #340? - Money To Go To APS

MikeQ I can tell you for sure your attack disparaging Bill Weiss is totally off base.

It amazes me that you can draw such wrong and negative conclusions about Bill but can be so blind to the problems with the "Cartel" - I suspect that you have not done your homework, or have a hidden agenda.

Have you done the fact checking recommended to you?

-Duncan

I wonder if this thread creates valuable provenance for the stamp???

I would not like having to pay more for shipping, when returning an item, then a seller spent to send it to me.

I agree, stampcrow. As a buyer, if a return is needed, I would expect to (a) be able to ship it back to where it came from (in this case the USA), and (b) not have to spend more $ to return it than what it cost to ship it to me. Pretty stamp, and still very collectible even with the re-distributed gum.

I can vouch that Mr. Weiss has indeed been critical of ebay and their protection of buyers in the past on the VSC/Delphi board, though I was only lurking at the time. I have never met Bill Weiss, but trust his motives and expertise given his pedigree.

I also want to add kudos to Don and Bill for this act of fairness:




But I'd like to ask a question about the dual-country selling issue, you know shipping from the US but based in the UK. What is the motivation for this and why would any seller legitimately ship from the US but want returns to the UK? Please enlighten me as to whether there is any legitimate business reason for this practice and what that might be. Thanks.

(Sorry, had to go submit an auction bid, there's more...}

Also, MikeQ - the success of your report to authorities does not represent the usual result.

I can tell you of one case of modern counterfeit US stamps involving $73,000 face value sold as discount postage to an Australian dealer and later found to be counterfeit, and the buyer couldn't get the US authorities to take action. The threshold dollar amount that triggers action seems to be constantly getting higher and higher in the US, especially when the transactions cross borders.

Other stamp frauds can be researched online, and you will find that often, the dollar amounts are allowed to run over $100,000 before the investigation, gathering of evidence, and arrest{s} take place. These are again often counterfeiting of modern postage. These often take place on ebay, so there is easy and ample documentation - buyers and sellers who can be identified by ebay, and the transactions all spelled out, you'd think these would be squashed quickly, but it doesn't seem to work that way at all.

I personally was involved in the investigation of apparent counterfeit computer vended postage sold over a considerable amount of time by one seller who cropped his photos so that critical identifying features of the CVP was kept from view, but who made a mistake on one group of photos and posted critical identifying information. Neither the vendor of the CVP or the US postal inspectors expressed any interest, despite many thousands of dollars in sales as "discount postage" that took place. Nothing at all like your amazing success story.

Perhaps the problem is that TOO MANY authorities have jurisdiction or an interest - customs, postal authorities, the FBI, the federal internet fraud task force, etc - combined with the difficulty of cross-border enforcement, it seems like every agency expect some other agency to deal with it.

(Canada is different regarding postal fraud. They quickly respond. I know that from experience, too.)

-Duncan

What hasn't been said yet is that you can't use a listing on ebay to disparage another seller or hold a charity auction without going through ebay's Giving Works program. I'm sure the listing will be reported and will be ended by ebay. While not everyone agrees, rules are rules.

Yeah, the issue of the stamp, stampcrow. Just like seats in a ball park there are different perspectives. If I followed the history correctly:

"During his discovery efforts he (Weiss) occasionally buys stamps to 'see for himself' if a seller is describing the stamp correctly or not."
So he buys and pays for this stamp. What would have happened if the stamp was okay? Would he have just dumped it in a desk drawer? Returned it? Just wondering. $127 is a lot of money for many folks. Hmmm.

At some point he files an ebay case against the seller and gets his money back. (At least that's what I think I heard - someone will correct me if that's not correct)

He never returns the stamp. Does he now "OWN" that property? He didn't pay for it, right? Does he have the right to sell it off with the proceeds going to charity? If he found a baseball mitt in his front yard would he be legally able to sell that too?

If I'm a seller, and I'm now out $127.50 on a deal like this I'm sending the buyer a SAS envelope with tracking to return it to me so I can at least cut my losses - or sending him $30 on PayPal to get back my stamp. Guess I'm wondering why the seller would walk away from the stamp. Or did he? Hmmm.

If I'm a buyer and I receive a stamp that's not SNAD I try HARD to work things out with the seller - whatever that entails, who knows? I wouldn't leave Neg feedback. And I wouldn't want to keep a stamp I hadn't paid for. Assume the stamp was regummed. Did the seller regum the stamp? Is there proof of that, or could it have been regummed four sellers ago? Could it have been an honest oversight on the part of the seller, as others here have suggested?

From a property standpoint, I don't think that stamp is owned by Weiss. If it was I think he would be free to do whatever he pleased with it. But he didn't pay for it.

I think the fact that this stamp was ORIGINALLY purchased as a means of "TESTING" the seller should be a HUGE concern to those of you out there who like to seek explanations for things and behavior. Just my opinion.

Weiss, I don't hide behind anything. Maybe YOU might feel that everyone should use their real names here. Look around - you seem to be in the minority on that point. If you feel strongly about that issue maybe you can lobby Bobby to implement that as a New Rule.

Returns are covered by the ebay return policy and are agreed to by both parties BEFORE the transaction is executed. ebay uses the shipping location as the point of sale and point of return. The fact that a seller is 'based' on another country has nothing to do with a return. Allowing either party, buyer or seller, to change the terms and conditions of a return AFTER a sale is not right.

It could be that ebay actually owns this stamp. If ebay refunded Bill but cannot get the money back from the seller??

Hungary,
I would not care to speculate on the motives for being located in one country but shipping from another. I can imagine that there are many reasons, both legitimate and illegitimate, for doing this. But I can tell you that it adds another layer of complexity to returns and to the anti-fraud work that ebay does do. ebay UK, for example, web site and operational groups are distinctly separate from ebay USA.
Don

If you're here to defend the seller, I doubt you will sway many, if any views here and I'm glad you're a big fan of theirs. Sounds like it went through its due course and ebay / paypal looked at the evidence and made their ruling, game over. Why is this news of any interest to anyone outside of the buyer & seller ?

Well stallzer, (I believe) it's 'news of interest here' because, some of our members are fighting what they see as bad business practices on ebay. From what I gather, these folks believe, this kind of activity could have negative repercussions on philately and they have some passion around that.

Others here, (again I believe) feel the methods being used are questionable, and could have a negative affect on ebay.

So we have some tensions around this subject.

edit: I just checked the original sale in question. Wanted to see what else that seller had listed. They have no items listed at this time.

I understand that. I'm not sure why the dirty laundry is being aired out here and I agree with Bill Weiss that in something like this, why hide behind an internet handle and make accusatory statements. People like Bill Weiss, The PF, PSE, etc. cost dodgy sellers a lot of money and there is going to be bad blood when loss of revenue is involved.

Ahh ok, I thought you were wondering, why the interest.

For the record, I am not defending anyone. I don't know "them", but I know the law, and I can recognize a smear campaign when I see one. There is no reason that this seller needed to be named in this thread (or on the listing itself). This thread could have simply read "he's selling this stamp and the proceeds are going to APS". Period. But a link was injected into the thread so the seller of the "misdescribed stamp" would be revealed.

Not long ago different comments were made about these UK sellers on this site - that could not be PROVEN - and Bobby commented along the lines of 'make that kind of an allegation about me and you will be signing for your mail'.

There is a subtle "smear" campaign taking place here against certain ebay members who are alleged to be doing bad things. Certain people find ways of injecting this campaign into any thread in which it will "fit" - like this one.

My position - I will say again - is very simple. If you have EVIDENCE, then take it to the authorities. And I don't buy for a minute that the authorities will not listen. Law enforcement has a hierarchy just like the supermarket. If you aren't getting satisfaction at the lower levels you go upstairs.

If you don't have PROOF - as Bobby suggested - then you don't make accusations.

The second part of my "position" is that ALL ebay sellers are potentially harmed if people begin to believe that ebay is not a safe place to buy stamps. And I am an honest ebay seller, so yes, it is in my best financial interest that people are not allowed to freely accuse others of bad things that they cannot prove when it might ultimately harm me and other honest ebay sellers.

Oh, it's proof of bad sales on ebay you want? Or proof that the bad sellers can be persistent, and difficult to stop?

Well how about a seller who enjoyed a career of eight years or more, selling home-made fakes on ebay with dishonest descriptions as supposed vintage forgeries and overprints, expanding eventually to full sheets of poorly replicated stamps. I'm referring to the ebay seller atdstamps, aka the Hialeah Forger.

He eventually bragged that he NEVER backstamped any of his fakes as forgeries (which was required for ebay sales of fakes), that his images of backstamps were phony, as buyers already knew. And he was even brazen enough at the end that he offered, multiple times, his entire stamp forgery business for sale on ebay, including photos of his forgery equipment.

But "Oh, the horror", the APS warned about him - they must've had a secret agenda to destroy philately with that dangerous revelation, according to MikeQ's logic. The APS deal with ebay was designed specifically to identify and weed out the persistent bad sellers.

The changes in ebay's system for handling bad sellers in the Stamps and Coins categories is the real threat to philately, if they allow sellers like the Cartel to roll along unhindered on the site, and I for one applaud the current watchdogs for their efforts.

What is the alternative? Silence? Surrender? To the naysayers, what is YOUR solution? We already know that ebay has a very shaky past history, and the authorities consider stamp transactions penny-ante.

Honest sellers are threatened by revealing bad sellers?? C'mon, knowledge is the key. Ignorance and silence are NOT part of the solution.

-Duncan

(fixed typo)

I have decided to end this listing until I can clarify the clear ownership of it to the satisfaction of everyone, including MikeQ, who seems to think I am committing some kind of dastardly deed. I know in my heart I made every effort to get this seller to provide a US-based address. I have copies of several emails which prove it, but know that copying emails here is either frowned upon or prohibited and I do not wish to upset our host, who has ben most generous with us.

I am STILL on record (here) as stating that if the seller provides a US-based address, I will return the stamp to him. But failing that, I am going to find out the ownership and what options I my have. Stay tuned.....