hello everyone Im new here and pretty new to the coin collecting world but I've been on ebay for a few years and I stumbled on this guy the other day when I was searching US coins ending soonest here is one auction he has up now http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190373900664&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT In the past few days he has ended a bunch like it . If you look at his feedback he has set his auctions to private so you can't see the items in his feedback page just a lot of positive sounding comments. At the rate he is going he should be in the low hundreds in a few months . If he were to stop selling and let 90 days elapse , then run a bunch of legit auctions and complete them perfectly with his feedback now set to not be private, so he was showing 5 stars everywhere wouldn't he be well positioned to then post some phony gold coin auctions and walk away a few 1000 dollars richer? What I don't understand is that if you look at his buyers I'm not seeing a pattern . I mean that they don't immediately seem like they are scammers themselves so whats the connection? Either they are in on the scam or they aren't but if they arent why did they bid on pennies that don't appear special? Or are these pennies are special in some way and I just don't see why? Its not like he has made any effort to make the listings jump out at you.
What's funny is that someone has bid .01 on all of the auctions, so with free shipping the seller is going to be in red.
he will be in the red for listing fees final value fees paypal fees and postage so at least a dollar on anything that gets a bid.
He's buying positive feedback. But, as stated, what kind of buyer will participate in this auction? Its got to be organized with a group specifically for this purpose. Definitely someone to watch.
Looks to me more like a novelty/gimmick. He/She is not doing anything wrong though I can't imagine why they would waste their time.
Folks have been doing this for years. Both buyer and seller get a positive. In this case the seller is going a bit over the top.
I gave up policing ebay years ago. Waste of time. I use the energy and effort to study coins. Ebay has its pot holes to avoid (no more than your average coin show) but it is a very useful tool.
I used to e-mail bidders when I saw fakes and warn them. E-bay will no longer let you contact other bidders. They are not interested in cleaning up the con men, just their bottom line, which is making money. If this guy can spend $500 and get a great quantity of positive ratings, he can then go on the site and sell anything and buyers will be unaware that his rating is bogus. If he has friends bidding, he doesn't ever send out the coins, so there is no postage. Pay the e-bay fees, build up a positive rating let the fraud begin. Sad part e-bay doesn't care.
actually I just looked at his ME page and it says he sells rugs doesnt mention coins. I suppose hes trying to get his feedback up to avoid the paypal holds on low feedback sellers
I've seen this before......He is probably the buyer as well. He's buying feedback, for what purpose, who knows?
I was surprised by how little eBay cares about people selling fraudulent coins on their site. The stern warning they give about authenticity when you're about to list a coin should have an addendum to say: ...unless the fraud you are about to commit is not proven (solely by the buyer) within 45 days because after that we don't really care whether you've broken any federal laws.
