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Pillar of the Community
United States
9792 Posts |
Quote:
FlipOfACoin: Some even have 'Federal Reserve Bank of '?' stamped on them.(*By the way - That is falsifying Government Documents and therefore a Federal Crime to sell, use or even possess. Yes, when something is stamped "Federal Reserve Bank 'anywhere,'" it becomes a Government Document)
*This also applies to the envelopes and inserts for 'unopened' mint and proof sets. Don't see how that could be illegal or have anything to do with the governmental laws, when the Federal Reserve is not a government entity, but a private corporation albeit, with special privileges.  Did not see your last post, but I too wait for more info on this, I do know it is illegal to use USPS Priority mail boxes for anything other than that, used to be I got packages all the time where they were assembled inside out and used for media rate mail or first class rate. Now they print on the inside to stop that, guess they didn't have resources to sue or go after everyone doing it, I'd guess for a few years about 80% of all ebay packages I was getting were like that. "Buy the Book Before You Buy the Coin" - Aaron R. Feldman - "And read it" - Me 2013! ANA Life Member #3288 in good standing since 1981, ANS, Early American Coppers Member (EAC), Colonial Coin Collectors Club member (C4), Conder Token Collector Club member (CTCC), Civil War Token Society (CWTS) member, Liberty Seated Collectors Club (LSCC) & Numismatic Bibliomania Society member (NBS), USMex, Member in good standing, 2¢ variety collector. See my want page: http://goccf.com/t/140440Edited by westcoin
02/12/2012 06:14 am
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1291 Posts |
Here's something that cracks me up about these guys: If you go look at their feedback (look at feedback "As a Seller") you will inevitably find someone who just absolutely "gushes" happiness and wonderment over what he found in his roll. Some of them go into a lot of well thought out detail (after all, you only get 80 characters when you leave feedback) expressing the range of coins found in the roll. Here are a couple of examples: 4-IH's, 6-10's, 6-20's, 10-30's, 8-40's, 14-50's. 43D &45S merc dimes. A++++++ WOW!6 IH's 1862 cpr nkl,1898,1873,1914,1918d,1919d,1920d,1928d-22 coins b4 1930 I don't know about the rest of you folks, but if I found someone selling mixed up rolls of outstanding value I would NOT become their ad agency. I'd leave them a very low key positive and come right back for more before the rest of the world caught on. I sometimes wonder if there aren't some "shilling services" available out there. A quick look-through of these high profile feedbacks doesn't show a whole lot of repeat glowing feedbacks by the same buyer(s), but most of them do have a couple things in common: The buyer has a low number of feedbacks (400 or less) The mixed roll sold for right around $20 That second condition makes me think that a shill bid won the item and so they used it as an opportunity to leave that glowing, detailed feedback. Another odd thing is that you'll see someone win one of these junk rolls (for around $20) and leave glowing feedback, but when you go look at what THEY are selling you see Proof Sets and Mint Sets and other Unc and high end stuff and you go, "Whaaaaaatttt?" If I had the time to copy out all of the feedbacks for these guys and paste it into an Excel sheet, and then massage the data, I bet I could come up with a compelling case that there are a whole ring of ebay IDs out there that are selling their "services" to folks like the ones Scubu and FlipOfACoin have pointed out to us in this thread. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1796 Posts |
@weerdsteev - ebay has the tech in place to do such data searches; however, I'd wager that they only do so when there is a report. For example, the latest 100 Silver Dollars fake listing that had an expected delivery time of 30 days (to anywhere) already had feedback from someone, claiming they received their goods a few hours after they purchased them. Looking into that individual's account, there were a large number of "user is no longer a member" feedbacks to their own listings. 'Curious,' eh? :-) Bringing it to their attention, they confirmed immediately that it was a hijacked account and a ring of shills. Edited by SteveCaruso
02/12/2012 11:54 am
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
14454 Posts |
Quote:
I do know it is illegal to use USPS Priority mail boxes for anything other than that, used to be I got packages all the time where they were assembled inside out and used for media rate mail or first class rate. Now they print on the inside to stop that Heck I didn't know that was illegal. I have wrapped the small priority box with that brown wrapping paper for packages and sent them other ways before. I have never had any problems doing so but as I said I didn't know it was illegal, I was just using it as a box to ship something in and wrapped it like I would have done with any other box Quote:
If you go look at their feedback (look at feedback "As a Seller") you will inevitably find someone who just absolutely "gushes" happiness and wonderment over what he found in his roll. I think allot of that is either shill bidders or people that realize they messed up once they receive the items and do not want anyone to look at their feedback and see they bought these things and got taken, so they try to make it look like they are happy with what they received. I had a buddy that had a bunch of grab bags of coins that he got from some coin shop in NY when he visited family there about 10 years ago. He had allot of coins but all were just common stuff with a few proof coins here and there. He decided to sell them on ebay and described them as what they were, a grab bag of coins which had 30-50 coins in each bag. Some of the bags sold for crazy money (we thought) and he received a few feed backs saying they had found 3 legged Buffalos and other semi key coins and we know for a fact there wasn't anything like that in there as we had already searched through them all and described them as being searched and tried to make up bags that had different coin designs in each bag so no one would get allot of one series. Anyway I know this happens because I saw it first hand with him doing that |
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Valued Member
United States
112 Posts |
320837256523, 180797303239 compare the pic of the dime in these two. It is the same dime. Unfortunately, I found out after the fact and only upon reading this thread just now. (I actually have the dime in my possession sitting next to me as I type this message.) I do not consider myself a moron as some have suggested earlier in this thread about buyers. I was, however, uninformed and uneducated. Thank you for the enlightenment and education. I have used the link to report him to ebay along with the item number listing of the buy and sell pages. To me: rolls of unsearched wheat cents and saying you never know, it might be a 1916D is lying. It is unethical the way it is worded and the thoughts implied by the words used. Hopefully, ebay will do something stronger about it now that they have a buyer complaining to them through this forum link. I consider myself to have a lesson strongly learned. Interesting thing is that once I found out I could buy the bank boxes at face and do my own searching I had not bought any more rolls since. I figured, why pay higher cost plus shipping to search when I can drive close by locally, pay face and know for sure it isn't a hand created roll. I average about 30 - 35 wheat pennies per 3 boxes I search. My oldest one is a gouged 1918 but several in the 40's are in nice shape with the lines on the wheat still strong. My copper is running about 25 to 30 %. I rescued a 1976S proof penny, a handful of Canadians including a 1940 and some AU 60's & 70's pennies. Have also kept all 2009, 2010, 2011 pennies. It's cheaper, more fun and less risk. And I'm still on cloud nine with my 5 JFK DDR halves from my first box. Still waiting on payday for a chance to order more halves. So looking forward to it! Yes, a hard lesson learned about the ebay deal but thank you to scubu for setting up this thread to catch him out on it! Thank you to all who contributed to this thread!
Edited by 1StarLight
02/12/2012 2:15 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4416 Posts |
Thanks for sharing your info, 1StarLight. There are likely none among us seemingly knowledgeable numismatic gurus who have not acted out of ignorance at some time or another; and, with regard to coin purchases! Being ignorant of something certainly doesn't make one a moron. Morons are those who are incapable of learning from experience. Being trusting, taking someone at their word, makes us vulnerable; but, not a moron. While I think that this forum, this thread, is a great learning tool, charged words like "moron" detract from the lessons. Just my Two Cents ... |
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Valued Member
474 Posts |
Quote:
Westcoin: used to be I got packages all the time where they were assembled inside out and used for media rate mail or first class rate
I would have never thought of that... I guess people thought it was a free supply of shipping material? |
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Valued Member
United States
112 Posts |
Here's another claiming his rolls are unsearched: ebay user id: andyfla Here's one of his ads: Item #: 230743215617Here's one of the one's he's bought from: gldball2pu8 Item #: 400017828908Edited by 1StarLight
02/12/2012 7:45 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1291 Posts |
This guy (the one Scubu initially pointed out in his original post) is an absolute DYNAMO! He has had 1483 feedbacks posted to his account between 11/14/2011 and today. That number is only for the folks who have bothered to post feedback...I'm sure there are at least several hundred who didn't bother. From that 1483, he has sales of over $61,000! Here are his top 25 buyers just since 11/14/2011 - the last 60 days:  Quite an interesting cross section of folks, from people who have less than 9 feedbacks to those who have almost 7000. It looks like he's made a believer out of lots of people. I just don't get it. Are people really that easy to please? Edited by weerdsteev
02/12/2012 7:50 pm
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
Quote:If I had the time to copy out all of the feedbacks for these guys and paste it into an Excel sheet, and then massage the data, I bet I could come up with a compelling case that there are a whole ring of ebay IDs out there that are selling their "services" to folks like the ones Scubu and FlipOfACoin have pointed out to us in this thread. Not that complicated. More likely a group, each with dozens of shill accounts, who bid on each others' stuff. They also save up FB, and when someone leaves a neg, they can do a FB bomb and run his FB off the page. |
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Rest in Peace
United States
9104 Posts |
Quote:
I didn't know that was illegal. I have wrapped the small priority box with that brown wrapping paper for packages and sent them other ways before. It's illegal (ditto Fed-Up and Oops boxes) because by accepting the boxes, you agree to only use them for priority/express mail, whose rates include the cost of the box. Re-use of boxes you receive is a grey area, but sometimes they even try to enforce against that. If they find a priority box used for cheaper rate shipping, they can return it, or charge the recipient the difference. They also could prosecute someone getting bunches of them and using them for storage or UPS, for example. They have some handy sizes, and I wish they'd use their buying power to get generics and sell for a small mark-up. The retail boxes they sell are ridiculously priced. |
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Valued Member
474 Posts |
Quote:
weerdsteev: It looks like he's made a believer out of lots of people.
There is a fairly sizable gap between the top two 'customers' and the rest of the group.  Could those top two be shill account candidates  Check their negative feedback left for others... it could be an indicator. |
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Moderator
 United States
23522 Posts |
The first buyer weerdsteev posted has over 14000 Feedbacks of his own, almost all (over 99%) as a buyer, and 400 in the last 60 days. Every single one that I checked was a coin roll purchase. He's only credited with the <7000 Feedback number because of multiple purchases from the same sellers. Most interestingly, he's left almost 2000 Feedbacks more than he's received.
This is worth some datamining, in my opinion.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1291 Posts |
SuperDave: I'm a wizard with Excel & Access. PM me if there is any assistance I can render.
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Valued Member
United States
161 Posts |
thanks for the detective work scuba, anyone with half a brain should know this guy assembles his rolls, that in itself is harmless, but when he claims they are "unsearched" that in itself is fraud.
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Posted 02/12/2012 11:39 am
