Sometimes Buyers Really Do Dumb Things!

"Quote:
Don't make false or misleading claims of sales scarcity, value, condition or investment potential.


Too many ways to split hairs with that wording.

I have seen enough listings with SMQ values but are not actually expertized to question whether or not ebay actually polices this even if it is actual policy.";

And you don't think that wording is clear enough to apply to the example shown in this thread? Really? It's not a "misleading claim....of value" to put a value of $4,000. in the same title as the word "Proof"? Really?

And you are right, it is NOT an "official" written policy that an SMQ or Scott Graded Value can't be used in the title even if the stamp has no cert. testifying to that grade. That horse left the barn (as you should recall) when Ken L. made the (correct) point that Scott does not specifically prohibit someone from quoting the Graded Values unless accompanied by a cert. But again, to me, this is a "common-sense" type of issue. If a cert. from a third party is not present, then anyone can quote an SMQ value and mislead the inexperienced buyers. That means anyone has the right to self-grade any stamp, no matter how inaccurate they may be, and then attach the high SMQ or SGP (Scott Graded Price) to pump up the perceived value. But while it is not an "official" rule, I **DO** have letters in my files from the ebay Reviewer stating that I am correct to object to the practice and they agree with me - but then they do not enforce it!

I have more to say, but am going out for a few hours and will post more later tonight.

This is a very good thread IMO!

Quote:
"Include clear pictures of the actual item being sold. Stock photos and images that are dark, out of focus, edited, or misleading aren't allowed.";

You are 100% correct that they do not enforce their own rules, but I don't see any other way to read that except that ALL of those FIVE different things are "not allowed". But without enforcement, a big portion of ebay's "rules" are a joke. While not the subject of this thread, the most frequent violation I see is the rule which prohibits a seller from charging a buyer for insurance. Yet I see oodles of sellers blatantly adding money over and above the selling price and outright stating it is for insurance, which is absolutely prohibited. If a seller wants to add into his shipping cost the cost of insurance, that's allowed, but it is not allowed as an "add-on" unto itself. So what I do is charge say, $2. for shipping but then note "Insurance is included in shipping cost". That's allowed. And I've attempted to report a couple of violators of the policy and surprise(!), no response or action from ebay.

"As far as enforcing their own rules, when the APS was part of the Stamp Watch Committee (or whatever it was called exactly), the APS seemed to be pretty good at keeping ebay honest during that period of time.";

Always great to read posts from you Dunc, and I was unaware that you must have been a member of the original Stamp Community Watch group! And you are absolutely right that when it was a joint APS/eBay effort, the system worked fairly well. But as time wore on ebay started to allow bigger sellers to get away with things smaller sellers couldn't. And as it got progressively worse, I resigned from the SCW for that exact reason in 2010 (I joined in 2006). Meanwhile ebay "divorced" itself from APS and ran the SCW independently, then eventually rolled it over into the Enhanced Member Reporting group, who had a special webform to report problematic listings. Didn't you see this week's front page Linn's story on this very subject? If not, contact me privately (find my contact through my website) and I'll send it to you. I'm unsure if I can put my email address in a post here or not?

No, Bill, I wasn't a member of the Committee, but I was careful to put together solid documentation on the scammers so Bob came to trust my reports.

I drifted away from the hobby during that 2010-2012 period (moved in with my father to care for him until he died) so I was "out of the loop" at that time.

And yes, I saw the Linn's story, that can't be good news. I have my own theory about why that happened, and suspect that it has more to do with ebay's Coins category than with Stamps.

You may be correct Dunc that it had more to do with coins, then stamps, but among those members of the Stamp and Coin EMR Program that were notified about the ending of the program by ebay, none of the coin people had any more theories about the ending than the stamp people who were notified. So I would indeed like to hear your theory if you are willing to give it?

Just my theory, of course, Bill, but from what I've observed in the Coins category, the crooks have been very active at times - no enforcement of some of the major rules about selling, in particular blatant violations of the Hobby Protection Act.

Some of those violations and the lack of enforcement would have been documented at ebay, which must have made them worry about their liability, once they knew.

The RICO act was created to prosecute ongoing criminal activities (racketeers) and violations of the act; knowingly taking part in ongoing criminal activities triggers treble damages built into the law.

Even churches are being prosecuted under the RICO act, there's no reason to think ebay would be immune. Transactions that cross state lines, involve the Post Office, or reach overseas also are triggers for enforcement.

Asian coin sellers provided a steady stream of unmarked counterfeit US silver dollars and trade dollars for years in violation of the Act with ebay's knowledge, sold in bulk blatantly as unmarked admitted fakes at about $2 each, then resold again by the buyers, sometimes on ebay as genuine coins for a lot more money.

The bad sellers of course made a lot of money but seriously contaminated the market, and now the fakers can afford much more sophisticated fakes, including faked slabs. It's a mess.

ADDED: I should've mentioned, counterfeiting has always singled out as one of the targets of the RICO act, so my guess is, since ebay has often failed at enforcement, they no longer want to hear about it. Knowingly participating in the sales of counterfeit coins for profit should make any big business executive nervous.

Thank you Dunc., and you could very well be correct, and I have read that theory before - that the fear of liability - is the underlying reason for the elimination of the peer review groups. And when you partner the end of the oversight groups with the "new" method they expect us to use - a "Report Item" that is valueless unless they act on the report minus any clear explanation of what the problem is and/or a "Contact Us" feature that ties you up for a half an hour or longer speaking to an employee who hasn't a clue about the subject matter - the "bottom line" is a disaster!

Further, no one to my knowledge has actually TRIED to file complaints with (for example) a state Attorney General's Office to request an investigation. That is what REALLY needs to be done, yet the odds of anyone actually successfully getting the full attention of an AG is slim and none in my view.

You may recall years ago that some SCADS members successfully got the attention of the NYAG only to have him drop the case in exchange for testimony in a different philatelic case that he was more interested in prosecuting. So the hundreds of hours of documentation done by the SCADS folks which showed clear "before and after" stamps with precise explanations of what the alterations were (and they were so good that any jury would have had to be brain dead not to prosecute the accused!) went down the tubes! And that memory causes those among us who would like to do more to hesitate, fearing the same kind of wasted effort.

So the best vehicle we currently have to TRY to make a dent in the online fraud is StampStarter, but we need manpower to make a difference, so anyone reading this who can spare some time to make reports, please consider helping. See other threads here on the SCF for more info about StampSmarter.

"Actually although this seller is often criticized at the stamp chat boards, deservedly I think, there are often bargains among his offerings, and I've bought quite a bit from him. What I bought was US Duck stamps, when the market for them was really depressed after the 2008 crash. My guess is, the duck stamps he was selling were on consignment, not his own merchandise, so the auctions were started at extremely low prices, and perhaps due to buyers' wariness quite a few went really cheap."

He buys a ton of stuff and I think he starts all of his stuff cheap and just lets them run.

During the last few years his Duck stamps have either started really low or high. Some of the high priced ones were a bit rough, and the gum was suspect on some of them too.

The cheap ones were often quite good, so I suspect they were not his - and that's what I bid on, over a delightful period of time. I wasn't thrilled about buying from him, but figured the consigner deserved the bids. And if they weren't consigned, they were still cheap.

They did give ebay a fake tracking number sometimes, then one time failed to ship, told me they were shipped, and then scolded me for not spending at least $40 or $50 before finally shipping the order. I previously did group multiple buys with them, but one never knows when bidding begins how many lots will be won at the end.

Buyers do dumb things?????

Say it ain't so...

My word.........$192.00 for an item that catalogs $18.00!

I have no further comment!

I just done something sort of stupid...I went of the sellers description and it differed entirely from the actual item. I just posted about it but luckily it was only $4.00 item though...lol