Fraudulent listings from China

[JamesH]

Buyer beware, some guy in China is ripping off images from http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~t-ohmura/gunto_024.htm and other pages of this website and making ebay listings off them.

 

So far there are 2 ebay accounts with about 4 listings each (below are links to 1 item for each but if you go to 'other items' you will see the rest):

 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/COLLECTABLE- ... 232b1d0aa5

 

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/COLLECTABLE- ... 33823e0504

 

 

Regards,

James

[Brian]

Just bid each item to $50,000 leaving the seller with no real buyers, a huge final value fee to pay, and no chance of making any money. Make sure you have notified eBay of the fraud so that they cannot hold you liable for the bid.

 

Brian

[Soshin]

Hi Brian R.,

 

Thanks for the warning. I had the same problem more than a few years ago when I was selling a Shin-Shinto wakazashi that was in good polish. Someone in China was coping the images. Looking at the location information I know one more bad thing the Chinese are doing in Tibet.

 

P.S. Free Tibet!

[mywei]

Thanks for the heads up. Goes to show the ongoing perils of buying nihonto on ebay!

 

On the other hand - probably no need to start China-bashing either.

 

Cheers,

Matt

[Stephen]

when you run across this send a link to Omura sama, ive done it in the past, he contacts ebay and they pull it....you cant do it as you dont own the pix...he will be very greatful.

[JDinMT]

Unfortunately the fraud isn't just limited to the Chinese. I had a "seller" from California (U.S.) lift the gallery picture from a wakizashi I had listed and use it to try to sell it as their own. They also took pictures from another legit seller (some old folk art paintings) for a fraud listing. Fortunately theives don't want to work hard so they were easy to spot and no one fell for it. We just turned them in to ebay and they got the boot, but they'll probably just reincarnate and come back as someone else, just one of those things to be aware of.

 

John D.

[Kai-Gunto]

I emailed Ohmura yesterday about it.

[Dr Fox]

Here in the UK, eBay is rife with sellers using the manufacturers sales images, to sell their second hand goods. eBay in their policy documents state this is a no no, but I and others have pointed cases out to them, and they do diddly squat about it, I even tackled a seller who sent me duff goods, only to get "every body does it!"

I have not visited eBay for a year, its just not worth the constant risk of being ripped off.

Denis

[JamesH]

I reported it to eBay when I saw the first lot. Then the next time I looked the ones I reported were taken down by ebay, but 2 lots of the same listings from 2 new sellers appeared. These thieves seemed pretty persistant so I thought I would write it up here, in case more keep coming up.

 

It looks like eBay has taken down the ones above, so hopefully they will stay on top of these guys.

 

I personally dont have anything against the Chinese, its just all these guys were all listing from Tibet, China hence why I thought I would include the location.

What I cant stand is the blatant con, no matter where it comes from.

 

 

 

Regards,

James

[Kai-Gunto]

They are playing again.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/COLLECTABLE-RAR ... 2a2d8ff721

[Jean]

You know by now the procedure, Thomas...

[Brian]

http://www.h4.dion.ne.jp/~t-ohmura/gunto_022.htm

Stolen from that page.

Does anyone have a disposable eBay account that can bid into the thousands and not worry about unpaid item feedback?

 

Brian

[Kai-Gunto]

Great , ebay removed the auctions

[Brian]

Probably about 20 of us that reported it.

 

Brian

[Alex A]

Good result

 

Alex.

[Stephen]

not one mind you but two pages of Omura samas pix, many repetes...who falls for this?

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?item=151 ... 5567&rt=nc

[lonely panet]

here is some more listings, judge for your self

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/xiaoan5567/m.ht ... 7675.l2562

 

regards Hamish

[Jamie]

You guys must just not realize that ALL of these are

Rare AND

 

Collectible

[Brian]

A LOT of people about to get defrauded.

This syndicate spent lots of time building up feedback on tiny items to get to this point. Now they have 2 pages of listings going for a few hundred each that will all be fraud.

Wish I had the guts to risk my eBay account and bid high on every item to block them. Only way to stop them.

eBay was warned about these guys...so I blame eBay for allowing this obvious fraud to happen.

 

Brian

[Jiro49]

They will make about 5,000usd on the sales and they state that they cant ship EMS and SAL takes at least 30 days so they can get the money after 21 days per PayPal rules..

 

Sad!

[Sporkkaji]

At least they aren't smart enough to just do a couple better written listings at a time, they might have more takers that way. I have a secondary Ebay account, if anyone cares to get in a bidding war with me over one of them I'm game.

[Brian]

Just bid it up high, so no-one else can win it.

If you can, try and see what other payment methods they will accept besides Paypal..especially if you can get banking details etc.

My company is dealing with the Chinese police and army currently, and I have people there can can likely "assist" if we can get some info.

 

Brian

[Sporkkaji]

OK sounds fun, I'll get the ball rolling. This one http://www.ebay.com/itm/151063841462 has two days to go and I just bid $91 for it. I need some accomplices to outbid me so we can get it up to 50K or so. You all have my word I'll be the final high bidder so I'll be the one actually dealing with them and you won't have to worry about negative marks on your accounts. When I win I'll say that Paypal restricts importation of products made from endangered tortoise shell or something like that and will try to get some info that will be useful to the authorities.

 

On a related note, several years ago I had a blast messing with one of those Nigerian email scammers. Eventually went so far as to make up a fake check and send it to him. It was great watching them get more and more frustrated as the weeks went on. The whole thing is chronicled here http://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/ ... mer.21029/

[Sporkkaji]

No help? Surely someone here must have a daisho??

[Grey Doffin]

Hi C. Lewis,

It isn't necessary for anyone here to bid against you; ebay watchers will take care of that. Also, no sense running the supposed value any higher than necessary. Don't want the seller to attract more interest with higher prices.

Once you have won the auction point out to ebay that the pictures and description have been stolen. They should cancel the sale and shut the fraudster down (once it costs them money maybe they'll take notice).

Grey

[Sporkkaji]

Thought it would be fun to get in a fake bidding war that would run the price into the stratosphere, and since these people run on greed it would make them more likely to give up some personal information once my Paypal payment doesn't work out. The idea isn't to have Ebay close the listings so they can just come back again, it's to get some info that Brian's people can use to dish out some Chinese justice. I had the Nigerian guy in the link I posted go through the effort of making up a fake ID to prove he was actually the president of some world bank and even got his physical address in Lagos.

 

I've been outbid, likely by the seller himself so I'll go ahead and increase my bid. Come on - someone jump in.

[Sporkkaji]

Message sent by me to the seller....

 

Hello, as you know Ebay and Paypal have strict guidelines concerning transactions involving the importation of items from foreign countries that are made from material obtained from an endangered animal species. Assuming I end up winning this fabulous sword, are you able to provide documentation that the handle was not made from any of these listed tortoise species?

http://www.treehugger.com/natural-scien ... ecies.html You have probably heard how the Obama administration and the Department of Homeland Security have recently begun cracking down on it after the Sarute Mexican gorilla hand smuggling operation was busted.

[hxv]

Dear C. Lewis,

 

I have cold beers to go with the drama as it unfolds. This is going to be entertaining.

 

Regards,

Hoanh

[Sporkkaji]

Dear C. Lewis,

 

I have cold beers to go with the drama as it unfolds. This is going to be entertaining.

 

Regards,

Hoanh

 

I'll be having one with you :D . Don't know if you caught this link I posted above, but this one that I did a few years ago was awesome! Definitely worth the read.

http://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/ ... mer.21029/

 

No reply yet to my Ebay query, but the auction is close to ending.

[Sporkkaji]

Yay the sword is mine, but I'm a little concerned that they somehow have my personal email address. In literally hundreds of Ebay transactions I have only ever received messages through the Ebay message system. But there it is, a payment invoice sent directly to my inbox by them. I was not aware Ebay gave that information out. Worst case scenario I guess they could put me on some horrendous spam mailing list and I'll have to change my email.

 

No answer to my previous question so I replied with this.

"Wow, I'm so excited. As soon as you get back to me about the concern in my previous message I'll get the payment sent. I can't wait!"