Liar Liar ?

[Spartancrest]

This Tengu Menuki would give Pinocchio a run for his money!!   https://www.jauce.com/auction/t1000415606

[GRC]

speaking of liars... has anyone else had this experience:

 

I won an owari sukashi tsuba on ebay that was also cross-listed on Yahoo-J.

I sent the payment with the specified shipping and was super excited to get this tsuba... but then this:

 

The seller contacts me saying he couldn't use regular postal service to ship the tsuba to Canada due to COVID, so would have no choice but to cancel the auction.

    oh really? I had literally just received a tsuba from Japanese mail service that day. 

    I started to suspect he was disappointed with the final sale price because this style tsuba usually sells for more.

    So I sent a pic of the Japan mail shipping label I got that day to show that there was no issue...

    But, just as a safeguard, I suggested that he could use DHL or FedEx to ship to Canada. They certainly don't have any COVID restrictions with Japanese shipments. 

 

The seller gets back to me a day later, saying it would cost $115 USD to ship the ONE TSUBA to Canada and asked if I would be OK paying the difference.

WTF!?!??!?!?!? 

Of course my answer was NO to this laughable cash grab, so the seller canceled the auction and I was fully refunded.

He since relisted it and sold it for the higher price he was hoping for.

 

Piece of work...

 

I wish I could post the pic of this menuki in his ebay feedback profile...

 

Sorry for venting, but I've never had that happen before and was wondering if anyone else has had this happen.

 

Regardless, there are millions of other tsuba out there to be admired, and hopefully collected  

 

[Spartancrest]

Glen you are now a member of a huge club of buyers who buy in good faith - only to be disappointed by money hungry sellers, some of whom use a worldwide crisis to their own benefit.  There are however some very honest and reliable sellers - it is just a case of cutting the bad out of your watch list.  Maybe we need a list of sellers to avoid? Name and shame?

[Ken-Hawaii]

Yes, this type of crap happens all the time, Glen. Eventually, though, lies catch up to the seller, & he'll disappear - only to reappear using anotheer name.

 

There's been discussion of a liar list, but Brian doesn't want to go that route.

[GRC]

Hey Dale, are we allowed to "name and shame" on here? 

 

Thankfully I had a great experience with another seller who voluntarily sent me a refund for overpaying for shipping!

The preset shipping cost on the listing was too high.

Coincidentally, the shipping fee from Japan ended up being $20USD... not $115 

 

Fulfilled my hopes that there are still some good people out there. 

[GRC]

Thanks Ken, that answers that question.

I suspected as much because of the potential for liability issues, and the potential for creating some heated battles if the person being named is a member of the forum. 

There's also the potential for abuse and misuse of shame list...

Oh well, c'est la vie.

[PietroParis]

Another standard scam is when the seller on eBay does not actually own the item that is on sale on Yahoo Japan. They list it on eBay for a much higher price and buy it from YJP only after they have found a sucker, pocketing the difference. If something goes wrong (e.g. the price shoots up on YJP) they find some excuse to cancel the deal. Often you will see multiple sellers on eBay hawking the same item from YJP. When I see that, I sometimes troll the eBay seller asking for additional pictures of the item, of course there's always a reason why they cannot send them...

 

P.S. an extreme example: I bought a pair of Bizen beer tumblers through Buyee for 2400 JPY (about $22), and I noticed that a different seller was hawking the very same tumblers on eBay for $319!

[Spartancrest]

I just had the same experience, I bought a rusty guard on Jauce [also linked to YJP] for a buy it now price of 5980 yen  or about 75 dollars AU. - I had seen the same guard on ebay with three different prices listed, the lowest was $186 AU and the others over $200. A week after I had bought it it was still being advertised on ebay - I politely sent the dealer a note that it was already sold and to please take the ad down, obviously he didn't check his 'available' stock!!  I do wish ebay had standards about scalpers, but then they are only interested in their own revenue.

 

 

I wonder how this thread has gone on from a posting of a picture of a long nosed Tengu to become a talk about auction ethics? Fun though!! 

[GRC]

Dale, I has the exact same experience with having to contact one of the "Japanese ebay seller crew" to let him know that the tsuba he had listed was already in my possession.

The best part was he had made me a private offer with a "reduced price".

I said "thanks and told him he'd have a hard time selling me something I already owned" and sent him a picture of the tsuba on top of that day's newspaper.

Couldn't resist  

It really feels like there's some sort of organized consortium of tsuba peddlers using the "three price strategy" on ebay. 

It really is frustrating...

[waljamada]

First off, that Menuki is also winking.  It has plans....

 

I've noticed that there are way too many seller accounts that are sometimes even up to 8 years or older with thousands of reviews that do nothing but list items from other dealers, both current and old listings.  They especially seem to be in Japanese antiques, yoroi and things of the like.  They don't really seem around as much in the nihonto listings with the "antique Japanese swords" search.  But these sellers somehow stay around for a long time without getting shut down.  I've "told on them" to ebay and other sellers whose listings they've duplicated to no avail.  I've picked up on a few telltale signs, biggest/most obvious of which is all the items listed are presented differently on different backgrounds/surfaces/lighting etc...

[Sunny]

20 hours ago, GRC said:

Dale, I has the exact same experience with having to contact one of the "Japanese ebay seller crew" to let him know that the tsuba he had listed was already in my possession.

The best part was he had made me a private offer with a "reduced price".

I said "thanks and told him he'd have a hard time selling me something I already owned" and sent him a picture of the tsuba on top of that day's newspaper.

Couldn't resist  

It really feels like there's some sort of organized consortium of tsuba peddlers using the "three price strategy" on ebay. 

It really is frustrating...

Very nice ...

I would have paid money to have access to his webcam at the exact moment he looked at the picture of the tsuba and realized the gig is up and how foolish he looks.

Bravo.

It's a shame.

I've reported quite a few of these types of sellers on ebay along with multiple accounts with bogus listings and price fixing ect. and Ebay doesn't seem to care.

Go figure Etsy takes action over night with bogus scam listings and Ebay says they care and to report but nothing usually happens.

Cheers 

[Stephen]

We out Showa 22 n Komonjo to no end.

Start  YOUR own thread saying ebay seller did me wrong ...if it happened on Yahoo... Forget about it he's moved on. Yahoo/buyee is frout with seller like that

 

[Spartancrest]

Steven E.

I have done the same, reporting scams to several auction houses when they are selling fakes as authentic - to their credit most do take the offending item down or relist it as what it truly is. Nice to know Etsy has standards.

How do we call out ebay when they won't take action? Surely this is being complicit in a scam and makes them equally guilty of a crime. Who can you report ebay to? 

 

Stephen. How do we avoid being sued for defamation even when its true? The offenders often have deeper pockets than the victim and litigate you to financial death.