eBay Fraudster scottcolin_p - 1821 George IV Gold Soveriegn (sic)
Many eBay sellers, including dealers steal our copyright images, we suspect some of them may also be fraudsters. Does eBay care?
We are proud that we helped avert yet another gold coin fraud on eBay. We first spotted it because the crook used our photographs.
Sample Listing:
1821 George IV Gold Soveriegn
Hi all on offer here is a truely great piece of coining history. It is an exquisite and beautiful coin. I have fallen to be very unfortunate of recent and have found myself jobless and have had to resort to selling off parts off my large coin collection to ensure i can survive, hence letting go of some of my more finer assets.
I am new to the ebay world so please be patient with me and i will do my best to assist all throughout the time of the auction.
Brief details of the coin are as followed:
Diameter: 22.05 mm
Weight: 7.9g
Fineness: .917 gold .083 copper
Payment by cheques please.
If you require any further details on the coin please do not hesitate to contact me.
What's The Problem?
Firstly this particular crook came to our attention because he was using a pair of our high quality copyright coin images. Lots of eBayers do this, some possibly in innocence and ignorance, some from pure laziness, but all are deceiving potential bidders and buyers.
In this case, as often, we strongly suspect that the scammer does not own an 1821 sovereign in any grade, in which case this listing constitutes an attempted fraud, pure and simple.
Benefit of the Doubt
Lets' just be kind to the poor ignoramus for a moment. Let's assume he does actually own an 1821 gold sovereign. Why does he not take his own photograph of the coin, so that buyers can see what they are bidding on?
One answer would be sheer and pure ignorance. There is some evidence to support this theory if you look at the semi-literate (we are being kind, remember) wording of the listing. He manages to get the title almost right, but then all he had to do was copy and past our own heading on our web page. At this point, we did think of listing his spelling, grammatical, and syntax errors, but it is too painful. We will let our readers form their own opinion.
A more probably answer is that he hopes that some poor suckers will bid a substantial amount of money for what appears to be a near-mint and valuable coin, whereas if he does own one, it is very unlikely to be in the same high grade. Of course it is dishonest and misleading in that most potential bidders will expect the coin shown to be the one on offer. We do know from experience that many eBay vendors do not care about being honest with their buyers. eBay is a dog eat dog world, caveat emptor and caveat vendor apply almost equally. Most eBay buyers are hoping to get a bargain. Fraudsters know that fraud often works only because the potential victims are greedy.
Of course, the vendor might just be forgiven for forgetting to mention in his listing that the photos are not of the coin he owns, except that we know that at least one interested party wrote to ask him:
Dear Lawrence,
This one definitely has the whiff of fraud about it: 280329454511
I have just sent him an email to ask him whether the pictures are of his actual coin but I'm not sure that he is literate enough to understand plain English!
Reply:
hi there thank you for your interest! Thos os not the actual picture of the coin as i have yet to find my USB cable for my camera to upload the actual pictures! However i will try my best to get these on and i can tell you the coin is of a very high standard with no worn marks
Lazy, Greedy. Stupid, or Criminal?
Yes, probably all four of these apply. Just continuing our assumption that he forgot to mention the picture was of a different coin, would this exchange not have made him aware that potential buyers might be interested in this fact. Yes of course, they would, and at this point, I think we should forget any pretence that this is simply a slightly naive but also slightly honest seller. there is very little doubt that scottcolin_p is a crook. We do not believe he owns an 1821 sovereign at all, and that this listing is a pure and simple attempt to con some poor innocent buyer out of good money. Unfortunately eBay's anonymity, and the protection it gives sellers from disclosing their identity, make it all too easy for crooks to make repeated attempts at fraud, with very little chance of detection.
Trust and Safety
Our informant tells us that he contacted the seller, to let him know he had informed us, the police, and eBay. Just for once, eBay's "Trust and Safety" department must have taken a fraud report seriously, and both cancelled the auction, and removed the member with half an hour of the report, result:
This Listing Is Unavailable
This listing (280329454511) has been removed or is no longer available. Please make sure you entered the right item number.
scottcolin_p ( 0 ) Not a registered user
However we believe this is more due to the vigilance of an honest and caring fellow citizen than to the efforts of eBay.
Chorley police weren't even slightly interested!
I have now reported him to eBay and have told him so in the hope that I at least protect the morons who are bidding.
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Seller ID | Item Number | Date | Description | Value
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scottcolin_p | 280329454511 | 4th Apr 2009 | 1821 George IV Gold Soveriegn | £2,000
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Notes
Seller ID. There is nothing to stop eBay members changing their "Seller ID", or opening a new account.
Item Number. We may have shown only one out of many similar items.
Date = End date or date added to this page if item still current.
Description = Description as used by the seller as his item title.
Price = Final selling price if known, otherwise "Current Price", or "Starting bid".
More eBay Fraudsters!
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More!
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