Warning! Anyone bidding on this? It's a fraud

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deepbluedigger

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This sale is almost certainly a fraud. If anyone knows anyone who might be bidding on it, then it might be an idea to warn them. Item # 130069677775, "Circa 1740 Octagonal English black glass seal".

This bottle sold via eBay a year or so ago, and then re-sold via Glassworks Auctions, going into a very stable long-term collection. Most of the description in this new posting, and all of the photos, are from the old eBay posting. The pictures have been heavily cropped, probably to remove ID / watermarks. The pics are now also hosted on a Nigerian oil companys website!

eBay have, appparently, been warned about this .... ?
 

epgorge

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How do you know this is a fraud? I am interested because I buy many bottles on ebay and have wondered how would someone know.

Specifically, what led you to believe this Bottle was a replica?

Joel
 

GuntherHess

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130069677775

There were quite a few red flags on that one... the wire tansfer, the private action, the seller had no feedback for the last 2 years, the seller didnt normally sell items of that type, the photo hosting web site...do I need to go on?


Thanks for heads up on this!!
 

deepbluedigger

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This bottle sold via eBay a year or so ago, and then re-sold via Glassworks Auctions, going into a very stable long-term collection. Most of the description in this new posting, and all of the photos, are from the old eBay posting. The pictures have been heavily cropped, probably to remove ID / watermarks. The pics are now also hosted on a Nigerian oil companys website!

ORIGINAL: epgorge

How do you know this is a fraud? I am interested because I buy many bottles on ebay and have wondered how would someone know.

Specifically, what led you to believe this Bottle was a replica?

Joel

It's not that the bottle is a replica. It's that the photos and description appear to have been stolen from an old eBay sale and re-used by someone who does not have the bottle in their posession, and never has had. The specific reasons that this is probably true are in italics above, plus the ones mentioned by the other forum members. I had the benefit of having seen this bottle in the original eBay sale a year or more ago, and also knowing it had been re-sold via Glassworks. There has been extensive discussion of this sale on the British bottle forum, including the guy who bought it from Glassworks.

It seems to be a case of eBay account hijacking, coupled with someone who saved all the details of the original sale. This happens from time to time with high value items.

I was caught up in one myself a couple of years ago. The pontiled Schweppes torpedo I've put up in the 'Bottles for sale' thread came from eBay. One of the underbidders was a friend of mine here in the UK (although neither of us knew the others ebay user name at that time, so we didn't know we were bidding against each other).

I paid for the bottle, which was from a UK source, and within 2 days the friend of mine was offered a 'second chance' on the same item, saying the 'original eBay winner had failed to pay'. The friend emailed me via eBay to check if this was true, and then we figured out that we knew each other.

Eventually it turned out that someone in eastern Europe had spotted the high value sale, and somehow hijacked the sellers eBay account to try to defraud my friend into paying for a bottle that was already on it's way to me!

Can't be too careful with eBay. There are numerous ways criminals can and do work frauds on eBay, and there are lots of tell-tale signs to look out for, as described in various posts above. eBay are generally, in my experience, extremely reluctant to act against the fraudulent sales. The sale above was reported to eBay as fraudulent by at least two people including me, but they didn't do anything about it. The new eBay policy of hiding bidders IDs means that even other ebay users can no longer warn bidders about this kind of problem.
 

GuntherHess

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This has happened several times with high dollar bottles. Its good collectors are policing sales.
As far as account stealing goes...if you ever wondered why people send all those fake ebay phishing emails ... now you know.
Fortuately, bottle sales is a hard catagory for thieves to venture into and they prefer to stay in stuff like laptops and jewelry sales for the most part.
 

epgorge

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Thanks! It has been an education. Here is a bottle I was duped into buying by an unscrupulous individual. I paid $98 for it.
Ep
 

epgorge

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ooops

5BCC895A74CC48F7BFA57B6319279686.jpg
 

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epgorge

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This fellow, when contacted, told me to put his info out there and sell it, as there were many I outbid and they would bid again.

I informed him I would eat the $98 (I am not a rich man) rather than stoop to his level. I have the repro sittin atop my collection as a reminder of what can happen and how easily it is to (commercially) reduce one's own level of self resepct.

Ep
 

cc6pack

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Another good way to help determine if the bottle or whatever the item is a fraud, is to ask for a differrent view of the item than which they have pictured. Very few scammers will send additonal pics. They always have and excuse. You hear I'm selling it for a friend, my camera is broke, never get a response. I had one guy tell me he didn't have the (happened to be a card) item in his hands. That's a real good indication.

Don't know how many of you have heare of Lagos, Nigeria but check out the link below. Anything coming out of Africa is to be suspect, along with a few other countries, Russia, and some of the old satellites. Don't click on any of the links in the reproduced emails. Be advised you will a lot of time on your hands to go through the site.

http://www.bustedupcowgirl.com/scampage.html
 

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