It's been a while since I've been scammed on ebay..... 1 1

[lizards2]

On 11/13/2022 at 11:09 AM, Ryan. said:

On 11/13/2022 at 10:14 AM, Beyonder123 said:

This is why I blur out my labels when putting them online.

@lizards2

So bidders can't see the grader's notes, or so they won't know the books are stolen scams?

Edited November 13, 2022 by lizards2

[Yorick]

On 11/13/2022 at 7:19 AM, gadzukes said:

With the exception of the terrible labels, you can barely see the edges of the cases where it looks choppy (like broken safety glass).  That's what a cracked case looks like when put back together.

[lizards2]

On 11/13/2022 at 11:24 AM, Yorick said:

With the exception of the terrible labels, you can barely see the edges of the cases where it looks choppy (like broken safety glass).  That's what a cracked case looks like when put back together.

That's mostly the new version slabs, but even some of them separate cleanly. The older versions usually split clean 80-90 % of the time.

[rjpb]

On 11/13/2022 at 8:13 AM, gadzukes said:

Yes, but I suppose someone without a lot of experience could be fooled by the labels, but to match such "low grade" comics with "high grade" labels.... that isn't going to fool anyone.

It seems like a lot of effort for a half assed scam. 

[Cliff R.]

On 11/13/2022 at 11:44 AM, The Lions Den said:

I'm not normally inclined to publicly embarrass anyone, but I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd reveal this seller's eBay username. This is clearly fraudulent behavior, and this seller/scammer should be held accountable...   

Found this great deal on Ebay,  but someone beat me to it.  

https://www.ebay.com/itm/3-very-old-and-encapsulated-graded-comic-books-package-deal-/195359429658?hash=item2d7c54541a:g:P2sAAOSw7R9jKC7L&amdata=enc:AQAHAAAAoI8UK2xm6HQ8XKnZbPO48bf29UpTkma/jWOu7XhEXeeeLMlpKAd26Fq9gcXX/pBGf22cTNZETIrYokIDaFBDmNqN2DPVar0cWQvc8fePCHCloZjWpQAolez76ZIvgzP+bFNKe1ptYEMLkYXrrILAzTqiodRIywbNr4ibQraX27uu4Aqswyglvyhzm5fbzQ9mUt1kJrZlw1N3yofIIgkgvzI=|tkp:Bk9SR7KyyqmOYQ&pageci=6f83caf2-00b6-4552-be3b-464230dc93ca&redirect=mobile

Edited November 13, 2022 by Cliff R.
Link

[MR SigS]

On 11/13/2022 at 10:14 AM, Beyonder123 said:

This is why I blur out my labels when putting them online.

On sale items?

I obscure my cert# so no one uses my images in their scam (which someone has done twice with my AF15, before I started doing this). Since I don't sell comics (yet) it doesn't matter to me that no one can check the cert#. If I ever do sell them, naturally the label will be shown because I can't imagine anyone buying a slab with the # they can't check.

[MAR1979]

On 11/13/2022 at 12:34 PM, The Lions Den said:

Thank you.

With a feedback rating like that, I'm surprised he's still allowed on eBay...

Fact: If a seller scams a buyer and the buyer does not realize they have been had, a corporation like eBay makes their bank.

Opinion: Why should a firm bother to truly eliminate scams when at least some of the time they fiscally benefit from them?

Bottom line: Corporations such as eBay care only about their Bottom Line. See the Fact listed above.

Edited November 14, 2022 by MAR1979

[The Lions Den]

On 11/13/2022 at 3:35 PM, MAR1979 said:

Fact: If a seller scams a buyer and the buyer does not realize a corporation like eBay makes their bank.

Opinion: Why should a firm bother to truly eliminate scams when at least some of the time they fiscally benefit from them?

Bottom line: Corporations such as eBay care only about their Bottom Line. See the Fact listed above.

Those are certainly valid opinions which I'm inclined to agree with. 

But doesn't anybody play by the rules anymore?  

[MattrixAlien]

On 11/14/2022 at 4:01 AM, thehumantorch said:

Ugh, sorry this happened to you.  This guy spent a lot of time and effort rebuilding these cgc cases and running this scam.  Shame on him.

When buyers successfully lodge a case with eBay, does eBay take the money back from this seller? If so, that's a lot of time and effort he's wasting getting low grade books, cracking cases, preparing & printing fake labels etc... for no financial reward, if the buyer bothers to look at their books. Is he banking on people not looking at their purchases? Or is it malicious like he enjoys messing with collectors?

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/13/2022 at 7:06 PM, MattrixAlien said:

Or is it malicious like he enjoys messing with collectors?

[kav]

On 11/13/2022 at 7:28 AM, gadzukes said:

He packed the box with other comics (to distract me? and make me think I was getting a great deal?)

The box weighed 15 lbs.  It was 15 lbs of spoon.

I started a case right away.  And I called ebay cuz I wanted to talk to a human there, to make sure I was doing everything right and to tell them about the fraud so they could shut this guy down.

can you post the number to ebay?

[Beyonder123]

On 11/13/2022 at 12:35 PM, MR SigS said:

On sale items?

I obscure my cert# so no one uses my images in their scam (which someone has done twice with my AF15, before I started doing this). Since I don't sell comics (yet) it doesn't matter to me that no one can check the cert#. If I ever do sell them, naturally the label will be shown because I can't imagine anyone buying a slab with the # they can't check.

When I do sell slabs, which isn't often. I allow the cert to be seen. That's the exception.

[Beyonder123]

On 11/13/2022 at 11:21 AM, lizards2 said:

So bidders can't see the grader's notes, or so they won't know the books are stolen scams?

I'm not talking about ebay. I mean chat boards, groups, forums, etc. So my books can't be used to scam others.

[gadzukes]

On 11/13/2022 at 8:02 PM, kav said:

can you post the number to ebay?

Haha, yeah it's tough to figure out how to speak to a human, but how I figured it out was this way.....

1) Click "help"

2) scroll to the bottom and click "contact us"

3) at some point an A.I. chat option comes up which you can click on.

4) I type in "I want to call ebay"

5) it gives the option to have ebay call you.  TAKE THAT OPTION.  For me it's usually been 5 to 10 minutes.

 

[gadzukes]

On 11/13/2022 at 2:24 PM, Yorick said:

With the exception of the terrible labels, you can barely see the edges of the cases where it looks choppy (like broken safety glass).  That's what a cracked case looks like when put back together.

On these 3 it was the bottoms that really looked bad.  

[wardevil0]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/195399473285?nma=true&si=WauopYWR4HbaAUr2cOT%2B2GxDb68%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

https://www.ebay.com/itm/195406898907?nma=true&si=WauopYWR4HbaAUr2cOT%2B2GxDb68%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

This fraudster even had the audacity to sell the same fake slab twice!  He says in his listing that the first bidder reneged on his bid, but the first bidder left positive feedback about all the extra slabs the seller included in the shipment!  That's not normal.

[Sigur Ros]

On 11/13/2022 at 2:38 PM, lizards2 said:

That's mostly the new version slabs, but even some of them separate cleanly. The older versions usually split clean 80-90 % of the time.

Some even come separated right out of the box.  Seen it many times on the forum and YT.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Sigur Ros

[Sigur Ros]

Gotta give him props for the effort.

Labels are noticeably off, but the grading is just as accurate. 👍

[SeniorSurfer]

Sorry that you had to go through with this farago but thanks for posting.  I would have noticed the book/grade discrepancy, the fake labels and the broken chips on the slab bottoms, but I think I might have gotten careless when noting if a return label was from eBay or not.  I also would have had no clue how to actually contact a live eBay rep.

A question (which will make me seem a little dense but I'll go with it anyway):  We're assuming McScammer doesn't have the books pictured in the original ad?  That he somehow broke open some other book slabs and inserted his drek, right?  Because if he really had the books pictured, broke open those slabs, kept the books for himself, then substituted his trash... why go through the bother of printing labels, rather why not just use the original ones instead?  It would have been one more unique flair to sell the scam (though everything else wouldn't seem right) and to the untrained eBay reps it might have made things harder to explain. 

[gadzukes]

On 11/14/2022 at 9:19 AM, SeniorSurfer said:

Sorry that you had to go through with this farago but thanks for posting.  I would have noticed the book/grade discrepancy, the fake labels and the broken chips on the slab bottoms, but I think I might have gotten careless when noting if a return label was from eBay or not.  I also would have had no clue how to actually contact a live eBay rep.

A question (which will make me seem a little dense but I'll go with it anyway):  We're assuming McScammer doesn't have the books pictured in the original ad?  That he somehow broke open some other book slabs and inserted his drek, right?  Because if he really had the books pictured, broke open those slabs, kept the books for himself, then substituted his trash... why go through the bother of printing labels, rather why not just use the original ones instead?  It would have been one more unique flair to sell the scam (though everything else wouldn't seem right) and to the untrained eBay reps it might have made things harder to explain. 

It really doesn't matter if McScammer had the original comics (1st photo) or not.

He created fake labels, which takes a little effort.  On of a 1-10 scale I will rate his fake labels as a 5.  The fake labels were good enough to fool some collectors.  It doesn't help that CGC has changed their labels a few times thru the years so a collector with little experience might think the labels were an older version.

BUT.... ALL the labels were for high grade comics!  To pull off this scam you at least have to put mid-grade comics into the slabs.  He put a 1.0 comic into one of the slabs.  Even the newest, most naive collector would spot that such a low grade piece of trash comic wasn't a 9.2.  So McScammer fails on this aspect of the scam.

I don't fully understand McScammer's postage label part of this scam.   He gave me a wrong label, which the PO ended up taking, BUT the delivery conf showed it was delivered right away.  Ebay bases their refunds on knowing the delivery was made so I don't get this aspect of the scam.