Dangerous And Misleading Listing Practices - Matthijs_philatelie On Ebay

This enigmatic seller continues to operate with question practices relating to customer service and relations, and now with regard to listing practices.

The following item is listed on ebay (in ENGLISH) as "Baden 1948 Good set Very Fine MNH stamps." I think most of us consider "Very Fine" to mean high quality stamps in fresh, undamaged condition particularly when sold by a European seller where "very fine" tends to refer to overall quality vs centering.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/101451-Bad....m1438.l2649


In the item description, the following information is provided, in FRENCH:

"B/TB : Beau/Très Beau : timbre de bonne qualité et de bel aspect présentant un défaut (mince, pli, etc). Pour leurs calculs, nous appliquons les règles suivantes GRATUIT dans le monde entier pour commande de usd200 et plus."

Translated, this means:

"B / TB: Beautiful / Very Beautiful: stamp of good quality and beautiful appearance with a defect (thin, fold, etc.). For their calculations, we apply the following FREE rules worldwide for ordering usd200 and up."

Very contradictory, and very dodgy since the statement contradicts itself and is not in English (this is the US ebay site where English is standard). There is no further clarification on this matter in the main ad, however if you click on the "See Full Item Description" button, you are taken to a new page with additional details not shown on the main page.

Hidden wayyy down at the bottom, in tiny fonts is the following term:

11. In the event of dispute the French text is dominating and in the event of litigations only the courts of Liege are qualified (see this page - http://vi.vipr.ebaydesc.com/ws/eBay...secureDesc=0 ).

So- the seller presents the basics in English, but the important qualifiers in French, with contradictions. You have to load a separate page and scroll to the bottom to see his terms in tiny fonts where he absolves himself of any accountability for his contradictory copy, to include having to sue him in a Belgian court in case of dispute! These new descriptions now permeate his listings.

Oh brother- dodgy at best and fraud at worst. Make sure you pay with a credit card.....

Sir you are incorrect. The lot title is:

"Baden 1948 Good set Very Fine MNH stamps"

As you posted, VERY FINE is described as:

"VF : Very fine : very nice stamp without fault"

Then per my original post, there is a qualifier that says the set has faults, in French.



This is patently and purposefully misleading.

That is misleading! I have bought from him a few times without any problems, hopefully this is an oversight and not something systematic. Still very bad from a buyers perspective.

Isn't it that this set is simply 'VF', i.e.without faults? Then, rather confusingly, in the definitions, there is a F-VF category with possible faults, although this particular set isn't in that category. I should expect any stamp characterised as "fine" to be without faults (with centring separately described if necessary).

His condition listing is stipulated as follows:

English French
VF -------------------Sup
F/VF------------------B/TB
F -------------------B
Fault----------------Def
So this lot is VF or Sup in French


SHIPPING FEES:
1°) Registered shipping fee is FREE worldwide for amount from 200 USD and more
He is also the 19th biggest e bay seller in the world
http://www.webretailer.com/lean-com...y-sellers/#/

Perf12, you made the same mistake as shermae


here the corect way you should read it

Superb ---------------Sup
VF -------------------TB
F/VF------------------B/TB
F -------------------B
Fault----------------Def


I think some place Very Good is confused with Very Fine, a very good stamp can have paper default.

look at the pic, the seller put the TB on the same line as the SUP, some mistake happen with the formating of the listing

JPMG; Yes your right ,Didn't look far enough...
I have bought stamps from Him several times and never had any problems.
He rarely shows the back of the stamps though.I suppose with the volume
of sales it would take too much time.

Also I think peoples are using Google Translate here. For me it was very obvious when I see the listing, and it's not the description of the item, it's, the general "selling conditions"

No where the seller say in French the item listed have fault

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the Scott catalog define F, VF, et cetera as a mere description of centering?

If you look at the listing, down in the bottom right just before the item details is a link "Report Item" - I don't understand french, if it were me I would be oblivious to the warnings in french. If I did understand french and noted a listing like this I would use the Report Item link and report it. That is not fair on an english site in a listing that is done in english in my opinion. I don't know if ebay will do anything about it, but at least they will know what this seller is doing and they can go from there if they decide to. If it isn't reported you can be sure nothing will be done about it for sure and the seller will continue on listing that way. Julie

ddaann - Scott may, but that's not how "fine" or its variants are usually used in Europe, where they describe the stamp's condition. A reference to centring is normally separate.

I can't believe it, now peoples want to report the seller who make a good job describing also the selling conditions in both language for his English and French customers.
It's very easy to see that both text are probably talking about the same thing .



Are you gone complain to the authorities in Florida, because they are a lot of sign in Spanish and you don't understand

JPMG said:




I am not "people", my user id is right there for you to see. I suggested that the person who originally posted and pointed out that the auction said things in french that were not stated in english about the condition of the stamps and the rights of the buyer should report that fact to ebay.

Did you read the entire thread? This is about what appears to be deceptive selling practices, with the seller saying one thing in english and something else about it french. I also stated that I didn't know french - something that is necessary to know before hitting the report button on ebay.

Don't really understand your horror at the suggestion unless you either did not understand the thread or you did not read it entirely.
Julie

The horour is bashing and reporting a seller who did nothing wrong,

I read many times the listing and I found nothing wrong and the French text say exactly the same thing as the English one.

I think this seller deserve an apology

The text, including the explanation of condition, is in both English and French. The seller's definitions wouldn't be mine, but I see no attempt to deceive.

Agree with you Geoffha about the the definitions, But what about Scott using Very Good to describre an average stamps with posibly faults , I think the words Very Good can lead someone to think it's a high quality stamp

Here an extract of an old Unitrade