British Cartel At It Again On Ebay, This Time With Revenues

More shenanigans by this circle of shysters (or one shyster masquerading as many)...

Here is a U.S. Scott #R97a, a moderately tough revenue stamp, and a very attractive example at that.

Sold by seller tenshillings, one of the regular Cartel scumbags, registered in the UK but the merchandise is (supposedly) in the U.S. Auction ended on May 7, 2015, sold to a (relatively) low-feedback bidder, presumably a shill. Sells for US$1,443.93.





Same stamp pops up for auction less than a month later, this time by seller superdeal70, also registered in the UK with the merchandise supposedly in the U.S. Stamp again sells on June 4, 2015 to a low-feedback bidder, this time for US$1,313.88. Note: Underbidder is high-profile U.S. revenue dealer Eric Jackson.





Now this morning two weeks later, it appears as a Buy-It-Now listing from seller re-entry, you guessed it: a seller registered in the UK, but the merchandise is supposedly in the U.S.

Don't forget about hmorgan10 also.

I believe "he" has also listed this item.

Thank you for posting this sequence, which is typical of what this guy does, except we can't figure out why he bounces the stuff back and forth between his different seller names? Is it strictly because he didn't get high enough bidding? And how does he manage to get out of paying selling fees? No way he's going to absorb 10% payments to eBay every time it "sells"?

Other active seller names are "postage-dues" and "collectstamps".

I' sure there will be those who see nothing wrong with this back & forth between different seller names. What's the harm if he's not selling the stuff?:

A. He uses shill bidding to try to get the price high enough to sell the item;

B. By shutteling the stuff between seller names, he's obviously NOT holding a true auction,since unless he gets to the price he wants, it won't sell, but will APPEAR to sell!

C. What's missing from the story is all the horror stories from those who *DO* end up buying the stuff, as it's invariably got undisclosed faults which can't be seen in the pictures. Then, when buyers try to get a refund, good luck with that, and they end up after a couple of months of anxiety finally getting a refund through either PayPal or their Bank. As first-hand testimony I can honestly tell you that every stamp that's ever been sent to my expert service that I was aware came from these sellers, had undisclosed faults.

BUYER BEWARE!

It also has a PF certificate which is never mentioned either.

http://pfsearch.org/pfsearch/images/392/392622.jpg

"And how does he manage to get out of paying selling fees? No way he's going to absorb 10% payments to eBay every time it "sells"?"

Maybe if the item is "returned" (it would be a "pretend" return with these people) the seller receives a credit for all final value fees. Perhaps an ebay seller here who has accepted returns back and issued refunds can confirm or disprove that theory.

I do know that in cases of "Item Not Received" claims when the seller issues a paypal refund the seller receives a credit in his/her ebay account for the final value fees of the item and for the original shipping. In this scenario though the seller takes a defect rate hit for the "lost" item, so that might not work well for crooks.

1typesetter,

I am assuming that the cert has been lost, as there would be no downside to mentioning the cert since the cert mentions no flaws. It actually would be a positive.

With the new rules he would not risk any 'returns' since that would show up in his rating/seller profile. That means the top bidder would have to simply 'not pay'. He could then File an Unpaid Item dispute, get his money back, and not get any 'dings' on his seller profile.

If he is using shill bidders then he would need to keep a large amount of multiple accounts since as a buyer you wouldn't want too many 'non-payments'. It is my opinion that he has no fewer than 50-75 accounts although he only uses 5-8 as seller accounts.

It may also be possible that there is some funny bookkeeping going on. He may be pumping his books with sales in an effort to attract investors or even buyers for his business.
Don

A copy of the cert would certainly be available if desired. This cert may come from the era when condition was not added to the cert, only genuineness. Any serious collector would know it is genuine on sight anyway.

Following up on my last post, if a buyer (pretend) returns the item it would NOT go against the seller's defect rate. Probably how they can do this kind of incestuous cross-selling without losing money on the transactions or damaging their ebay reputations.

From a friend at ebay:

The following reasons for a canceled transaction won't count against your seller performance:
Buyer purchased item by mistake or changed mind
Buyer is returning item for refund
You and buyer disagreed over terms
Buyer is unresponsive
Buyer's payment hasn't been received or hasn't cleared
Buyer requested shipment to an unconfirmed address
eBay notified you to cancel

Notice that the item was started at 99 cents.

So the "shill" bid is really a hidden reserve too. As a long term buyer only, never selling, I am guessing but that has to be a really cheap way to list a valuable item, and if the seller has found a way to "game" eBay's system, they might actually be interested in taking a close look at the activity.

Just saying...

-Dunc

PS: Eric Jackson could make a good case that he was the true winning bidder at one increment above $881.00, especially if Ebay would examine the nature of the bidding and how (in their own records) the sales were being voided.