Anthony's Llc Dismal PF Report Card = Follow Up To 10/23/17 Discussion

Hi essayk,
Understood, but allowing 'free form' feedback is a kiss of death for a data gathering QA system. It is far better to require users to select from a set of answers.

Buyer education is obviously the best solution, but my opinion is that it goes beyond just 'philatelic knowledge' and extends to 'seller knowledge' and 'venue knowledge'. Assumption is that we are talking about intermediate to advance collectors who are buying better quality material on online.

Philatelic knowledge – It should go without saying that buyers should educate themselves on the material they are purchasing. Study up on any reprints, fakes, or forgeries; become familiar with any other stamps in which a fake or altered stamp may be derived. Learn about the contemporaneous cancels for the stamp and how to recognize them. Learn about the production characteristics for the period.

Seller Knowledge – Know who you are buying from, it is that simple. Do not buy into the ebay marketing fantasy that you are completely safe buying something from an image and from a unknown name half way around the world. ebay will cover you on small cheap stuff but don't risk it with larger sums of money. Build relationships with sellers you like, talk with other collectors for seller recommendations. If the desire is to start a relationship with an unknown seller, start small and build up to more costly items.

Venue Knowledge – Learn how to efficiently search, filter and find the material you are interested in. Do not start your search with 'lowest first' sort. Shady sellers troll for suckers who do this, knowing that 'bargain hunters' will jump on bidding on bad listings that are starting at $0.01. Instead, start with a website like Siegel and see what quality material really sells for. Armed with this information, then look through other online venues to see what is listed.
Don

2 billion transactions each day? and it was found with a google search, so it must be true. As for the bad transaction rate, you are just making a wild guess.

They give the seller the chance to post their side of the story.

We all know there are unreasonable buyers just like there are bad sellers. A seller gets an infrequent bad review, it doesn't give me much pause. A pattern of bad reviews is a different story, but if there is no record of a bad sale, then how is the average Joe supposed to know there are issues? Some of these guys make their living throwing "stuff" at the wall and if it sticks bingo and if the buyer is educated enough and not too meek then they file for a refund and the seller issues the refund and ebay wipes out the evidence of the issue and they reoffer it to the next victim. Lather, rinse and repeat.

The bigger issue, IMO, is that seemingly the majority of people buying bogus material don't ever realize they have bought bogus material until long after the ebay transaction has been completed and the PayPal dispute window closed, so the seller has reaped the benefits and moved on.

That's something no seller policy will ever fix: buyer education.

I see it in U.S. revenues daily, and we can't blame it on Anthony's: multiple bidders bidding on clearly faked imperfs and part perfs. "Well, if the imperf catalogs $1,000 this will be a steal at $45!!" No, moron, you just paid $45 for a stamp that in reality catalogs $0.75, and a horribly damaged one at that. Here's your sign.

The Anthony's listing of a 4L1 that James Drummond pointed out and that at least a dozen people reported is still listed. No surprise there.

As a person that is interested in the protection of both sellers and buyers, there is some comfort in the fact that a band of people that actually have no expert knowledge, and dare I say that in some cases, no knowledge at all, can not have any success in having a listing removed.

Hi Winston!

Nothing like disparaging a group of your fellow forum members and collectors in one fell swoop.


Cheers!

No disparagement intended. I meant no knowledge or expert knowledge of 4L1. Is that better? Do you want a hug?

Much better Winston! Sure, I will take hug.

Have a Sparkling Day!!!

If this thread was not about a certain dealer but an analytic approach to evaluating stamps online it would be a lot more useful. I do not collect some of these areas but if someone said something other than "trimmed" it would add content. Many of us will never handle the quantity of stamps so not like to gainly much hands on but can teach how to evaluate specific issues. I gave up on Wash Franks since I cannot invest the time and money to deal with them enough to get very good at it. Experts have reference collections so kinda a catch-22.

Not sure how much "expert" knowledge is needed when having the right reference book will do. The previously referenced American Express Co, New York City forgery of Scott 4L1 is documented as Forgery F1 on page 31 of "The Identifier for Carriers, Locals, Fakes, Forgeries and Bogus Posts of the United States" Volume I by Larry Lyons. The missing border ornaments on the right are quite convincing. But wait, there is more! On page 29 Lyons points out that no "original" example of the stamp has been authenticated (as of 1998 when the book was published). Conclusion: Using the Lyons book is sufficient to identify most forgeries. Identifying genuine examples may require an expert with experience with locals.

Finally, regarding reporting listings. It is a bad idea to report listings based on insufficient knowledge. There should be no unanswered questions before forwarding negative conclusions to ebay or the seller.

I recall once being contacted by someone who claimed that a Type Ia Scott 500 I had listed on ebay was an offset stamp. The individual was not familiar with plating marks in the left or right ribbon and was clearly not yet up to the task of interpreting scans as they may appear on ebay. But, for those who feel like reporting listings, start in an area of strength or experience. There are more than enough bad listings to go around. No need to report if not sure.

Sometimes a collector at a stamp show will attempt to convince a dealer that a certificate is no good and then offer a low price for the item to take out of circulation. Is the collector sincere or attempting to steal the item? This is one of the reasons why contacting sellers with bad listings may backfire.

I am not sure why it is necessary to have answers to questions about a dubious item when all that you can really do is push the dumb "report item" button and wait for nothing to happen. No point in emailing an Anthony's. You will be ignored and in all likelyhood blocked. I understand the point but this is ebay we are talking about. If you were able out a form that detailed why you believed the item was a fake, faulty, regummed, reperfed, misrepresented etc. ebay would need to have a body on the other end that knew what the heck you were talking about. Never going to happen in a zillion years.

It would be interesting to know how much money ebay makes annually from sellers fees for selling stamps. My guess would be more than enough to staff a few experts on a "subcontract" basis. I know it will never happen but it would be interesting to dream about ebay contacting a seller like Anthony's with a message along the lines of;

"After consulting with our team of experts our opinion is that item XXXXX12345 is not what it is listed as, please provide a detailed response on why it is listed as such"

Again, just a dream....

Above and beyond the normal operating expenses/overhead? No way. Stamps is a small category compared to other collectibles categories. In my opinion, if ebay were to ever implement a program like this it would start with categories that are much larger and more lucrative. If they're not policing coins or sports cards, there is zero chance it happens with stamps.