Things That Make You Go 'Hmmmm'

Many folks believe in a 'Caveat emptor' approach to ebay listings and others feel that if you arm yourself with enough experience and are very careful you can successfully navigate ebay and find good material. While I agree there is certainly truth in this my concern is with new hobbyists and the impact of 'less then transparent' sellers will have on philately longer term.

I am an old school capitalist and have no issues with requiring a buyer do some homework when making purchases. I also believe that market forces running poor sellers out of business; this certainly worked for many decades in the traditional 'brick and mortar' business environment.

But in this new information age it is my opinion that is becomes far easier to take advantage of the 'lag' between a seller getting a bad reputation and starting a new business.

For example, I get concerned every time I see a ebay seller who is 'Based in United Kingdom' but is shipping out of the US. My concern centers around the 'British cartel' misdealing which were exposed a few years back. (You can Google this and read much more on various other forums and web sites.)

But recently, and if you are willing to spend the time to carefully examine some of the listings of 'ogstamps', 'rushmore stamps', and 'HMorgan', you will note that material seems to move between them.
For example see this Rushmore listing from last week, note the number #1
http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Dealer-s...047675.l2557

Now check out this #1 currently listed from HMorgan
http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-5c-Imper...em1c429a0b8c

Obviously the same stamp in both listings. Both sellers are 'Based in United Kingdom' but ship from the US. There are legitimate reasons that this might happen;
1. The sale took from Rushmore to HMorgan and HMorgan is simply turning the material over (form your own opinion on the feasibility for how quickly the stamp would have had to move from the buyer to the currently seller)
2. The seller is the same and for whatever reason the first sale did not go through and he has split it up and relisted it under a different seller name

But I ask myself, 'why would a seller want to sell under different names?' If ebay sellers can easily jockey multiple seller names and accounts, what is the impact of moving material between them to a buyer who doesn't spend hours examining the listings and their history?

So folks can espouse 'Caveat emptor' or maintain that with diligent efforts you can find good buys on ebay; both are true.

But in my opinion buying on ebay is far from a simply or easy thing, especially if you are a new hobbyist. A new hobbyist has plenty to learn about the stamps themselves, stamp condition, and values; requiring them to also look for and avoid some of the nonsense that occurs with online sales makes breaking into our hobby even more difficult.

Don

hmmm, okay, I'll bite.

Whether a new hobbyist or not, if I were thinking about bidding on new auction, why would any of this matter? Are you alleging anything "fishy" about the new auction? Do you see anything "fishy" about the first one? There were 13 different bidders. Three bidders were in it at the last minute, one dropped out at $4.9k, the next at $5.5k, leaving it to the winner at $5.6k. This is out of my league, and not in my area of collecting, so I don't know if the outcome was reasonable or not. Are you suggesting it wasn't?

I can understand being curious. But I don't understand why satisfying the curiosity is necessary to protecting a new hobbyist.

Basil

I was simply concurring with 'buyer beware' and market forces premises in the context of substantial amounts of investment and resources that comes along with traditional brick and mortar sellers. But as is typical, advances in technology have outstripped the ability for the marketplace to keep up.

It only takes a minimum amount of effort and investment to open multiple accounts on ebay. Opening multiple accounts is a very easy way to move material between what may appear to be different sellers and/or use shill bidding tactics. ebay has no rules against multiple accounts nor do they bother to check this kind of thing. And while they do have rules against shill bidding their own system supports it, and frankly if money is actually being paid they would welcome it (even if it is just money moving from one person's pocket to the other with the only loss being the ebay fees).

Bad dealers certainly existed 'in the old days' but were limited by market forces. I am sure that running one business name into the ground and then simply opening under another name was done many times by some bad dealers. But never has it been so easy/cheap to either pull this off OR hide while doing it.

It is one thing to be a person who 'learned the ropes' of stamp collecting before the internet came along and THEN learned to navigate the good and bad of online selling as it evolved over the years. But I think there are additional challenges that face a new person coming into the hobby today. I am no Luddite, I have made a career in technology. But I fear for our hobby and its inability to bring along new hobbyists.
Don

I never pay more than I want to for an item. If there are shill bidders than shame on them. I know going into any auction, including live ones I attend, that there may be some hanky panky. They will not get me to spend more than I intend to.
51studebaker, if the scenario is played out between the two ebayer's you mention, could there be benefits for them. Taxes or feedback or something?

J.W.Scott was a dab hand at shill bidding.

Hey ! Maybe he invented it ?

Don,
I know this is unrelated to this topic, but your shill bidding comment reminds me of an experience I had on ebay.
I saw one question you had was why a seller would use multiple names/Id's on ebay. I started a second ID on ebay several years ago to separate my buying and selling after I had a bad experience with another seller. This was prior to Paypal. I do not use my second ID for shill bidding and do not bid on my own stuff.
To tell you what length people will go to in order to rig bidding. This gentleman and I were both selling Hot Wheels. While he had many hundreds listed and was the self proclaimed "King of the Hot Wheels", I listed a much more modest amount, but still listed a couple hundred cars a week at much lower prices than he did. His solution was to run the bids up on all my stuff to unrealistic numbers with his many ID's to keep other bidders away and then cancel all bids with a day left. He was using at least 7 ID's that we know of and his practice worked to keep bidders away from myself and other sellers he saw as competition as our prices were way to high with all of his bids. Back then you could see who the bidders ID's were and a bunch of us got together and complained to ebay. ebay suspended everyone involved until they figured out who was telling the truth (The "King" was a powerseller). I was bidding on several lots of stamps at the time that I lost out on while my account was suspended. It was then that I opened a second account. The "King of the Hot Wheels" had seven accounts closed and was threatened with legal action. I am not sure what happened to him. I have not sold a Hot Wheel car in over 10 years.
I know this is wordy and off track but 99% of my experiences have been very good on ebay even though I understand 100% what you mean when you say "Buyer Beware" I am much more aware of crooks since this experience.
Pat

http://www.ebay.com/itm/US-5c-Imper...em1c429a0b8c;

Hmmm. "Ended because there was an error in the listing"! Right.......