Ebay Dealers Auction Price Fixing

Hi, I'm a new member as well as new to posting sites. I'm retired and just got out of the graded sports card hobby and back into stamp collecting.

Not sure if this has been covered before but has anyone noticed any apparent price fixing by a group of dealers on ebay? I should say I'm hesitant to use the word "fixing" but have found a number of stamps that sell repeatedly at auction, always among the same five dealers. One will sell a certain stamp, say US #C6 24¢ AirMail NH, via auction. Two weeks later, the same stamp (using the exact same scan) is auctioned again by another dealer. Couple weeks later, the same stamp is auctioned again, sometimes by a third dealer or by the first dealer and so on. The winning bidder always bids once at the end and has a feedback under 100. Checking the bidders activity, said bidder almost always places one bid per auction and only among two different sellers.

I originally thought it was dealers buying stamps to flip, picking up bargains to resell. This may be the case, but it is always just the same dealers and it involves the same stamp over and over. Add the fact that each time the stamp resells, it would have to increase by 13% to cover the ebay fees and most of the time, it resells for less. Some stamps do eventually sell to real buyers but only after they bid above the "reserve" bid.

Over the past week I have tracked about 30 different stamps that have sold during the past 3 months this way ( ebay only tracks items sold for that period of time) and always find more but I don't have the time to track them all. I've tracked them on an Excel spreadsheet and have printed all the listings and bid activity as PDF's.

Again, just getting back into stamp collecting (the main reason I picked this trend up as I was researching past sales on the stamps I want to collect) and would be interested if anyone else has come across this. At this point I'm very leery of buying any more on ebay, especially from these five dealers.

Apologize for the length of the post, appreciate any help.

shenanagens on ebay??? I am shocked! shocked and appalled!

Hi Nothingman and welcome to the forum. You stepped right into a common theme and would do well to start with this thread:

https://goscf.com/t/40167&whichpage=1

Then search for Rushmore, etc., to have a thrilling night of reading. Have fun!

Ah, the proverbial "stepped right in it".

Thanks Partime, I looked under the ebay forum only. Anyway of connecting one post to another post thread?

Rushmore, car over a cliff...

Partime linked me to the various Forums covering this subject. I didn't provide any names but after reading all the other postings, it is obvious who is involved so in the interest of helping those members who asked the question in the other postings, the dealers in question are Rushmore, HMorgan, Superdeal, Mint Stamps (OG Stamps) and Re-entry. According to other postings, they may be one and the same, Rushmore and Re-entry have almost immediate turn around times on their listings. I have quite a bit of detailed information on these listings if anyone is interested.

I could not find any listings for any of those dealers' names.

Sorry

rushmore_bargains - currently 321 listings
hmorgan10 - 286 listings
mint_stamps - 430 listings
re-entry - 0 listings
superdeal70 - 0 listings

I admittedly know too little on the subject to make any good response but I have been shill bidded on a particular cover the last few weeks that is always seemingly "sniped" from me at the very last second and then find the exact same cover (the photo is even the same one) re-listed the next day?? Now does that smell fishy to you? It sure does to me. -Jeff

P.S.
Thanks for the "heads-up" on those sellers.

I've pretty much given up buying items on ebay (aside from supplies from real businesses that have ebay "shops"). I find that I get much better value from real auctions in the real world - both in terms of stamps themselves and the albums to store them in. And the auction houses have a vested interest in giving accurate descriptions and a good service. In your case, the realised prices from auctions would also give an idea of costs/values. Of course, the constituency is smaller, but likely to be more knowledgeable.

Regards.

Geoff

This may be part of the reason that many sellers and buyers, along with ebay as a whole, are shifting more and more to Buy-It-Now with or without Best Offer. It takes shill bidding off the table.

Those five selling names currently comprise the "British Cartel" which has been around for years and has been discussed on this and other boards at different times. In total, I think there might be over 20 different seller names used by this "person" alleged to be Philip Ryle, aka Philip Aster, a convicted criminal residing in the UK. ebay is well aware of his antics yet attempts to contact ebay management about his fraudulent sales has been fruitless. It is as though ebay has reached a conscious decision not to respond to any inquiry about fraud on their site. How else can you explain their refusal to correspond on this subject?

It's actually quite simple to deal with, just don't bid on any of the auctions on those accounts. If you suspect someone is using shill bidding, stop watching their actions. Tell others. Go find someone else selling the stamps you want. We all know ebay isn't going to do anything about it, stop getting your blood pressure up, just ignore those sellers.

Agreed Bill, that is also a main frustration is the lack of attention (just don't care?) of ebay.

If nothing else, this helps educate other collectors of the downside of online dealings and how best to stay away from shill dealers. My best practice, which helped prevent me from falling into their (his) "trap", is checking the Sold history for items on ebay I'm looking to buy. Not only does this give a fairly accurate realized value for the item you wish to buy as well as market availability, but you can also see if an item has been resold, whether due to it being returned for condition issues or by unscrupulous dealers.

Try this out, go to "United States" in the "Stamp" category. Search "238". Refine the search to "19th Century: Unused". Make sure you are searching under "Auctions" (three tabs at top , All Listings, Auction, Buy It Now). On the left side of the ebay page, go down to the "Show only" option and click on "Sold listings". You will now have all the Auction style listings that have sold for the past three months. Now go to the "Sort" button on top, usually set to "Time: ending soonest", and sort by "Price + Shipping: highest first". The first four results (along with the eighth) are the same stamp resold by this group of dealers. Click on one and you will find the seller and results (then look under "More chances to get what you want" and surprise, there is the same stamp being offered again). Click on bids to find the bidding history and you will see the winning bidder as well as the rest of the bidders. I then save the stamp image in a Folder titled "Resells" on my computer so I can identify them in the future should they be relisted (I also print out the sold listing page and Bidder list for reference).

Since the same scan/photo is used each time, it's easy spot the "resells" as I call them. You can try it with just about any early US issue, it is always a higher quality stamp, some are easy like US 289 8¢ Trans Mississippi, the resells are a single with imprint and and an imprint pair. I've only searched under a small group but always find more (C6, C13, 234, 236, 400 the most frequent).

Education and knowledge are the best tools.

No increase in blood pressure, they are off my bidding list, just trying to help get the word out.

I agree with Cephus!
One of the beauties of our community is the sharing of information. I learned about Rushmore and the problems with this site from the wise members of our community.
Although I am a small time bidder on ebay and have had very few problems with purchases that I have made, there are certain sites I just ignore because I won't win (ever) or sites that are questionable.
I feel that warned about even potential problems with a seller are enough to keep me away.