How About A Thread With Some Positives?

See a lot of negatives and crazy stuff here, but have something good to say about a dealer; StampFair.

Reader's digest version is, I made a mistake buying a stamp that they listed as something it wasn't. We had a friendly conversation, they agreed that my analysis of what it was/wasn't, and they promptly issued a refund.

Sure that the majority of problems are solved in this manner, but really don't see many people posting when dealers and in this case the buyer make a mistake and it gets worked out.

And lord knows we can use anything that is good news in this day and age.

I'll add one to keep the theme going. I had a package recently that I sent and the buyer opened a not received claim after about 3 weeks. Despite the issues COVID was causing at the time, ebay seemed to not really account for this and did not bother to increase the time buyers could take to file a claim. In the end I ended up just refunding the amount. A few weeks later I get a message stating he received it and he sent me the funds back. Amazing and honest.

last year at a local show that I always make an effort to attend, I sat down at the booth of one of my favorite dealers. while he never has much in the way of items for me, he is always pleasant to talk to (time permitting at his busy booth). this time he had a gold mine and I was stunned. after picking out nearly $1,000. worth of stuff (all high quality premium items) I awaited a final price and was stunned to be told I could have the material at 30% of cat, because in his opinion over our long relationship he had learned as much from me, if not more, than I learned from him.

One time at a show I bought items that added up to $10.01 because the dealer charged taxes. I didn't have any change with me so I took out a $20 and said sorry I don't have the penny. The dealer smiled and said not a problem and proceeded to give me nine dollars in bills and ninety nine cents in change.

Funny how doing the right thing is now exceptional.

Years ago I bid and won an ebay item at what seemed an OK price. The seller emailed me saying that he found out that a friend of his had bid on the item to "help" him get a better price, so he was reducing the price to reflect the bidding without any of his "friend's" bids.

Another one: I bid on and won a stamp set but had not received the lot after 3 weeks of paying. I emailed the seller and asked if he had sent item and if so did he think it had been lost in the mail. He said he sent it and had never experienced a loss in the mail. I told him I had not either. He insisted on sending me another set even though I told him it wasn't his fault if it was lost by the postal dept.

There are definitely some good people out there but they seem to be over shadowed by the bad.

A "friend" helping a seller get a higher price is shill bidding or am I missing something? It's nice the seller owned up to it but it's still shill bidding if you have a friend who does that.

I think shill bidding is a real problem on ebay. Last year I bid on an item and got outbid at the last second, nothing unusual with that. But it sold cheaply and then less than two days later it was relisted by the seller. I emailed the seller and asked what happened as I was the underbidder on that lot. He replied that the buyer didn't pay. Maybe that was true but he relisted it very quickly and he did not offer it to me when my bid was 50 cents less. I suspect it was his or a friend's shill bid to drive up my bid or at least prevent it from being sold cheaply. I started looking at who was bidding on this seller's lots and many of them had 95-100% bidding activity with the seller and a lot of bid retractions. I guess there is no way to prove they are shill bids but I think they are a real problem.

My great great grandfather ran a general store and wharf boat back about 1900 on the Ohio River. This thread and the other more negative stories on this web site prove out one of his business rules. If you treat people right they will tell their family and friends. However, if you do people wrong they will tell everyone who will then tell everyone else. Treating people right is always the most profitable way of doing business in the long run.

To me there is a BIG difference between a seller who knowingly uses shill bidding and someone who admits that it happened without his knowledge, tells you about it and reduces the win price. That is honesty in my book.

Shill bidding often occurs and if one notices bidders with high percent of bids on said seller, only, I wouldn't need proof positive to stay away from that seller.

Something I've noticed about niche forums is the eagerness to assume the worst about the dealers servicing the hobby. Selling anything where the item is a one off or close to it is much more difficult than selling stuff you can get drop shipped. There's a lot of work involved in listing things and with small value items the pressure to list a lot can add to the difficulty. The go to when something goes wrong that someone is up to no good is disheartening. Yes there are bad actors out there, but by and large most of the folks in the hobby are good people just trying to make a living.
My positive story, I've been making a small album to complete a collection I started as a kid- inexpensive stuff, most of it can be found easily when buying bigger collections. Anyway, I needed a stamp worth a buck to fill a hole. I found a nice one on ebay, looked at his other stuff to see if there was something else I could use to make it worth his while. I came up empty so just bought the one stamp. it arrived in an envelope with a stamp I needed as postage-a stamp that regularly sells for 2-3 bucks, AND it's a beautiful example as well.

Andy is this a seller on Hipstamp? When I search for StampFair, StampDen comes up.

I'm not sure this is positive but it gave me a chuckle. Check out the 3rd picture;

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Im...AOSwoutfC3l1

Great story Phillystamper. Tried to send you an email but it shows that you don't want receive email. Too bad, Sharing stories as fellow collectors is one of the best part of the hobby. And I spent the first 45 years of my life very close to where you are now.

Ed, yes it was on Hipstamp.

Here's a positive. I accidentally swapped shipping labels on two ebay sales. One stamp was much more valuable than the other. The person who bought the expensive one contacted me to tell me he had the wrong stamp. You could imagine I was a bit panicked. I figured out who I switched with and contacted him. Fortunately he was nice about it. The two of them agreed to fix the situation. One of them sent it back to me and I resent it to the right person. The other person agreed to send it directly to the other buyer if he agreed to share his address. Everyone was nice about it, no screaming or bad feedback. We worked it out and everyone was happy.