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

I see on StampSmarter that a seller named hmorgan10 has relisted an item that a buyer returned AFTER receiving a PFC stating that it was a fake. The relisting makes no mention of the negative certificate. The fact that ebay turns a blind eye to this sort of activity and the equally dishonest activity discussed in this thread, and that Linn's doesn't want to report it as front page news, is mind-boggling to me. I understand that one of the crooks is in the UK, but it seems to me that proven cheaters who can be located in the U.S. should be reported to a state attorney general or even the U.S. attorney.

I have tried to discuss this with ebay and no one there will even respond to me. I finally did get a letter back from the former ebay Stamp Reviewer whose responsibility this would have been *BEFORE* ebay did away with the SCW and EMR Programs which were designed to combat fraudulent listings - such as this one. She stated the following to me;

"Hello Bill,



Tiffany and I are no longer working with coins and stamps. We are in fact, in different positions. I am unable to tell you where to report fraudulent listings because I do not know. We are no longer in any position to assist you. I am sorry. This is the way it is.



Best Regards,

Judith"

So that is the current state of any effort to combat fraud on ebay - no-one will respond to you or, if they (rarely) do, tis is the kind of response you get. Rather than say "this is the way it is" one would think it would be easy enough, if she honestly wanted to help, to internally inquire where such a report can be made! After all, there are surely people there whose responsibility might include fraud on the site. But instead, she basically blew me off - despite the fact that I worked with her from 2006-2014 in reporting fraudulent listings and providing free professional opinions to her/eBay. In the end, they want nothing to do with anti-fraud work any more. Period. End of discussion.

It is now in the hands of the Community to figure out how to combat the ever-increasing amount of bad listings in the Stamps Category.

StampSmarter is one answer. Support from our National organizations would help.

And following up, here is my response to the former Stamp Reviewer;

"That's pretty lame Judith - considering I've given years of service to ebay as an expert, for zero compensation. So now I am having some difficult situations and while I realize you can't help me with them (or Tiffany), I find it hard to believe that you can't provide me with a NAME or someone who MIGHT be able to guide me. It's almost as if all of you are under orders NOT to help me in any way.

There MUST be some unit or department, perhaps in Trust and Safety (?) who would be willing to receive information about fraud in the Stamps Category? If not, then I personally believe that ebay has gone over to the dark side and only cares about sales/profits/stockholders. Not members.

While I wish you the best personally, I am saddened by your inability (?) to guide me.

Sincerely,

Bill"

"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!"

Seems to me either you have accumulated such facts by now, or you are tilting at windmills, and I suspect the former. So why not offer to supply such facts rather than make some reporter dig them up? (although said reporter should also do some additional digging)

"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"

Has anyone approached US law enforcement? I am under the strong impression that they have a US office in a NE state.

"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."

Is this info posted somewhere?

eyeonwall,
I posted evidence on this back in July in this forum...
https://goscf.com/t/38454&whichpage...rms=hgmorgan

It is a Hinged US $1 Perry, 1895 Scott #276 in the Siegel Sale #1057, Lot 862, on 07/11/2013

A few weeks later it was being offered as Never Hinged on ebay.
Don

Eyeonwall; I think I have a record of at least 4-5 different stamps that were purchased in Siegel Auctions described in one condition (previously hinged, or with pen cancel, or with a fault) and when they are offered on ebay they are described in a different (better/more valuable) condition. It is easy to see that if you take, for example, a $2.00 1893 that is previously hinged with a tiny fault that is purchased at 25% of Scott value and turn it into a sound/NH copy, the value jumps to 75% of Scott, and that difference can represent thousands of dollars. 30% of a PH small fault #242 is about $350. (30% of $1,150.) but 75% of the NH price is about $3,000. (75% of $3,800.)! So you can see the terrific profit margins possible by doing this.

The "key" of course, is that you need for buyers to not recognize that the stamp is NOT as described, and that's what they are hoping and on ebay, there are obviously lots of inexperienced buyers who fall prey to these types of altered stamps. I see it in my expertizing ALL the time. People who bought stamps as NH that have skillfully smoothed-over gum to hide the hinging, or a tiny undisclosed tear, or thin, or whatever.

Honestly, people need to stop relying on ebay to police their own site and just directly sue these fraudulent sellers. Go after them in court. If done across state lines, it becomes a federal crime. If it happens enough, these people are going to go away because they don't want to wind up in jail. It's the only way this is going to get solved.

IMO, the obvious law enforcement address is:

https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/ US Postal Inspection Service

Most ebay fulfillment for stamps seems to be thru the mail.

Q/ Why is this the option that no one mentions?

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

One of the reasons is that they operate across Country borders - not just within the US.

I think it is important to note that this is not a amateur who is simply passing off a few reperfs. He has a long criminal history and knows exactly how to play this game. He has learned how to use many multiple layers of tactics to avoid detection and dodge legal actions.
And as was pointed out, this kind of illegal activity does not draw the attention of authorities like other offense such as drug dealers. It is similar to a smuggler who avoids drug traffic in favor of rare animal smuggling.

Additionally what makes this difficult is that the victims are spread out across many jurisdictions. Considered together it represents a very large amount of money but since each victim might only loose a few hundred to a thousand dollars the tendency is to not prosecute. It is about impossible to find someone with the deep pockets and motivation to hire international lawyers to chase after someone for this level of money. And of course there is the 'embarrassment' effect, where the victim might not want to let a lot of other people know they have been duped. For these reasons it is my opinion that organizations like APS really ought to step up. Same for the philatelic press. (And they wonder why memberships and subscriptions are going down?)

I cannot stress enough how hard this is to do as individuals. This person 'fights' back and retribution is part of his game. Add to this the fact that you also end up facing obstacles from some legitimate sellers and public forums who do things like call you 'listing police' and ban you from even bringing the subject up.

It is pretty frustrating but ultimately I believe in what George Washington once said, "Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains taken to bring it to light."

Perhaps the most important thing for readers to take away from this discussion is that ebay damn well knows ALL about these multiple seller IDs, his past history, etc, yet do not seem to want to really try to stop him. How might they stop him? By suing him in his home country. They can easily afford the cost of top legal reps there and that's how he could be brought down. There are ample proof of his MO, his fake sales, cross-listing of the same material, buyers who have been duped, stamps sold in altered condition from the way they were bought, misrepresentation of the location of the material, malicious feedbacks traced back to his IP address and on and on the list goes.....

So if ebay won't take the time and energy to stop him, members ought to carefully consider this inaction in their thinking when they contemplate their bidding activity there.

I would like to urge concerned people to write letters protesting ebay's current stamp review policies (or rather their LACK of a stamp review policy, but honestly, I wouldn't know where to tell you to write, because any contact name I have will not respond!

But Don is 100% right. If our National Stamp organizations AND the news media would do their jobs and get involved, it would be a big help.

Am I the only one who knows what multi-country litigation fees are like?

How could it possibly be worth ebay's while to spend tens of thousands of dollars to even begin such an action?

I know that *I* could never convince ebay to care about this issue, and this forum thread is one of the reasons: are any of the posters in here people who do not regularly buy or sell on ebay? Oh, yeah, me! Anybody quit?

If the problem is costing them nothing, why should they even recognize that it exists?

My sympathies are with y'all - see my thoughtful, practical recommendation, a few hours ago - but your solution does not lie with ebay, as this problem is costing them nothing.

Thought Experiment: name a collectibles category - you can get a list at Collectors Weekly or Antique Trader - that might not have the same problem as ours. Now count all the categories that will. Now pretend you are ebay, and imagine trying to police all of these categories, all of the time. Now consider an alternative: taking the same approach that YouTube et al take with copyright issues.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

"I think I have a record of at least 4-5 different stamps that were purchased in Siegel Auctions described in one condition (previously hinged, or with pen cancel, or with a fault) and when they are offered on ebay they are described in a different (better/more valuable) condition"

So did you offer this info to Liin's and/or this Washington DC reportere you refered to?

"Am I the only one who knows what multi-country litigation fees are like?"

As I am 99% sure they have a US presence, why ould a multi-country litigation be required?