Superdeal / Rushmore... This One Will Ice Your Cake...

sold by super deal : 8/23/14 : $1813.00

http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_odk...19d&_sacat=0

sold by rushmore : 9/25/14 : $1577.00

http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-1890-93-...em1c463eba24

Randall....They do appear to be the SAME item.
I have not checked underbidders.....do they have any in common.

Please report to ebay.

Kevin... of course they're the same...
these clowns in the UK cartel never
stop... they're playing a cashflow
game....

Randall

These guys have been at this for some time. I'm surprised that everyone doesn't realize it by now ?

ebay must be smiling all the way to the bank with the final value fees they are collecting. Unless these guys have figured out a way around it. I hope they have, maybe then ebay would wake up and stop this BS.

Disi123, I think it would be much better to start a running thread on the cartel instead of a new thread for every one of their buyer beware listings. At least we could have an "Encyclopedia
or compendium" and one place to point other collectors / potential bidders to. And if all people replying to the post could use the sellers name in their post it would get a stronger google ranking. With a stronger google ranking perhaps a few potential bidders doing research might not have their pocketbook cleaned.

He doesn't pay the percentage because he simply cancels the sale after the fact. As we discussed (with a fair amount of controversy) in another thread that was ultimately locked, a seller can cancel a sale at will after the transaction has been completed. At that time many folks stepped forward and were the opinion that this was just fine; it is the 'right' of the seller to cancel the sale for whatever reason they can come up with.

So let's say I list a ultra-rare revenue stamp but don't realize its actual value and start it at 99 cents. I see a couple of very experienced revenue collectors bid it up and only then realize the stamp's true value. I wait to see what the winning bid is and then simply cancel the sale with whatever reason I can come up with. Perhaps I put the stamp back into my own collection or perhaps I wait and sell it under another name in a few weeks and hope for a better price. If the stamp has decent value I am not risking much at all but cancelling the sale.

Good news is that ebay MIGHT be addressing this issue with their new policy regarding seller performance. But if you look into the exact wording of the policy there is still a loop hole that will be exploited by sellers like this guy. The wording is as follows;




In other words, a cancelled transaction may or may not count against a seller performance record. Who makes these decisions? Would not ebay lean towards allowing a transaction to be cancelled rather then have to deal with resolving a dispute between the parties? If so, how many times can a seller cancel a sale and simply walk away without impact to their performance rating?

And of course none of this matter when ebay simply look the other way when a seller opens/buys 40-50 accounts and rotates between them.

Basically these exploits removes any 'risk' from the seller and opens the door for shill bidding. Sellers can feel just fine starting high-end stamps/lots at 1 cent and be assured their costs are covered even if the market place is slow at that time of year.

I assume that there are rare times where a legitimate reason arises to cancel a sale; but surely these are few and far between. But like anything else, there are many people who have nothing better to do than to work these exploits to their favor and abuse them. ebay simply doesn't care and shows no signs of doing anything about it; they simply treat this as the cost of doing business and look the other way.

I know for a fact that many of these exploits get reported back to ebay literally hundreds of times for specific sellers. I know because I have the opportunity to communicate with many buyers via Stamp Smarter and it turns out that they have been logging complaints against the same sellers for months, if not years, with zero response from ebay.

So philately lives with this stain. There appears to be zero interest in APS and the philatelic press in uncovering and exposing these exploits and bad sellers. The prevailing reaction appears to be 'it's just a part of our hobby and we just look the other way'. Additionally when discussing these issues many legitimate sellers get up in arms; they aren't doing anything wrong and see restrictions as tying their hands.

The truth is that ebay does a terrible job in vetting accounts. This issue would go away if they properly policed accounts and demanded a real physical location be tied to each account. But of course this would cost them time/money and any obstacle raised to starting new accounts is seen as impacting their bottom line so it will never happen.

While true I can say for sure that many forums and people get upset when you do this. First, whatever is posted certainly needs to be worded carefully. You cannot say things, even if it is your opinion, that are not true without the risk of legal action. Some run so scared that a group of us were banned from the VSC forum for this issue. As long as people respond like this these crooks will have free rein to do what they want.

Second, be aware that there is often 'counter-attacks' on people who expose these types of sellers. This ranges from fake Facebook accounts and malicious negative feedback as forms of retribution and revenge. Speaking with some experience here, it is not for the faint of heart. You become the target of both these kinds of sellers AND even legitimate sellers no matter what approach you take. Luckily there are some folks who are willing to brave this crap to expose and communicate these exploits and types of sellers.

The real problem is that the philatelic market is only a tiny percentage of ebay's business, and ebay is run by youngsters who simply don't care about what they perceive as a small amount from a VERY minor area.

If the seller canceled the transaction for the reason stated above then yes it will count as a defect. It's automatic and not a maybe despite the language used. I had a buyer who decided to pay for everything individually instead of waiting for a combined invoice. I made the mistake of canceling the individuals transactions and resent an invoice. Each of those cancellations counted as a "defect". Silly of ebay to do so, but it looks like ebay has no problem handing out defects like candy on Halloween. However, only a seller can see their defect rate - not the buyers.

Now, if the buyer requests the cancellation the seller is in the clear. ebay will be making that easier next month when they will give buyers the ability to directly request a cancellation of a completed bid up to one hour after an auction is complete. Sellers will still have to approve the request. If ebay was smart they would keep track of how many times a buyer requests a cancellation and see if there's a pattern, but I doubt it.

Battlestamps
Exactly. In typical ebay fashion they give the APPEARANCE of doing the right thing but it is not effective at stopping the exploits. A lot of lip service and a few small hoops to jump through that seemingly only inconvenience legitimate sellers while leaving the crooks to do what they want as our hobby suffers.

But frankly I only lay part of blame at the feet of ebay. This is a problem that WE have to fix, in our own community. WE have to stop thinking only in terms our ourselves when we discuss seller policies and understand that theses exploits are damaging everyone. WE have to support effort to ferret out these bad sellers and expose them. WE have to put pressure on people like Linn's and other forums who refuse to cover and communicate these exploits and those who use them to make a buck. And WE have to avoid the 'buyer beware' or the 'I learned the hard way so others should learn the lessons too' attitudes when considering this issue.

This should not be a price that everyone has to pay when breaking into philately. We should be united in the efforts to educate everyone on these exploits and have the backbone to stand up against those who abuse them.

Don has done an excellent job of explaining all this very accurately. I can tell you that in recent weeks I personally approached Linn's Stamp News and asked them to consider doing an investigative article on this exact situation we are discussing here. I supplied the same Washington/DC reporter who wrote the Linn's front page article about ebay eliminating the watchdog groups and our creation of StampSmarter as one possible way to educate buyers and sellers in online transactions, and he concluded that it wasn't a story he wanted to pursue because he "needed facts, like specific instances where something illegal took place". Meanwhile, British newspapers/magazines were doing factual stories about the person behind all these seller names, his illegal activities and the legal consequences. Yet the Linn's reporter couldn't find enough substance do a story!

Meanwhile, highly respected writer Ken Lawrence was also critical of Linn's Stamp News for not doing an investigation and story on this situation on the "other" chatboard, charging that oine of the reasons for Linn's demise over the years has been their failure to cover stories in our hobby that are controversial, preferring to write "fluff" stories about new issues and kiloware.

Meanwhile, our leading Stamp Society (APS) has stated emphatically that they really don't want to be devoting time or energy into ebay problems. They claim that ebay is a "business that only cares about their shareholders" and that ebay has not been willing to co-operate with any APS overture to them in the recent past, so they want nothing to do with taking on ebay. Even though their charter implies that they exist to serve their members and making the hobby a better place. Further, doesn't common sense tell us that our national "stamp club" (APS) should absolutely want to get involved in ANY situation that could negatively impact it's members? And this crook who currenly sells under 5-7 different names in the Stamps Category and multiple names in the Coin category should be a high priority for APS since we know he has financially harmed LOTS of APS members in the past.

Only ASDA (American Stamp Dealer's Association) has stepped up to the plate by inviting Don and I to write an article in their magazine about StampSmarter and by considering Officially endorsing our site. Even if APS were to do that as a minimum gesture, it would help, and it would demonstrate to members that they CARE enough to want to support an effort to educate online buyers and sellers. Instead, all they worry about is the possible legal ramifications of showing support for a site that reports sellers, even though Don has been extremely careful not to insult or accuse anyone of wrong doing. In fact, he often has to water down MY reports since I have no qualms about calling a spade a spade.

Bottom line is that this is a terrible ongoing situation in the Stamps Category on ebay and no-one will listen or do anything about it. No one at ebay will even respond to letters stating that we have information about fraudulent activity. They simply ignore us. And Linn's won't write about it. And APS won't get involved. And I have many letters in my files to prove everything I'm saying here. Maybe someday we will get lucky and some State Attorney General's Office will step up to the plate and get interested in this subject. When that day comes, I've got lots of evidence!

Until then, as Don suggests, it's up to *US* to try our best to combat it.

So that's how they get around final value fees ! Now everyone knows how to do it. And some others appear to be already starting.

I think some stamp organizations enjoy seeing ebay get a bad rap. They don't want it cleaned up. The more mud that can be slung, the better it is for their sales outlets. They probably would like to see ebay get out of stamp sales altogether.

BUT,

ebay has done more to bring collectors back to the hobby than any of these organizations. It's been a vital cog in revitalizing the hobby. Imagine where it would be today without ebay.

Selling stamps isn't important to ebay, but ebay is important to stamp collecting.

The unwillingness of organizations and authorities to get on the bandwagon in preventing fraud in our hobby is certainly nothing new. I'm thinking of how the hobby was forced to respond to Sperati and more recently Raoul de Thuin whose forgeries were leaving victims around the globe. In both those cases, the atrocity stopped when the perps were BOUGHT OUT by one or more philatelic organizations, who then published tomes of the forgers work and recouped the cost by selling them to collectors. So they continue to circulate but now as collectibles in their own right. If you can't beat 'em, sanctify 'em with a buy out.

That's been the celebrated approach, so it is not surprising in this case that APS won't get into it. They are still smarting from the black blot program, which turned into a black eye. Small wonder they don't want to get into anything that puts a brand on someone.

But I think this problem is revealing a lacuna in law that numismatists have had a bit more luck in dealing with than we in philately. We need to get the APS or ASDA (probably the latter) to draft and promote something akin to, or make it part of, the Hobby Protection Act. While that particularly applies to the intentional peddling of fakes and facsimilies, there are ramifications to its safeguards that get into other ways the trade in hobby items (coins particularly) can be threatened.

I personally tend to think that the big kick for the perpetrator of this fraud is the satisfaction of devising a way to stick it to a system, much like what motivated hackers in the early days of computers. But that got ugly and very destructive as more got into it and more victims came about, and this will too as people see the criminal possibilities. In this case the fraudster is very clever about exploiting all available international law to perpetrate his hoaxes. And in the end I sense that the kind of trouble being caused does not measure up to the kind of scale that allows the problem to be seen as serious. Is it all just about a hoax that cheats a few hundred people in the middle class out of a few thousand dollars each in hobby money? Or even a few thousand out of a few hundred dollars each? As crime the authorities will treat this like prostitution or marijuana use, and prefer to put their energy in other things.

I fear that as long as people see this as a hobby based affliction, they will dismiss the seriousness of the problem on the principle that since the pursuit of a hobby is discretionary spending, and therefore non-essential, the only one's being effected are those who choose to play. With such an attitude in place the hobby cannot be protected as it must be for participants safely to enjoy it as a pastime.

Essayk,
Good points, I concur. Forgeries certainly have been around as long as the hobby has been and I am certainly not in a position to be able to 'rank' how this crime gets prioritized against other international offenses. Kiddie porn, smuggling drugs, murder and other really nasty mayhem should take a higher priority in terms of authorities and use of resources.

But I would argue that this particular person is indeed in it for the money and not for the thrill. He has a long prison history and has been deport from several countries; this smacks of greed and not simply a thrill seeker.

The other unmentioned part of this ugly issue is the source of these stamps. Obviously these types of people have to be buying a fair amount of material; where does it come from? We have shown on several occasion that he buys form some quite respectable auction houses; often buying lightly hinged or pen cancelled items and sweating the gum and removing cancels. This has been documented. These auction houses know what is going on, his girlfriend ("agent") does the buying. They readily take his money and look the other way. In some ways I can understand this, it would be difficult to not make a sale when someone is willing to plunk down the cash. They cannot be held responsible for the actions of others.

But how many times do they have to see material they have sold being re-offered as something else before they put 2 + 2 together? It is a sticky situation but ideally something they could prevent to a certain degree if they wanted to. Obviously there will always be someone out there willing to sell material to these kinds of sellers but it would be better if it was a bit more difficult to do.

And lastly we need everyone to be transparent and report this stuff. If you have been taken, do not let embarrassment keep you quiet. Share your experience for the greater good of our great hobby. Yes, these transactions give philately a black eye but never mentioning it is even worse. Just like cockroaches, turning the light on this issue will help drive them away.

Don....example....
Stamp Auction Companies sell stamps....
Gun companies sell guns.....they know they can KILL.
Should they stop selling guns???

It is not the auction companys problem.
They have a right to get the highest possible amount
for the consignors.

Understood and agreed to a certain point. But they also will quickly turn down a buyer who wants to pay with a check if they think for a second the check will bounce and the buyer is not good for it.
There are other situations where those who sell feel an obligation to protect the 'greater good.' For example, you cannot now buy some over-the-counter meds freely because they were being used to cook illegal meth.

Again and obviously, they are not responsible for the actions of others. But we are not talking about a person here who is simply a credit risk or has a reputation of being a jerk. We are talking about doing business with known and convicted criminals. Climbing into bed with this level of person is rarely perceived as being good for business. Who we do business with IS a choice that can be made if desired.
Don