http://www.ebay.com/itm/1900-20-Liberty-Double-Eagle-MS61-/230666391513?pt=Coins_US_Individual&hash=item35b4c9cfd9 Probably a new fake ebay scam.. This person has been a member since the 24th of August and has 22 high priced Double Eagles for sale..~ One of which will go out as all end within 2 days. All carrying reserves and 2000.00+ price tags. I sent an email asking to see a photo of the coin with a local current date newspaper or calendar date and received the following answer.. "Dear kirsten6034, Hello, Can you send additional photos? Also, one with the coin imaged with something with a current date? Newspaper or on a current month calender? I am interested.. -kirsten6034 Dear newreef, I can send you the original photos that were taken on August 18, 2011. The photos have a digital signature for the dates taken. Would you like a digital copy of the original photo with that stamp? Otherwise, I will not be in front of the coins until after this auction is done. -kirsten6034 I said, sure send them, guess we will see how that plays out. How convenient they won't be near the coins until AFTER the auctions end...
Wow. It still amazes me that people will bud and pay that much money for an item listed by someone with 0 feedback. Let alone the lack of any information about the item. Or, am I just that poor that $2000 isn't a lot of money to most people?
Buyer Protection. It works. But it's enough of a pain to deter me from any more almost-certainly-fraudulent auctions...
Eh...unlike most "ebay scam" posts around here, I can at least come up with a perfectly plausible and sensible explanation for this. Lady's father passes away. As executrix of his estate, she opens up his SDB, and finds 25 Double Eagles in there. She has no idea what they are, but they look valuable, and he DID keep them in a SDB. So off she goes to the nearby LCS with one of them, says "What can you tell me?" He explains what they are, notes they are common date coins of no real numismatic significance, and offers her, oh, 90% of melt...so, call it $1600 bucks. He then says that's a bit below the price of gold, but he has to make a profit, yadda yadda. So, she confides in a friend at work, asks what to do. He says "List them on E-Bay. You'll get maybe $2000 each for them." She's never done E-Bay, so she creates an account...not knowing that a new account will be "suspect" for such a high dollar auction...and lists her lot, minus the 2-3 nicest coins she's given to relatives, or kept for herself. Of course, she really won't be back to the coins until after the auction, because they're still in the SDB (on advice of her attorney/friend/banker) which is quite a ways away, since it was Dad's bank, not hers. So, she doesn't intend to drive all the way over there, just to photograph the coins when, as she quite correctly says, the EXIF info on the images will establish the date of the photograph. ================= Not saying that story's true...or even any part of it...but at least THIS auction has a believable possibility behind it.
image exif information can be changed easily. I still wouldn't believe the photo if you had doubt to begin with.
Oh, yes, obviously Pez. You're quite correct, and certainly any buyer would be wise to proceed with caution for just such a reason (among a dozen others). I meant merely to suggest that there is a perfectly reasonable story that COULD explain such an auction...as opposed to the ones so frequently discussed here that have no reasonable explanation at all.
Perhaps there are reasonable explanations...However, listing one with no feedback is a flag for me to begin with but 22 just screams scam... In any case will be interesting to see where it goes Now four of them will sell having met the reserve...
To agree with Gboulton, I bought some lots from a guy who had almost no feedback. It said in the listing his brother died, and he was putting up large groups of coins at a time. I bought some lots, with not great pics, and got items like 18 large cents in a group, another group had a 1869s EF quarter, and silver, and IHC and FE cents, and shield nickels, and world coins, etc etc. The man's brother died, and he was just selling stuff off as groups. I understand being careful, but everyone starts out at zero feedback. The buyer protection plan is there for a reason, so no reason to assume EVERYTHING is fakes. Better yet, maybe ya'll should then I will have free pick of the auctions. Btw by the time he was done selling all of the lots he was getting very strong bids since word was out that these were good deals. He had one lot, which he pulled since I think someone was nice enough to point out that there was a AU 1889CC and I believe a VF 1893S Morgan in the group. I seriously believe they were real.
I find it a little odd, and I don't quite know if it means anything at all, that one coin was listed 2 days (Aug 29th) before the rest of them (all 21) that were listed within 3 hours of each other on the 31st. Now maybe I'm trying to read too much into this but was the first one a "test the waters" auction?
Who knows, could be legit, but I would be surprised... I can understand someone liquidating if some relative passed, these all say the same thing.. securely packaged and NO returns...
Might be legit. Who knows. At least you know the seller won't be getting paid until the buyer leaves positive feedback and/or much time elapses. All of the auctions violate ebay's listing rules. None has reverse photos. So they should all be shut down, technically. Lance.
As was mentioned on the other forum very seldom do scammers list with a reserve. As for the timing once the first auction was built it acts as a template making listing more very easy and quicker.
