Batman #1 on ebay misrepresented???

[Point Five]

I emailed SA Comics over the weekend. Greg wrote back and we talked live on the phone. I told him that this was not an OO copy as I owned it a year ago. I also told him the book came back PLOD 1.0 Slight (A). He was a little surprised and said he was going to make the changes on the site, so to give full disclosure to bidders.

I'm sure he's frantically working on it right now.

[Silver Surfer]

This was my former copy a year ago. I emailed SA Comics over the weekend. Greg wrote back and we talked live on the phone. I told him that this was not an OO copy as I owned it a year ago. I also told him the book came back PLOD 1.0 Slight (A). He was a little surprised and said he was going to make the changes on the site, so to give full disclosure to bidders. Apparently, Greg does not "work" for Gus. Rather he pulls in collections, uses SA Comic's eBay handle, and handles all questions on the books. All shipping is handled by Gus, and Greg gets a piece of the profits. I asked Greg why not sell them directly under his name, and I guess he doesn't want to handle all the shipping of books (he has a full time job)...here are scans of my former Bat 1.

 

Ben at what point does Greg care (or does he) about being grouped in with the rest of the scammers like Bluechip and Gus? Its seems like these guys are hiding behind each other, passing responsibility to the next guy, fronting ownership, sales, bids, etc its a bit of joke.

[samurai007]

I emailed SA Comics over the weekend. Greg wrote back and we talked live on the phone. I told him that this was not an OO copy as I owned it a year ago. I also told him the book came back PLOD 1.0 Slight (A). He was a little surprised and said he was going to make the changes on the site, so to give full disclosure to bidders.

I'm sure he's frantically working on it right now.

 

No changes yet...

 

Will update every 15 minutes.

 

 

[Point Five]

Auction cancelled, finally. Let's see what the relist looks like....

[Primetime]

This was my former copy a year ago. I emailed SA Comics over the weekend. Greg wrote back and we talked live on the phone. I told him that this was not an OO copy as I owned it a year ago. I also told him the book came back PLOD 1.0 Slight (A). He was a little surprised and said he was going to make the changes on the site, so to give full disclosure to bidders. Apparently, Greg does not "work" for Gus. Rather he pulls in collections, uses SA Comic's eBay handle, and handles all questions on the books. All shipping is handled by Gus, and Greg gets a piece of the profits. I asked Greg why not sell them directly under his name, and I guess he doesn't want to handle all the shipping of books (he has a full time job)...here are scans of my former Bat 1.

 

Ben at what point does Greg care (or does he) about being grouped in with the rest of the scammers like Bluechip and Gus? Its seems like these guys are hiding behind each other, passing responsibility to the next guy, fronting ownership, sales, bids, etc its a bit of joke.

 

You got me on that one Peter.

[silveragegus-migration]

It appears that Im in in the very strange position of having to defend myself to the comic book community after 17 years of dealing fairly and having a fairly impeccable ebay record of over 4,000 thousand positive feedbacks and negative feedbacks that can be counted on one hand over a 10 year selling track record.This is gus at silverage comics and I have to confess up till now I didnt pay attention to or perused any of the chat boards.I will try to take each allegation that I have read and respond to it.I have been on a buying/consignment spree of late.As with any new venture problems arise,and theres a learning curve involved.To answer the people who say I havent mailed packages promptly,or been there to answer peoples questions concerning on what they want to bid on.In many instances I dont have the book in my possession to give more revealing details to potential buyers,sometimes the owner of the books arent happy about the final selling price and after having to wait a few weeks Im told that they arent going to release the books at auction's end.In every case I deal with people fairly and with respect and do my best to try to make them happy if they are only getting 3 of the 4 books they've won.Concerning the improper grading of books,with the Germany collection the restoration was noted on almost every book,many times the anamolies in grading come from the fact that the owner has optimistically overgraded his book and I try to bring him down to earth by talking about the books defects on the phone and by utilizing his scans that are sent to me.Again if anyone had a severe discrepancy money is refunded or there is a bit of a financial ammendment.To discuss the shiiling aspects,I DONT endorse or encourage this activity,unfortunately I didnt think to police the people who wanted to sell their books thru me.I have immediately pulled some auctions that were suspicious and now I ask consignors what their ebay handle is so can be more on top of activity that is unethical.We have been selling some nice stuff of late and have many more satisfied customers than malcontants.I want everyone to be happy and to bid with confidence when visiting my site.I havent been as available as I would have liked the last 6 weeks because I closed my nyc location because my lease was up and the landlord doubled my rent.Ive been a solid citizen for years,a nice guy easy to deal with.The final point Id like to make is Greg Jortner ISNT my partner nor a part of SilverAge comics.I have to admit that I bought into Greg's vision of making my site a premiere site where everything is truly a 99 cent let her rip affair with no book big,small,rare or common held back.Greg's role is he finds books that I sometimes purchase outright or sets up consignments where unfortunately some collectors think they should get Declaration of Independance type prices which is why I took the consignments because they have irrational opinions of what their books are actually worth.This hasnt worked out to my expectations,fees have been astronomical,I have a larger percentage of books that are unaccounted for after auctions end and I would be more inclined to attribute that to some peoples eyes are bigger than their wallets when they saw the selection offered on my site the last 6 months rather than the widespread shiiling thats being bandied about.I hope Ive satisfied and answered at least a portion of the speculation thats out there,in the future Im going to try to have some of the consignment books in house hoping that alleviates some of the noise as well as continuing to put quality stuff that I purchase....hey like most out there Im a comic fan at heart respectfully Gus Poulakas

[nearmint]

Gus, apart from the shilling, the big problem people are having with your auctions are the incomplete item descriptions, and the downplaying of restoration to a degree that it appears you're trying to convince potential bidders that the book or books are not restored at all.

 

Bob's Action #1 listing was an absolute disaster in so many ways. I just don't get how a long-standing member of our hobby could have allowed that to be listed under his(meaning yours) eBay handle.

[Transplant]

[Crowzilla]

It was really hard to try and read that without any paragraph breaks.

Did he address Esquire's accusations that he isn't paying money to people he owes?

[Cheerio Mate-migration]

It was really hard to try and read that without any paragraph breaks.

Did he address Esquire's accusations that he isn't paying money to people he owes?

 

I dont think so

[sacentaur]

Concerning the improper grading of books,with the Germany collection the restoration was noted on almost every book,many times the anamolies in grading come from the fact that the owner has optimistically overgraded his book and I try to bring him down to earth by talking about the books defects on the phone and by utilizing his scans that are sent to me.

 

Gus, thanks for taking the time to post considering your hectic schedule.

 

One Q: is the "Germany collection" that of the international man of mystery, Wilhelm Uthe?

[buttock]

1) sells books he doesn't have - i.e. hasn't seen them and therefore can't give an accurate description

1a. then can't deliver when a book doesn't meet the sellers' undisclosed reserve

2) "doesn't consider the possibility of shilling"

3) overgrades

4) undisclosed resto

5) overestimates PQ

6) misrepresents books as being OO when they're not

7) Wilhelm Uthe - need I say more

 

but most unacceptable....

 

8) bad grammar/paragraph structure.

 

Sorry, dude. You've got a LOT more explaining to do. That watered down excuse won't cut it.

[comicdonna]

1) sells books he doesn't have - i.e. hasn't seen them and therefore can't give an accurate description

1a. then can't deliver when a book doesn't meet the sellers' undisclosed reserve

2) "doesn't consider the possibility of shilling"

3) overgrades

4) undisclosed resto

5) overestimates PQ

6) misrepresents books as being OO when they're not

7) Wilhelm Uthe - need I say more

 

but most unacceptable....

 

8) bad grammar/paragraph structure.

 

Sorry, dude. You've got a LOT more explaining to do. That watered down excuse won't cut it.

[ArAich]

Yikes...I bought 2 books from SilverAge about a month ago and after the "explanation" I don't think that I'll be a return customer...

Yeesh...shouldn't the book be in hand before selling it???...

[jkrk]

Yikes...I bought 2 books from SilverAge about a month ago and after the "explanation" I don't think that I'll be a return customer...

Yeesh...shouldn't the book be in hand before selling it???...

 

I'm offering books on Cl's site and comic Connect's site. I even know which closet in my apt houses the books. (thumbs u

 

Jay

[Point Five]

Hi Gus, and welcome to the boards. I also live in Queens, and have bought from you many times at NYC cons. I was also bidding on your golden age ebay offerings until numerous problems started to occur.

 

A number of recent issues --

 

The Action #1 auction...as nearmint said, it was a disaster, and reflected very poorly on your company. The item description was incomplete and did not fully list the extent of flaws and restoration; later "clarifications" were similarly lacking, and seemed intended to disguise the problems. We also found unmistakable evidence that the seller of the Actions was shill bidding on nearly all of his books (I understand this was not entirely under your control, but nevertheless it definitely undermined the integrity of these extremely high-profile auctions). In fact, some of the Actions that finished just today had bids from their own seller.

 

The Batman #1 auction...very puzzling to say the least. The book was represented as part of the original owner collection from Oregon that you have been selling, when there exists a very long trail of previous owners of the book, the most recent of which is your seller in New York who had previously tried to sell the book on ebay. The Silver Age auction description was quite specific that the book was part of the OO collection...it was either deceptive, or an extremely odd oversight. The book was previously graded by CGC as a restored 1.0, but was cracked and being resold by Silver Age as an unrestored 2.0/2.5 (!). In addition, the seller of this book was very blatantly shilling the auction, raising the price by several thousand before the auction was pulled earlier today.

 

More generally, the grading on many of the golden age books you've been offering (and there have been some nice ones) seems inconsistent, and it's hard to feel confident about the completeness of the descriptions given both the above examples and other recent buying anecdotes on these forums (likely others here will chime in).

 

I wish you well, and respectfully hope you guys can clean up your act.

 

Best,

Jon

[minty_fresh-migration]

To discuss the shiiling aspects,I DONT endorse or encourage this activity,unfortunately I didnt think to police the people who wanted to sell their books thru me.

 

Really. It never occured to you that the consignor might bid up his own auction? And you've been in the comic biz how long? 17 years? And on Ebay for 10 years?

 

I have immediately pulled some auctions that were suspicious and now I ask consignors what their ebay handle is so can be more on top of activity that is unethical.

 

This kinda sounds like Bluechips "almost certainly" so I will ask straight out: Does "more on top of activity that is unethical" mean you will put them on your blocked bidder's list? And you won't just "try to remember their ID" if the auction is for pre-approved biders only?

 

And on that note, how could you let a bidder with only 6 FB and 8 bid retractions get on the pre-approved bidder's list for the Action # 1? Isn't the pre-approved-type listing meant to weed out people like this? You actually trusted a 6 FB/8 retraction person to honor a $95,000 bid?

[Point Five]

That's an awfully good point about the pre-approval bidding requirement on the Action #1. And I guess it must mean that Bluechip was "vetted" to bid on his own book?

 

So many questions....

[Transplant]

That's an awfully good point about the pre-approval bidding requirement on the Action #1. And I guess it must mean that Bluechip was "vetted" to bid on his own book?

Oops. Logic holes appearing off the starboard bow captain.

[fishbone]

1) sells books he doesn't have - i.e. hasn't seen them and therefore can't give an accurate description

1a. then can't deliver when a book doesn't meet the sellers' undisclosed reserve

2) "doesn't consider the possibility of shilling"

3) overgrades

4) undisclosed resto

5) overestimates PQ

6) misrepresents books as being OO when they're not

7) Wilhelm Uthe - need I say more

 

but most unacceptable....

 

8) bad grammar/paragraph structure.

 

Sorry, dude. You've got a LOT more explaining to do. That watered down excuse won't cut it.

 

. (thumbs u