Postage Stamp Chat Board & Stamp Bulletin Board Forum
 

Hi there,

I want to know if this has happened to anyone here or is a regular occurrence on ebay?

I recently bid on an item on ebay. After paying for the item, I contacted the seller, he mentioned he would be sending me a 'similar' item as the one pictured was sold.

I specifically bid for that item as I wanted it for the good-centering and postmark. When bidding, it did not mention that there where more than one available.

If I had known that there where more than one available, then I wouldn't have bid.

This has happened on more than one occasion. Never getting what is pictured. Maybe I spotted a flaw/error that the seller missed, that's why I want that specific one.

Your feedback would be appreciated.

Cheers

The seller should specify that the item pictured is "representative" or some such. Or the seller should list the number of items available in the listing. Otherwise you definitely have reason to complain

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Stamps on eBay: USA & worldwide. Lots of Dr. Who, Star Trek & Star Wars comics, too. Do Advanced search for Seller ddaannv and Keyword the country you collect (or leave Keyword blank).

Most certainly against E Bay rules. Unless stated you should get what you bid on as per picture. Anything else should be stated by seller as similar or some such statement.

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Collector of Australia and UK plus too many other bits and pieces. Look for me on Delcampe and Ebay also as Queenslander for my Stamp offers

I totally agree with you folks, just that it happened once too many times
with me.

Will contact ebay should it occur again.

Thanks

Report the seller to ebay for "false and missleading" advertising. You could be looking at a fine stamp and he might send you a spacefiller saying "its the same stamp". Completely outragious tactics! And totally against ebay and any countries sales laws.

Some ebay sites have even tightened their rules so that you must show a picture of exactly what you are selling, no swappsies, no "similar".

The seller quite frankly should be banned if he does not state that he will not send you the one your looking at, but something similar. What rubbish.

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Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

If you bid on something and there was no comment made that there could be multiples or a substitution could be made, then they committed a fraud by sending you something that you didn't pay for especially if it is of a lower quality.

Give them bad feed back and report them to eBay.

As far as Ebay goes, Bid at your own Risk. If people prefer to risk their money on Ebay rather than a dealer then they have no reason to whine if something goes wrong.

D.

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Visit my Website - http://WWW.DJMSTAMPS.COM for Australia & World Stamps, Collections and Accessories

I have found the reporting system on ebay very difficult to use. There doesn't seem to be a category for "misrepresented item", and there is no dialogue box to explain why an item is being reported.

It seems to be left to the judgement of someone who most likely doesn't know much about the item being reported.

I have contacted ebay about this, but just get a very long winded and generic mirror response: "We'll look into it".

Some sellers, including myself, have in their lot descriptions either: "these are the exact stamps you will get" OR "the scan is representative of the packet on offer, but you will not receive the exact stamps in the scan". I have bought both, and knew what I was getting, so no problems.

Misrepresentation occurs, it is against the rules, it is difficult to report, but hey, ebay still makes money on the transactions.

The purpose of ebay is to make money for the site owners, not to provide a place to buy and sell ... that's just incidental.

I'm in some kind of limited dialogue with them at the moment. There are about 40,000 silk shirt listings ... none (NOT ONE) of them is silk. ALL of them are silk blend (with polyester). Some are 100% polyester. Only a very few sellers state this in their listing, and NONE state it in the heading.

I'm guessing the outcome will be that "Thai Silk" has become an acceptable trade name for polyester on ebay, and the farce will continue.

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A man might as well marry ... if he finds a good wife he will be happy ... if not, he will become a philosopher.
Collecting Greater New Guinea & Macropods (Kangaroos & Wallabies).

You "report this item", use "listing practices" and then "fraudulent listing activities" and "fraudulent item". Not hard.

Also contact Customer Support and write everything you need in the box about the seller's listings.


(Tell me the item number, show us what you recieved and I'll report it.)

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Greg - Looking for Goulburn Australia Cancels and Grangemouth Scotland Cancels and Covers
Member of the S.T.A.M.P Club for Slightly Twisted And Mad Philatelists - Motto: "Bring back the lick!"

Durrrh. That is what negative feedback is there for.

Bid on used stamp A, and get mailed used stamp B, just leave a negative AFTER demanding a full refund, will wake the seller up VERY fast.

AND warn all future bidders.

Some folks on this Forum seem to feel leaving Negs is like turning someone over to the Feds.

Nope. They screw up, they get Negs. Can't see why that is hard for some here to do.

The feedback thing is easy.

Just a bit more circumlocutive to report something shonky that you are not buying.

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A man might as well marry ... if he finds a good wife he will be happy ... if not, he will become a philosopher.
Collecting Greater New Guinea & Macropods (Kangaroos & Wallabies).

You could file an "item not as described" dispute in Paypal, but:

- you will only get a refund after you return the item
- you have to prove you returned it--thus use registered mail
- you will only get a refund if Paypal is able to verify the registered tracking number using online tracking.

On the other hand, you might get a reasonable seller who issues you a refund voluntarily.

I bought an antique map on fleaBay back in Feb. Received it mid-March, and it was in much worse condition than described. The seller was a stubborn *** about a refund, and would only give my money back after receiving it back.

Very next day I returned it, registered mail, and opened a dispute for refund. After a month, Paypal asked for the tracking number. Then for a scan of the receipt. Finally, after 6 weeks, they declared "the tracking number you provided is invalid, therefore your claim is denied." Of course the seller is continuing to refuse to refund the money, so I have neither the item nor money back, and Paypal's stance is "too bad, we made our decision". The eBay help page claims there's an "appeal" button on the dispute details page, but there isn't.

So, if its valuable enough, return it for a refund by registered mail, and be out the cost of return postage. Otherwise, just have to live with what you get.

All-in-all, the seller is being totally misleading. If they are selling factory-new CDs, books, bottle openers, et al. then fine, you see one, you see them all. If the stamps are bog-standard modern mint they'll probably all be VF centering, but if its older stuff, the centering matters, the postmark, the gum.

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Collecting Mongolia; Thailand; Indo-China; Mourning Covers; OHMS.
My online 'store': http://stampsfromaethelwulf.blogspot.com/

Contacting eBay about receiving a stamp different to what was shown is pointless. They get there listing fee, final value fee and PayPal fee so they don't care about your stamp.

Send a message to seller asking for full refund, or post negative feedback.

Imagine if a seller did this with 5/- Bridges or similar

Different centering, different perfs, different postmark. What a con.

I've only had one item that needed to be returned for not being as advertised. He hemmed and hawwed - stating that I got a similar stamp to that I had bid on. True, it was...But I bid on the postmark which wasn't in the description.

When I pointed out the differences (carefully omitting details about the pm), he did send the original item advertised, eventually. I did not leave any feedback at all (couldn't, because it took him that long to send the original) and have never even looked at his items again.

After a number of years playing feebay and praypal's version of russian roulette, I now only purchase from sellers I know - and who know me.

Just like dealing with shop-front dealers, really.

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FORESTS OLD, PASTURES NEW
(An expert is one who knows more and more, about less and less)

What happens most of the time is that when an item is listed as "BUY IT NOW", it is assumed that it's the only one and as pictured...not so.

Once you hit the "BUY IT NOW" button you realise that there are more of the same stamp for sale and you won't get the one pictured.

You never know if it's the only one or one of three unless you commit to buying it.

When contacting the seller the response is always, "that one is sold and I will send you a similar item"... thats not on!!

You buy an item for its specific postmark, error/flaw that might have gone un-noticed, etc..

Very unprofessional indeed.

In a BIN situation, it is my understanding that the onus is on the seller to describe whether it is a 'one-of' or 'one of a number of'. This is supposed to be in the description. If not - I agree that it is totally unprofessional.

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FORESTS OLD, PASTURES NEW
(An expert is one who knows more and more, about less and less)

Ebay have revamped the rules re forged and faked and replica and counterfeit stamps.

Sellers now MUST mark fakes indelibly on reverse, and load a photo of that marking into the lot description.

Alterations (that includes forged perfins, oveprints and cancels) and repairs MUST be noted now if known to seller, and sellers offering conga lines of the same fakes clearly DO know!

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/currstamps.html#replica_stamps







Also on EVERY ebay lot there is a “Report Item” icon – whether the sale is ended or not.

Reporting that via the simple drop-down options as shown below is a 5 second operation -



If ebay gets 5 or 10 reports on any given items they WILL generally take notice. They usually warn the user and remove the lot. Sellers getting several such removed lots are in trouble.

Let’s use ‘people power’ to stop this material getting offered.

Everyone “hoping” others act, will get nothing done - like most things in life! It takes teamwork and a Community Spirit, and the dodgy and misleading lots will be FAR less.

ebay now have set up a fast new portal JUST to report suspected sellers of forged stamps at - http://www.tinyurl.com/ebayfakes - also found at - http://www.ebay.com/scw- there is space for 10,000 characters in your reply, so all the relevant info can be added. Unlike most ebay complaint forms that allow 100 characters etc.

Please take a moment to do BOTH ….. do the “Report Item” drop-down, and give a summary on the link above.

Most likely they will go to 2 different ebay staffers, and that is double trouble for the fakers.

Some staffers ignore such stuff, others are more pro-active – it is a lottery.

However several reports on any single item can be seen by all staffers looking at it, and that generally gets some action.

Even if 4 staffers have ignored it, the 5th staffer might see 5 reports and decide to act etc.

Glen

Thank you Glenn, I agree with you totally and thanks for
all the ebay info.

Cheers

You should contact eBay EVERY time something like this occurs. Sellers like this make the eBay landscape much more difficult for people who take the time to accurately describe, scan, and list material.

I'm sure I read somewhere (on E-bay) that as from a certain date sellers HAD to sell the item shown in their listing. Substitution was not going to be allowed. Only Dvd's and such items were allowed a generic picture. Or was this a proposed thing and ebay was wanting feed-back?

A bit rough for some I guess...who wants to take photos of every single stamp if you have 50 of one type. But then for the buyers...like mcgooley...who wanted a particular stamp for the pm. It's very essential. You want the stamp or coin in the picture and you are entitled to get what is represented.

I dealt with a seller for a particular coin. He was in fact very accommodating about it all. He had a great picture up with a particular mint mark that I needed. His listing also said that the photo was of one coin and you would receive one very similar to this.

When I contacted him asking for a picture of the coin I was likely to get when and if I bought it, he said I could have the coin in question and he would just put up another picture. I bought it ...and it is really lovely!

This is the kind of seller ebay needs more of. Proof is in the pudding was an old adage...I still buy the occassional coin from him...because I know I can trust him to send what I am looking at in his picture.

If the seller hum's and haw's too much...I'd be inclined to give them a VERY WIDE BERTH!

hutch

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I am having fun collecting WW and Indian States.