UPDATED:Ebay dilemma-advice needed

hooklahoma

hooklahoma

1,000+ Posts
Ive been looking for sports memorabilia for my game room and came across what i thought were 4 signed lance armstrong Sports Illustrated magazines. Like a dumbass, I didnt read the whole description of the item where it says they are a "preprinted" photo of the signed item untill after i bid on the item.



I know i should have been smart enough to read the print before i bid on the item, but I think this jackass is being deliberately deceptive since he has at least two dozen similar fake items for auction with a similar discription. If it has "Lance Armstrong TOUR DE FRANCE Signed 4 SI Magazine Set" as the title discription, but the item is not signed and is not a "set" how can that not be deceptive???
cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5154238493&ssPageName=STRK:MEBI:IT
Furthermore he has a 98 % positive feedback rating, but all the positive ones seem canned, with the exact same phrases being used over and over while the neg ones all sound like they were written by a real person. In short, i think he faked most of his positive feedback.

Should I

1) suck it up and give him fifty bucks for a ****** digital print of four magazine covers and consider it a lesson learned.

2) Tell him to piss off and take my chances on negative feedback. If i only have one negative comment can it really hurt me??

Thanks,
 
it looks like i cant retract my bid since it was more than 12 hours ago.
frown.gif


you live, you learn
 
Well it sucks to bid on something without reading the fine print, but thats exaclty what these guys depend on.

One signed cover scanned and printed again and again and again....
 
Hm.. yah that auction is a bit misleading but it does in fact say that they are preprinted in capital letters. You could just not pay, take the negative feedback, and open a new account. Did you end up winning the auction?
 
One piece of negative feedback is not the scarlet letter of ebay. (with that being said, if this is your first and only transaction, and you get negative feedback, that's not good). let him leave his feedback and then you can respond to it, and people will see that response. if he says "****** buyer, didn't pay" just respond with "misleading item description, emailed to retract bid and was refused"

you could try emailing and say you made a mistake and do not want the item. it happens, and they may let you out of it. seeing as how they are shady fucks to begin with though, they'd probably rather just dirty up your feedback.

just go win a few other auctions, pay quickly, etc and your one little redmark won't mean anything to anyone.
 
I won the auction. Hell i was the only one dumb enough to bid. I've reported him to ebay for violating the "misleading title" guideline, and i intend to tell him to take a flying leap.

I'm a dumbass for falling for it, but the title of the product is clearly disigned to mislead. Also, his positive feedback is clearly made up, and therefore, is a clear sign that he is a con artist.
 
i'm not siding with the seller, especially since his shipping and "insurance" charges are ********, but why do you think his feedback is bogus? most everyone leaves a canned response.
 
I read on many consumer advocacy sites (google "false positive feedback") that the key is to look for in inordinately large amount of canned responses with the exact same phrase and punctuation used over and over. That and the fact that I find it hard to believe people are going to be that thrilled to get a signature reproduction for almost what it would cost to get the real thing.

Find me one person thats gonna bust a nut over getting reproductions of (4) 8x10 SI covers for 50 bucks and only then will you find someone dumber than I am for falling for it. 98% positive rating, my ***. If I would have seen anything under 90 I would have scrutinized it more carefully
 
Sorry to say this, but I think his feedback is real. It's exactly the same type of feedback I have. They only give you about 80 spaces so people are short and no one bothers to get creative.

I also don't see that the guy is at fault. You are. He put it in ALL CAPS that the sig was preprinted and described the product as a Photo printed on high quality Photo paper numerous times. He called it a Photo numerous times, anyway and even directed you to look at more incredible photos in his ebay store. Perhaps you got a little excited about the auction and forgot to read. It's happened to the best of us, but I don't see how you can't shoulder AT LEAST 90% of the blame. Don't take it personally, it's just my perspective. I don't think you are stupid or anything like that, but I do think it was largely your mistake.
 
You are also far better off contacting the seller first before turning him in to Ebay or leaving negative feedback. The fact that you have had no contact with him and yet figured out your mistake before getting the photos tends to illustrate the fact that if you had read the listing before bidding, you would not be in this position. Once you throw down on a seller, they tend to bow their neck. Offer to pay their relisting fee and they are almost always happy to make sure you are not unhappy.
 
sorry, but if i were you, i would just chalk it up as a $50 lesson learned.
i looked at the auction, and it is a bit deceptive. still, i believe winning ebay bids are 'contracts' to purchase.
 
have you tried talking to the guy and see if he is ok with you dropping out of the auction? He might be cool with it. you never know. many ebay people would rather let you go opposed to getting a bad review.
 
Can't you just not pay? You might have to create a new EBay account but that should be easy. I agree that is seems like a scam. It should be made extremely obvious to potential buyers that it is not real only reproductions. That whole selling a copy of a copyrighted item might get you off the hook too.
 
You can't expect the guy to list his crap as "Crappy Scanned Photo of Autographed Cover of SI magazine Set." Sure, that would have made sure you didn't bid on it. Or anyone else. All the time, people put "Not Rolex" or somesuch in the title to get hits when people are looking for rolexes. The point is that titles in the Ebay culture are not what you have to go by. The descriptions are what you need to read and it's just not that much to ask to expect people to read the description. It's not asking people to read the "fine print". It's in ALL CAPS.

I'll reiterate that you'll do better I'll bet if you do not accuse the guy of being a scammer, but diplomatically bring up the fact that you were mislead by the title. Since he didn't have a spirited auction anyway and has to pass on other buyers, you can't offer to make up the difference and let the next highest bidder have it, but he also shouldn't be upset about relisting it. You may have already burned that bridge.

The guy seems to own the originals of the autographed versions and that probably solves the copyright issues raised, but I really don't know. That may be a concern that could be raised to convince him to drop the auction agreement, but try these things in order. Once you piss the guy off (right or wrong), you aren't likely to get him to agree to anything.
 
Jeez,

this is a hard one. I didn't consider the copyright issue. Wouldn't that be like buying a new CD and selling copies w/ a reproduced jewelbox like the chineese do? What if I bought an original painting and sold prints w/o the artists permission?

I'll contact the guy. Maybee the threat of tipping off ebay about the copyright and misleading title issues he'll let me out of the transaction.
 
Ask the dude for proof that he was licensed by SI to reproduce the cover. If he can't do that (he won't be able to), I can't fathom for the life of me how Ebay can consider the auction a binding contract. And yes, this is exactly like buying a DVD, burning copies of the DVD and selling the copies on Ebay.

If you buy a DVD movie on Ebay and then find out after the auction ends that the DVD is an illegal reproduction, would you still pay? Then why do so here?

Btw, SI sells prints of their covers for $20 a pop.
 
Thanks for all the good advice. I sent him an nicely worded e-mail asking him to let me out of the contract b/c due to my own fault I didn’t realize the item was an unlicensed copy of copyrighted material. I went on to say that on moral grounds
smile.gif
I would not be able to complete the transaction.

I'll let you know how it goes
 
It is hard for me to understand how any of you do not see this as a scam. If you look in detail at his feedback history, he has several people calling his scheme a scam. The wording in his description is designed to assure the buyer of the "preciousness" of product - which is nothing more than an autograph copied onto a photograph. Its worth nothing.

I know career ebayers are worried about their feedback, but if I fell for this scam, I would not pay, report him to ebay, report him to the attorney general's office in his State and beg him to sue me.

His wording:

"Lance Armstrong TOUR DE FRANCE Signed 4 SI Magazine Set"

- UHHH . . . NO IT IS NOT "SIGNED" - A COPY OF A SIGNATURE WAS DIGITALLY PUT ON A PHOTO. THAT IS NOT "SIGNING."

"Each signed photo we are offering is rare and unique

[ONLY RARE BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE WOULD TRY TO PULL THIS SCAM, ONLY UNIQUE IF THE COPIED AUTOGRAPH IS MOVED AROUND THE PICTURE WITH EACH SCAM HE PULLS],

printed on high-quality photo paper and 8X10 in size. Each autograph is PREPRINTED.

[WHAT IN THE HELL DOES THIS MEAN????]

This means that for all of our items the signature is part of the photo.

[PART OF THE PHOTO, AS IN IT WAS SIGNED ONTO THE PHOTO BY LANCE? NO, I GUESS NOT]

In this auction you are bidding on ALL FOUR signed

[NOT SIGNED, COPY OF SIGNATURE INSERTED ONTO PHOTO WITH PHOTO EDITING PROGRAM]

Sports Illustrated Magazine photos shown below.

**Each photo is accompanied by a Certificate Of Authenticity (COA) from Photo-Graphs detailing that the original signature on the preprint was obtained in person and is guaranteed authentic for life.

[UTTER CRAP - THIS MEANS HE OBTAINED AN AUTOGRAPH AND IS NOW PLATERING IT ON EVERYTHING THING HE CAN THINK OF. LANCE NEVER SIGNED THESE COVERS. HE IS JUST USING HIS SIGNATURE.]

**Each photo comes encased in a hard plastic display so that your precious treasure

[PRECIOUS TREASURE????]

can be safely transported to you as well as proudly displayed in a secure manner."

Its a scam.
 
Washpark makes a great example even if he is wrong. How did he determine this was a piece of ****?
He read the auction info. He makes a great case for calling the auction item a total piece of ****, but the only information available to him was the auction listing. So, if one reads the auction listing one can conclude that the item is a piece of ****. Generally speaking, there is no crime in selling turds.

I really hate to do this becaue it might make him feel bad, but the argument begins and ends with:
In reply to:
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Well, it's really two different issues. Accepting negative feedback over $50 is one issue and then there is the issue of the seller's ethics. Very few sellers are going to refuse your money if you want to buy something from them even if you have some negative feedback. There are a number of sellers that act like they will cancel bids from people who have negative or too much negative feedback. I'm not sure if they can really do that or not. More people are going to be reluctant to buy, but my guess is that is not much of an issue with the fellow hornfan we are talking about.

I've already said more than I should have on the issue of the seller's ethics.
 
Update: I wrote him a nicely wonded email asking him to release me from the obligation of buying the item. I mentioned that i was concerned morally about supporting copyright infringement and that I would not notify the owners of the copyright if released me from my obligation and removed all similar items from auction.

His exact response:

"BIDDING HAS ENDED, SORRY"

In all his neg feedback he claims to "ensure satisfaction" and will work things out if contacted.
Riiiiiight

I have 30 or so positive feedbacks and no negative, so i think i'll tell him to go **** himself.

Thanks for all the input, even the stuff I didnt nessesarily want to hear.
 
You guys are sweating this way too much. Hooklahoma: Just blow it off. The worst that will happen is he lobs you a negative. He won't do that though because he doesn't want you to send him one right back and tarnish his record.

If your conscience is forcing you to make good somehow, then offer to pay him the listing fee and commission Ebay is going to charge him. It's like $2.

And finally, it's YOUR OWN FAULT for bidding on it in the first place. You don't sign documents without reading the fine print and you don't bid on an auction without reading the description. End of story. Don't make him into the bad guy because of your negligence. He did, after all, mention IN ALL CAPS that it was a printed photo and sig.
 
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