It has to be tough for the seller as well. He/she was probably scammed on this as well. Now if this seller continues to sell these sets, I think FC should really complain because he has told them they are fake so they should not pretend its still real
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You bend over for pennies and dollars fly out of your back pocket. >>
an auction is an auction... i cannot get past that. no returns was burned into my head as a youth when my mom and dad used to take me to farm/estate auctions.
i sent a polite email to the seller who will not have to think about what they should do and I will leave it at that. If he says return, fine. If not, fine. I will resell as a properly labeled ebay auction.
<< <i>but i am also of the type that i think i should not require paypal or ebay to work something out between two adults.
i am a firm believer that in an auction you bid, you win, you keep. it is a form of learning that auctions are normally one way.
i emailed the seller and i posted the email above. lets see what he says. >>
I would initiate a Paypal dispute. You were sold an item that is significantly different than advertised. How he aquired it is not your problem. It is very likely he is going to be apologetic and claim innocence wether it is true or not. I personally wouldn't absorb the financial loss for his poor wholesale purchasing connection. I deal fairly with people and feel I'm very understanding, but there are limits. In all seriousness, I hope it works out well for you and you get to spend your refund on some bullion soon.
Witty sig line currently under construction. Thank you for your patience.
You bend over for pennies and dollars fly out of your back pocket. >>
an auction is an auction... i cannot get past that. no returns was burned into my head as a youth when my mom and dad used to take me to farm/estate auctions.
i sent a polite email to the seller who will not have to think about what they should do and I will leave it at that. If he says return, fine. If not, fine. I will resell as a properly labeled ebay auction. >>
If your father bid on a car at the auction that was stated to have a motor and runs fine and when he received it there was no motor how do you think he would have reacted? I understand the auction mentality but while mystery is acceptable, deception is never acceptable.
Witty sig line currently under construction. Thank you for your patience.
<< <i>mrbear, did the fake pandas look identical? What did you do? >>
There were some noticeable differences. I know (now) that the Chinese mint makes slight changes to the temple on the obverse of the coin every year or so, but there were much more obvious differences than that. Some years, the obverse has frosted parts and some years it doesn't. The fakes didn't always have frosted areas in the same years. More obviously, the "10 Yuan" mark on the reverse was missing from ALL of them. And that was VERY obvious. It's as if they just "smoothed out" the area where the denomination would normally appear. So it was just a big blank spot on each coin. No design/detail. They DID have the "1 ounce .999 silver" wording. And, as I said, the weight was off on the 2 or 3 that I'd weighed.
It was one of those "buy for $20, with $150 shipping" kind of deals. I contacted the seller, who, of course, claimed that they were real, and then offered to sell me MORE fake junk at a discount ($10 and $145 shipping? lol). I contacted Paypal, who eventually agreed that I had a claim. But they told me I had to return the goods to the seller. When I queried them about it, asking if I would get all my money back, or just the twenty bucks, I never got a response. Then a few weeks later, Paypal told me that they were closing the ticket because I hadn't contacted them, or something like that. And that was the end. I don't think I would have gotten satisfaction in any case. I'm sure that I would have just gotten back the $20, and shipping back to China would have been more than that.
I gave the set to my cousin, who buys junk coins (like gold plated state quarters) from QVC. I told him that they were fake, but they are an attractive set of coins, and the box was really nice (in hindsight, maybe I should have just chucked the coins and kept the box!). He really liked them, so I guess my story had a happy ending.
I bought a "2008 Olympic Silver Bar Mascot Set" from you on Sep-02-08. This set was claimed to be silver when in fact it contains no silver at all.
I know this because I took the set to my local coin dealer who did a silver test on the bars. There is no silver on the outside and the inside contains copper. This is clearly a counterfeit Chinese fake set marketed and sold as 99.9% silver.
I explained my concerns about this in previous emails but you decided to ignore my final email when I mentioned a return.
I am asking for 69.99 to be returned because this item was clearly sold as being something other then it truly is.
Matt, If you had done nothing he would have continued to sell these. As much as your morals were fighting with your flesh. This is the correct course to take..
If he knew, or not is no concern of yours. Let him deal with who ever he bought these from.
interesting how he is trying the catch22 approach.
You do not know they are NOT silver until you open one and examine it.
thus his response to paypal is : Seller: I will give a refund if the item is returned the same way I sent it to him
Now it has been escalated to a claim.
interesting approach and i am intrigued how paypal will go about it.
it is like saying here is a silver bar wrapped in plastic. once you open the plastic it can no longer be returned as is. without opening it you cannot test it for being silver.
<< <i>at what point do buyers want certain silver bars assayed? or do they at all? Do they just lowball you? >>
Seasoned buyers don't worry about assays.
If there is any question at all, you just move on.
The cheaper the price goes the faster you back away.
"Lenin is certainly right. There is no subtler or more severe means of overturning the existing basis of society(destroy capitalism) than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and it does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." John Marnard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 235ff
<< <i>Someone needs to tell all the bidders AND THE SELLER that these bars are not even silver!! >>
Carefull Mike, forum members do not like vigilantes on the boards.. I have had polls started and been lambasted for trying to protect newbie buyers.. I gave up when the majority voted I needed to MYOB....
only**me is the seller. i see no reason not to mention it. the person is very determined to get away with selling fake goods. it is like they have no remorse what so ever.
i will go with whatever paypal decides as the outcome. i noticed in my dispute they asked the seller for more additional information.
nothing back yet to me though.. on an answer of follow ups.
cinman I don't know why forum members here would get mad. If they were the bidders they would be glad to know that it was fake and not waste any money.......
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<< <i>cinman I don't know why forum members here would get mad. If they were the bidders they would be glad to know that it was fake and not waste any money....... >>
Mike, I use to think the same thing. If I can locate it I will show you the thread. There was a poll put up asking if I over stepped my boundries by bidding up a FAKE Saint Gaudens. The seller said one time buried in the description that the coin was a copy coin.
Yet they stated in the material section and the description that it was GOLD. I seen a fairly new bidder had bid 150.00 So I bid it up to 730 dollars so they wouldn't get stuck with it. There was a SHILL bidder that brought it to that amount. Not the original bidder.
I sent the seller a message about the reason I bid their auction up. I also pointed out what they need to do to re-list as a copy coin.
The seller didn't have a problem with what I had done. They actually asked for help in listing a few more coins.
Now don't take this next statement the wrong way. There were plenty of members who believe that the uninformed need help at times. But the majority (according to the poll that resulted in my action) believe that I should mind my own business.
I learned more than I care to know from a lot of people who's opinion I once respected. Just be careful trying to help newbies out.
My thought about the members who lambasted my decision was this... Seeing their face when they opened up a gift at Christmas or a birthday. And seeeing the faces of their loved ones who saved for months to buy dad his favorite coin. Only to see his smile turn to grief when he realizes his children had wasted their money on a FAKE listed as a real coin.
But to them it probably wouldn't matter.
So go about being a Ebay vigilante. Just don't tell it on the boards....
<< <i>cinman I don't know why forum members here would get mad. If they were the bidders they would be glad to know that it was fake and not waste any money....... >>
Mike, I use to think the same thing. If I can locate it I will show you the thread. There was a poll put up asking if I over stepped my boundries by bidding up a FAKE Saint Gaudens. The seller said one time buried in the description that the coin was a copy coin. >>
This is the thread. I voted in your favor as I don't like to see someone use slick wording to take advantage of someone who isn't "ebay savy" yet. Anyone who would actually accept gold bullion money for a copy is a dirtball, IMHO.
Not meant to sidetrack the thread. FC, please keep us posted as to what becomes of the Paypal potential chargeback. One thought you might share with Paypal if necessary. Regardless of wether the bars were opened or not, they were fraudulent and for Paypal to allow this merely because they were opened for testing is facilitating fraudulent behavior.
Witty sig line currently under construction. Thank you for your patience.
i have no problem of anything being discussed in this thread. i am not that anal :-P
as soon as paypal figures out what to do with this dispute i will report it.
i do know that the seller is trying the packaging trick. since i had to open the bars and do a test on them i can no longer return them as is.
one bar was gently rubbed on a corner on a sandstone for an acid test. while another bar had a razor cut put into the corner to reveal the copper inside.
a few of the bars had the plastic sealed plastic cut open to slide the bars out of course.
ask me, that should not matter. fake is fake. saying i opened them should not matter in the least. i was duped.
i figure since the seller only used the word "silver" in the description to describe the color of the bars.. that is why i lost. Funny how our emails between us state that the bars were indeed real silver... but that does not matter since paypal never asked me for evidence. only the auction seems to matter.
so in other words, the seller probably knew exactly what they were doing in dumping these sets.
live and learn. i will toss it on ebay one day with an accurate description to recover some money.
Only in private emails did they say they were .999 fine. Imagine they also said they were 1 oz each while the cert said 40 grams each which is much more then 1 oz.
The ebay auction never stated .999 fine silver. only the word "silver" was used once in the title.
as for the credit card... i forgot i had some funds in my paypal account when paying and my CC was only used for a fraction of the total. Not even enough to try. sigh.
i will make a parody ebay auction with them and lambast ebay shortly. basically rip paypal, the seller, and ebay a new hole.
You are taking it very well. The original thread was a fascinating read.
It makes me angry, not even being a party to it.
You could drill holes in them and turn it into a mobile or wind sculpture.
It would be interesting to get an acid that will attack copper but not nickel. According to my ignorant reading of a metallurgy book, pure phosphoric acid (no impurities) will slowly attack the copper but not the nickel. Then you poke a small hole in the nickel plate. Submerge in acid. Wait until you are left with an empty shell of nickel plate. Interesting, but not recommended.
I was in Beijing China at the Flagship sotre. I wanted to buy a set but in the end, I couldn't see paying $50/oz for silver.
I went to many of the markets there and I never encountered any olympic products outside of the official stores. That doesn't mean there weren't any - I just didn't see them aside from some Olympic logo t-shirts.
If China says they are cracking down - they are lying. Counterfeit goods are sold out in the open, and if they wanted to crack down they could really easily. Just like we could crack down on illegal immigrants pretty quickly if we really wanted to... they're the ones standing on the street corners looking for work! When I see no more immigrants on the street corners, I will know the government is finally cracking down like they should.
<< <i>Only in private emails did they say they were .999 fine. Imagine they also said they were 1 oz each while the cert said 40 grams each which is much more then 1 oz.
The ebay auction never stated .999 fine silver. only the word "silver" was used once in the title.
as for the credit card... i forgot i had some funds in my paypal account when paying and my CC was only used for a fraction of the total. Not even enough to try. sigh.
i will make a parody ebay auction with them and lambast ebay shortly. basically rip paypal, the seller, and ebay a new hole. >>
Make sure you add a link... I would love to follow that auction.... I guess the best way to deal with a dishonest seller is to use the "did not recieve the package". I guess you would have to know how paypal will decide before you contact them first though..
It's sad really. They say crime doesn't pay, yet in today's society and the technicalities of the law and ebay/Paypal, crime seems to be rather profitable for those low enough to feed off of it.
Witty sig line currently under construction. Thank you for your patience.
Comments
You bend over for pennies and dollars fly out of your back pocket.
Many members on this forum that now it cannot fit in my signature. Please ask for entire list.
<< <i>fc, you are too cheap.
You bend over for pennies and dollars fly out of your back pocket. >>
an auction is an auction... i cannot get past that. no returns was
burned into my head as a youth when my mom and dad used to
take me to farm/estate auctions.
i sent a polite email to the seller who will not have to think about
what they should do and I will leave it at that. If he says return,
fine. If not, fine. I will resell as a properly labeled ebay auction.
<< <i>but i am also of the type that i think i should not require paypal or
ebay to work something out between two adults.
i am a firm believer that in an auction you bid, you win, you keep.
it is a form of learning that auctions are normally one way.
i emailed the seller and i posted the email above. lets see what he
says. >>
I would initiate a Paypal dispute. You were sold an item that is significantly different than advertised. How he aquired it is not your problem. It is very likely he is going to be apologetic and claim innocence wether it is true or not. I personally wouldn't absorb the financial loss for his poor wholesale purchasing connection. I deal fairly with people and feel I'm very understanding, but there are limits. In all seriousness, I hope it works out well for you and you get to spend your refund on some bullion soon.
<< <i>
<< <i>fc, you are too cheap.
You bend over for pennies and dollars fly out of your back pocket. >>
an auction is an auction... i cannot get past that. no returns was
burned into my head as a youth when my mom and dad used to
take me to farm/estate auctions.
i sent a polite email to the seller who will not have to think about
what they should do and I will leave it at that. If he says return,
fine. If not, fine. I will resell as a properly labeled ebay auction. >>
If your father bid on a car at the auction that was stated to have a motor and runs fine and when he received it there was no motor how do you think he would have reacted? I understand the auction mentality but while mystery is acceptable, deception is never acceptable.
<< <i>mrbear, did the fake pandas look identical?
What did you do? >>
There were some noticeable differences. I know (now) that the Chinese mint makes slight changes to the temple on the obverse of the coin every year or so, but there were much more obvious differences than that. Some years, the obverse has frosted parts and some years it doesn't. The fakes didn't always have frosted areas in the same years. More obviously, the "10 Yuan" mark on the reverse was missing from ALL of them. And that was VERY obvious. It's as if they just "smoothed out" the area where the denomination would normally appear. So it was just a big blank spot on each coin. No design/detail. They DID have the "1 ounce .999 silver" wording. And, as I said, the weight was off on the 2 or 3 that I'd weighed.
It was one of those "buy for $20, with $150 shipping" kind of deals. I contacted the seller, who, of course, claimed that they were real, and then offered to sell me MORE fake junk at a discount ($10 and $145 shipping? lol). I contacted Paypal, who eventually agreed that I had a claim. But they told me I had to return the goods to the seller. When I queried them about it, asking if I would get all my money back, or just the twenty bucks, I never got a response. Then a few weeks later, Paypal told me that they were closing the ticket because I hadn't contacted them, or something like that. And that was the end. I don't think I would have gotten satisfaction in any case. I'm sure that I would have just gotten back the $20, and shipping back to China would have been more than that.
I gave the set to my cousin, who buys junk coins (like gold plated state quarters) from QVC. I told him that they were fake, but they are an attractive set of coins, and the box was really nice (in hindsight, maybe I should have just chucked the coins and kept the box!). He really liked them, so I guess my story had a happy ending.
Dear Sir,
I bought a "2008 Olympic Silver Bar Mascot Set" from you on Sep-02-08.
This set was claimed to be silver when in fact it contains no silver at all.
I know this because I took the set to my local coin dealer who did a silver
test on the bars. There is no silver on the outside and the inside contains
copper. This is clearly a counterfeit Chinese fake set marketed and sold
as 99.9% silver.
I explained my concerns about this in previous emails but you decided to
ignore my final email when I mentioned a return.
I am asking for 69.99 to be returned because this item was clearly sold
as being something other then it truly is.
Matt XXXXX
matt@XXXXX.net
fighting with your flesh. This is the correct course to take..
If he knew, or not is no concern of yours. Let him deal with who ever he bought these from.
You did the right thing in this situation.....
You do not know they are NOT silver until you open one and examine it.
thus his response to paypal is : Seller: I will give a refund if the item is returned the same way I sent it to him
Now it has been escalated to a claim.
interesting approach and i am intrigued how paypal will go about it.
it is like saying here is a silver bar wrapped in plastic. once you open the plastic
it can no longer be returned as is. without opening it you cannot test it for being
silver.
catch22
<< <i>at what point do buyers want certain silver bars assayed? or do they at all? Do they just lowball you? >>
Seasoned buyers don't worry about assays.
If there is any question at all, you just move on.
The cheaper the price goes the faster you back away.
John Marnard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace, 1920, page 235ff
<< <i>at what point do buyers want certain silver bars assayed? or do they at all? Do they just lowball you? >>
I read somewhere when you sell 1,000oz bars they are usually assayed. Unless it is a private sale, then it would be up to the purchasing party.
Ebay link
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<< <i>Someone needs to tell all the bidders AND THE SELLER that these bars are not even silver!! >>
Carefull Mike, forum members do not like vigilantes on the boards.. I have had polls started and
been lambasted for trying to protect newbie buyers.. I gave up when the majority voted I needed to
MYOB....
the person is very determined to get away with selling fake goods.
it is like they have no remorse what so ever.
i will go with whatever paypal decides as the outcome. i noticed
in my dispute they asked the seller for more additional information.
nothing back yet to me though.. on an answer of follow ups.
<< <i>Hey FC is this the auction you show? What was the sellers eBay ID?
Ebay link >>
i emailed that person selling those bars before the auction closed if
they realized it was fake.
of course no answer back. people are determined to sell these as silver
and do not care if they rip someone.
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<< <i>cinman I don't know why forum members here would get mad. If they were the bidders they would be glad to know that it was fake and not waste any money....... >>
Mike, I use to think the same thing. If I can locate it I will show you the thread. There was a poll put up asking
if I over stepped my boundries by bidding up a FAKE Saint Gaudens. The seller said one time buried in the description
that the coin was a copy coin.
Yet they stated in the material section and the description that it was GOLD. I seen a fairly new bidder had bid 150.00
So I bid it up to 730 dollars so they wouldn't get stuck with it. There was a SHILL bidder that brought it to that amount.
Not the original bidder.
I sent the seller a message about the reason I bid their auction up. I also pointed out what they need to do to re-list
as a copy coin.
The seller didn't have a problem with what I had done. They actually asked for help in listing a few more coins.
Now don't take this next statement the wrong way. There were plenty of members who believe that the uninformed
need help at times. But the majority (according to the poll that resulted in my action) believe that I should mind my own
business.
I learned more than I care to know from a lot of people who's opinion I once respected. Just be careful trying to help
newbies out.
My thought about the members who lambasted my decision was this... Seeing their face when they opened up a gift
at Christmas or a birthday. And seeeing the faces of their loved ones who saved for months to buy dad his favorite coin.
Only to see his smile turn to grief when he realizes his children had wasted their money on a FAKE listed as a real coin.
But to them it probably wouldn't matter.
So go about being a Ebay vigilante. Just don't tell it on the boards....
Many members on this forum that now it cannot fit in my signature. Please ask for entire list.
<< <i>
<< <i>cinman I don't know why forum members here would get mad. If they were the bidders they would be glad to know that it was fake and not waste any money....... >>
Mike, I use to think the same thing. If I can locate it I will show you the thread. There was a poll put up asking
if I over stepped my boundries by bidding up a FAKE Saint Gaudens. The seller said one time buried in the description
that the coin was a copy coin. >>
This is the thread. I voted in your favor as I don't like to see someone use slick wording to take advantage of someone who isn't "ebay savy" yet. Anyone who would actually accept gold bullion money for a copy is a dirtball, IMHO.
Not meant to sidetrack the thread. FC, please keep us posted as to what becomes of the Paypal potential chargeback. One thought you might share with Paypal if necessary. Regardless of wether the bars were opened or not, they were fraudulent and for Paypal to allow this merely because they were opened for testing is facilitating fraudulent behavior.
i am not that anal :-P
as soon as paypal figures out what to do with this dispute i will
report it.
i do know that the seller is trying the packaging trick. since i had
to open the bars and do a test on them i can no longer return them
as is.
one bar was gently rubbed on a corner on a sandstone for an acid
test. while another bar had a razor cut put into the corner to reveal
the copper inside.
a few of the bars had the plastic sealed plastic cut open to slide the
bars out of course.
ask me, that should not matter. fake is fake. saying i opened them
should not matter in the least. i was duped.
i figure since the seller only used the word "silver" in the description to
describe the color of the bars.. that is why i lost. Funny how our emails
between us state that the bars were indeed real silver... but that does
not matter since paypal never asked me for evidence. only the auction
seems to matter.
so in other words, the seller probably knew exactly what they were doing
in dumping these sets.
live and learn. i will toss it on ebay one day with an accurate description
to recover some money.
i was power screwed ;-)
i feel paypal did an ok job in this case.
You test the items and find them to contain no silver whatsoever.
PayPal, the idiots they are, sides against you?!?
Why are you accepting this? The next step is to contact your credit card company.
I wonder if your local news station would care? Some of them have consumer segments that love to give air to rip-offs like this.
Am I incorrect that the seller misrepresented these items?
Imagine they also said they were 1 oz each while the cert said 40
grams each which is much more then 1 oz.
The ebay auction never stated .999 fine silver. only the word "silver" was used once in the title.
as for the credit card... i forgot i had some funds in my paypal account
when paying and my CC was only used for a fraction of the total. Not
even enough to try. sigh.
i will make a parody ebay auction with them and lambast ebay shortly. basically rip paypal, the seller, and ebay a new hole.
It makes me angry, not even being a party to it.
You could drill holes in them and turn it into a mobile or wind sculpture.
It would be interesting to get an acid that will attack copper but not nickel. According to my ignorant reading of a metallurgy book, pure phosphoric acid (no impurities) will slowly attack the copper but not the nickel.
Then you poke a small hole in the nickel plate. Submerge in acid. Wait until you are left with an empty shell of nickel plate.
Interesting, but not recommended.
I went to many of the markets there and I never encountered any olympic products outside of the official stores. That doesn't mean there weren't any - I just didn't see them aside from some Olympic logo t-shirts.
If China says they are cracking down - they are lying. Counterfeit goods are sold out in the open, and if they wanted to crack down they could really easily. Just like we could crack down on illegal immigrants pretty quickly if we really wanted to... they're the ones standing on the street corners looking for work! When I see no more immigrants on the street corners, I will know the government is finally cracking down like they should.
<< <i>Only in private emails did they say they were .999 fine.
Imagine they also said they were 1 oz each while the cert said 40
grams each which is much more then 1 oz.
The ebay auction never stated .999 fine silver. only the word "silver" was used once in the title.
as for the credit card... i forgot i had some funds in my paypal account
when paying and my CC was only used for a fraction of the total. Not
even enough to try. sigh.
i will make a parody ebay auction with them and lambast ebay shortly. basically rip paypal, the seller, and ebay a new hole. >>
Make sure you add a link... I would love to follow that auction.... I guess the best way to deal with a dishonest seller is to use the
"did not recieve the package". I guess you would have to know how paypal will decide before you contact them first though..
Keep us updated....
Many members on this forum that now it cannot fit in my signature. Please ask for entire list.