posted on October 2, 2001 09:13:28 AM
Hi all, I was wondering what you moral dilemnists could come up with here. Apologies for the length!
There is an auction for a rare and elderly guitar. The auction looks as though it were written by a child, and there are no pics. He also made up a very unbelievable story about how he came by the guitar. The seller is 0 FB, 4 pos, 4 neg, 1 neutral. Looking over the seller's fb and past sales, it looks like he uses bin and doesn't pay, or lists and doesn't sell. He has sold a guitar in the past, an extremely low end Rogue. (About 120.00) This rare elderly guitar would go for in excess of 5K if it were true. The seller's ID looks juvenile as well, refering to a year that would make him a young teenager.
I emailed him and asked a few particulars, including Serial No, he emailed back immediately a serial no indicating a brand new reissue made in mexico (worth about 200 tops).
I happen to be familiar with the town he says he is from, full of upper scale rich and near rich. I think we've got a bored kid on our hands trying to scam a fast buck. He does say he will take money orders or cash only.
My query? Well, should I report him? Is there anything to report? If someone ponys up big bucks based on his listing, they may deserve to be scammed. But this is so blatant that it shouldn't be allowed to continue.... or should it?
What would you do? (emailing bidders is NOT an option, I don't want to jeopordize my ebay account! )
posted on October 2, 2001 09:39:51 AM
I would do one of two things;
#1. Contact the true guitar maker and let them handle it.
I am certain they would want to become a VERO member and get involved.
(You might be able to check and see if they are already part of Vero) I think Ebay has a list.
#2. Try emailng [email protected].
posted on October 2, 2001 09:46:25 AM
Don't get involved it could be considered auction interferance. He will be kicked off soon enough with the way he doing things. IMO
posted on October 2, 2001 09:46:40 AM
Reporting him probably wouldn't do you much good. If you explain what the serial number means to Safeharbor, more than likely they will just tell you that they don't have the expertise to make that judgment call and let the auction proceed.
I suspect that his poor feedback, lack of pictures, impossible to trace/cancel payment terms, and other clues that you pointed out should be enough to deter most bidders. That's probably why he only got $120 for the $5,000 guitar, though that's $120 too much to rip off from anybody.
What's unfortunate is that this person's account is still active at all. Assuming that those four people who negged him also reported him to ebay, by all rights his account should have been suspended already. If three of the four were sellers and filed their NPB/FVF forms the account would already be history.
