posted 09-25-2007 11:37 AM               

This smells very fishy to me for several reasons:

1. Why would someone spend $2200 (PLUS buyer's premium), only to auction off the item on Ebay less than a week later starting at $0.01 with no reserve?

2. Is it even possible that a bidder from Italy would have possession of this item at this time, since the auction ended only 5 days ago? I paid for my lots the day after the auction and was told to expect them to arrive 7-14 days later. This person could likely only have possession of the photo if he attended the auction in person.

3. The seller is listing this as a private auction, which is always a red flag.

I wanted to post this information in case the real buyer of this item (or the folks at Heritage) wanted to make a complaint...assuming, of course, the Ebay seller isn't the actual buyer of this item. Perhaps the buyer of this item (from the Heritage Auction) is one of those among us here on CS.

The seller also is auctioning off a stamp with bids now exceeding $1000. I can't help but wonder if this is something from a recent Regency-Superior catalog, with a jpeg copied in order to attract bidders.

Edited by mjanovec on September 25, 2007 at 11:50 AM.

posted 09-25-2007 12:44 PM               

I have seen several scam attempts from Italy lately where they are copying highend items from other auctions and sell them on ebay - you can't tell from the image as it's stolen, of course !

Hope no one is offended but this appears to be an Italian problem at the moment !

Good advice - ask the seller for more photos of the item, backside, from a different angle etc....if he really has the original item he can easily provide this !

Thanks Mark for bringing this to our attention.

BUYER BEWARE !

Florian

posted 09-25-2007 01:31 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by spaceflori:
Good advice - ask the seller for more photos of the item, backside, from a different angle etc....if he really has the original item he can easily provide this

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I thought about doing this, but then realized Heritage offered three scans of this item, front, back, and signature closeup...all around 300 dpi. So the Ebay seller presumably has these scans saved...although it's possible they only saved the image from the Ebay listing, which was smaller.

One should be wary of getting prints of the hi-res scans that Heritage offered. While I am all for having hi-res scans made available, I think they should probably contain a "watermark" of sorts to prevent fraud. (Note: this isn't a criticism of Heritage...but simply an illustration of how their excellent scans might be abused.)

One last point...Heritage just sent me an e-mail saying my auctions items shipped today via Fedex. The e-mail contained some general language saying that deliveries overseas tend to take longer, generally 2 to 4 weeks. So that further puts in doubt the liklihood that someone from Italy has already received their Heritage lots, unless they obtained them in person from the auction in Dallas...in which case they spent A LOT of money to obtain an expensive lot which they are now selling for a starting price of $0.01.

Edited by mjanovec on September 25, 2007 at 01:35 PM.