Ebay Bargains - Not For Me!

Hi,
Here's my input, I normally find that ebay listings can be very misleading to the novice bidder like myself,(my personal opinion) Stamp collectors of many years backing do take advantage of the fact new hobbyists like myself know very little in this hobby and on 4 out of 6 occasion's have tried to cheat me, I personally like to stick to trawling through my local newspaper and now and again the same seller keeps listing more,also I collect from his house and he actually tells me if im not happy then come back for a full refund anytime, im not sure if they are worth anything but im new to the hobby and all them stamps look great to me, even if they are worth nothing, I just wanted to express my personal views on this. ;)

Why do you say to are taken advantage of if you know nothing about stamps...but you bid??
What happened??

Hi,
I admit I know little about stamps,normally I email a man and he tells me what price roughly it should go for, (long time family friend who moved to NZ) but I will tell you what happened on my second transaction with the same ebay seller,after I bid on the item to £10.00 the seller started telling me how 'rare' these stamps are, also stating they have special codes engraved on them, telling me these are worth alot more than what I had bid, after me going higher each time, (thinking I had a great deal on my hands) he would message me, funly enough about 20 seconds after he sent me the message I would get outbid, the first 2 outbid notices didn't raise my eyebrows, the bids after did (7 in total), he then messaged me after the 4th bid telling me that as I was new to buying stamps (must of looked at my feedback) and these deals were once in a lifetime things that are always profitable, I then new something was wrong, so played along until he outbid me for £104.00 for 500g of uk common commems on paper, after the sale ended he sent me 17 second chance offers(including paypal invoices outside of ebay), after each one ran out (1 day one's), I have added him to my block list on ebay, I have had another few dealings with career stamp sellers who I will not be naming and shaming, they are also on my block list, ebay are making it harder for people to spot shill bidding and I can only warn you to becareful if you receive a second chance offer, I must say that the last 2 dealings on ebay were good, but I can only think as all my feedback is for buying over 100 lots of stamps,kiloware,errors,colour shifts,wildings,commems,xmas issues and definitives that sellers now think I know alot more about stamps than I actually do, Unless I have just blocked the 3 sellers that do this and it was a 1 in a million chance to have bad luck like me?
Turbo

Also Kev, majority of people know when shill bidding is going on, specially when the seller sends 8 messages whilst the bidding is going on, and then a further 23 after the sale was won by the shill bidder, then to top it off he sends over 17 2nd chance offers including paypal invoices, he also contradicts himself by stating whilst the bidding has started, I only have one lot of these, I have saved them for a lifetime etc, then once I loose the auction, 2 minutes after it finishes he states to me in another message he has just found another bag, full of the same stuff, then after another 4 messages tells me the winning bidder has cancelled on him,
Im not having a go at you Kev, Im just telling it how it is, be warned of the 2nd chance offers,
Turbo.

TurboJay...
I understand.
I sell on ebay 99.99% of the time...
buyer 00.01%...
And I still have a fair amount of returns.
I would suggest to contact ebay....they can tell from the sellers ISP address (same computer)
if shill bidding is happening.
Give them a call....
Post the item #....that way other buyers dont deal with unethical sellers.
Sorry for your bad luck....KL

Hi Kev,
have reported them through ebay 4 times already,always the same answer (not enough evidence) the kind gentleman on ebay live chat told me that it is not that simple, they said the shill bidders are more intelligent than that and they use proxy servers/cloned IP addresses (a hacked internet connection or a computer with wireless internet access), once a proxy is used, say they were from USA, it looks like they are actually from the UK, this is a massive problem ebay said but that was as much information that was possible to give me because of data protection etc, One can only wonder if ebay are trying to help these shill bidders by making it harder for the normal bidder to trace them etc so ebay can take more of a cut of the final value fee's, or is ebay trying to stop a frenzy attack on the shill bidder? who knows I just try to be as fair as possible always and feel very saddened by the fact people in the world actually want to rip people off, if only we were all like me and you, life would be so simple
Turbo

Please post the ebay Id of the seller. I think that would be a service to this community. It does not mean you are necessarily shaming them, as we can all make our own judgements.

There are bad sellers out there (often changing ID's - or with multiple Ids). They give good sellers a bad rep.

On a side note: is there some rule against posting ebay user IDs on this forum?

TurboJay....you dont have to post the sellers id...
post the ebay item #....since you were involved in the transaction....
it is not shaming/acusing anyone of wrong doing...just your suspicions.
Intelligent observers will figure it out.
Thanks....KL

Hi,
Im not sure if there is rules about naming and shaming but that is something I do not do, please bear in mind that this was just under 2 years ago, I will try my best to find the listing id's of them and post them on here (the ebay listing number's etc if they are in my cache still), I do remember 1 of the ebay sellers changing his name to something similar to the stanley gibbons ebay store to make it look very similar, also this seller was from China or Taiwan but stated he lived in the UK, Not sure if this is any help but I just thought to let yous know,Have a good day ahead,
Turbo

TurboJay....
YES...2 years ago will show nothing.
90 days is all ebay goes back...
Good Luck in future purchases....

Hi,
Thankyou, I have hand written down the names of the seller's some where, just a case of finding the papers, If I find them I will put them up on here to warn others, just trying to keep everyone informed that sometimes all is not as it seem's, hope you have a brilliant day ahead, Take care my friend and all the best,
Turbo