Ebay seller oftimespast and shill bids

Discussion in 'Transformers On Ebay' started by Pilgrimfr, Apr 25, 2018.

  1. Pilgrimfr

    Pilgrimfr Member

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    Hi everyone,

    I am currently experiencing a problem with this ebay seller (oftimespast). Although my issue does not concern Transformers specifically (it actually concerns Robo Machines/Gobots), this seller has many Transformers listed, so I decided to share my experience to warn you that you have to be very careful when bidding on his items.

    In short, I have been the victim of shill bids on 3 items I purchased from this seller, and I basically ended up paying a lot of extra money for these toys.

    The long story now :
    This seller has listed a few days ago many Japanese Robo Machines that are valuable to collectors like me. The listings ended last friday and I noticed that the same day, a profile (with only 1 evaluation) was bidding on every Robo Machine listed by oftimespast. In most cases, that would be highly suspect, and I am very cautious, but the seller has more than 187 000 (!) positive evaluations, and a 99,8% rating profile, so I assumed that this bidder was just a new player in the Robo Machine collection field.

    I decided to bid on every Robo Machine listings I was interested in with my maximal bid (120$), and ended up losing most of them to the bidder mentioned above. I only got 3 of them for which I decided to go beyond my 120$ limit (and won against this same bidder).

    So far so good, I got my 3 items for a significantly high price but I was happy. I paid. (on a site note, the seller invoiced me higher combined shipping costs than the one discussed before the end of the listings. I tried to contact him about it but he never replied. It was a few bucks, so I didn't insist as it was marginal in regards to the overall price).

    And yesterday I received a second chance offer at my highest bid price (120$), for 11 of the Robo Machines I "missed"...

    So you can probably see where this is going : there was a fake bidder artficially inflating bidding prices, and I ended up paying more than 360$ for these 3 toys. Funny thing, if I remove all the fake biddings on my items, the maximal biddings went down to less than 150$ for the three toys... What would have been the real market price if this fake bidder did not bid ? Nobody knows for sure, but somewhere between 150 and 360$, which is a huge range...

    In any case, I immediately contacted the seller to tell him that I highly suspect a fraud. We have been exchanging messages since yesterday, but he basically stands in the position that he is the victim, complaining because he is wasting time to relist the items, because he paid the seller's fees to ebay but never get the money from the fake bidder and so on. At some point he even found "suspicious" that I bid more or less at the the same time as the fake bidder (was he suggesting that I used a secondary account to bid over my own bids just for the sake of paying extra money for my toys ?).

    So far, he didn't offer any satisfactory solution to my case (at some point he proposed to send back the items to get a refund, but of course shipping costs being at my charge, so in any case, I am the one who is losing money here). And exchanging with him is excruciatingly painful, as he is victimizing himself, and doesn't acknowledge the real issue.

    I will not give my personal judgement on this seller. Just consider these facts : he said to me that he is not the one who artificially inflated the prices of his listings. Yet, he is the sole benefitor of the situation, and, although he knew that a fake bidder inflated his prices, he purposedly sent me second chances offers that were also inflated. I am still waiting an explanation about this behavior, as he deliberately tried to get more money from me with aldedgedly artificially inflated listings.

    I have a copy of our exchanges that I am willing to copy-paste here, but I don't know if it is legal to do so without the consent of my interlocutor. If it is, I can post our messages here as additinal facts supporting this problem.

    So beware, I have a bad experience with this seller, and despite that facts are proving I am a victim of shill bids, I have no satisfactory issue with him so far (his last reply was "see with ebay"...).

    As an additional information, oftimespast is "the on-line store for the Time Capsule. Located at 537 Pontiac Ave in Cranston RI, we specialize in comic books, toys, records, video games & other collectibles." (this is an excerpt from his ebay introduction).

    Cheers :) 
     
    Last edited: Apr 25, 2018
  2. Blackout32

    Blackout32 ANTHRAX - PERSISTENCE OF TIME

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    I had something like this happen to me in 2003 on a G1 metroplex figure i wanted. The auction ended up really bad on my part with a $400 bill before i knew it. So i completely understand where your coming from. Its like you want something really bad to add to your collection, but don't want to lose it or pay to much. It ends up really in a big disaster on your wallet. With exchange conversation as you said here, i had the same thing also on what your talking about with seller.
     
  3. Tiberius209

    Tiberius209 Well-Known Member

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    Seriously, take a few minutes to call EBay customer support and tell them you suspect fraud. They can tell if the accounts are linked within seconds. If so, he’s gonzo. Shill bidding is HIGHLY frowned upon at EBay.

    Alternately, you may find they aren’t linked and he really is a victim of an a-hole. Then you can offer to pay one bid increment above the next highest legitimate bid.
     
  4. Pilgrimfr

    Pilgrimfr Member

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    While I understand what you say (how many times did I bid up to "indecent" prices for collector toys ?? ;)  ), my issue with this seller is slightly different : I actually did not bid more than I would like to, this is quite the opposite actually, 120$ for a Japanese Robo Machine is still in the "acceptable" range.

    Also, I don't have any problem to "fight" for an item if someone else is really ready to bid a lot against me. But the collector's market is ruled by supply and demand. My problem with this seller is that demand appeared finally to be very low for these toys, and I ended up paying these toys very high prices : the demand has been artificially inflated by a ghost bidder.

    I actually contacted ebay immediately - by email instead of phone to have a written trace of my request. Got their reply a few hours later, with a very generic and laconic message...

    I made a quick search on ebay message boards, and there are many testimonies of victims of shill bidding that had no reply from ebay about their issue. I am located in France, so it could be that our ebay customer service is worse than in the US, but in any case, I don't really count on ebay to solve this matter, they just basically showed to me that they don't care.

    As for shill bidding, english not being my maternal language, I am unsure it is the proper word, and I am ready to change it if needed. If shill bidding specifically refers to the seller increasing himself the bids, I have no proof of that, so I will keep myself factual : my bids have been increased by someone, and I have no proof at all that it is seller. Of course the seller claims it is not him.

    However, the same seller did not hesitate to send me 11 (yes eleven) second chance offers that were inflated by the ghost seller, perfectly knowing that these prices were illegitimates. So even if he has been, at first, a victim of a fake bidder, he voluntarily tried to get more undue money from me 11 times more. At least, from a moral standpoint (and probably from a legal one also), this seller is to be avoided.

    In my messages, I actually proposed to the seller to pay, as you suggest, one bid increment above the highest legitimate bid. Guess what ? the total price for my 3 toys goes down from more than 360$ to less than 150$ (this is actually why I fight so hard for this issue, I wouldn't do such a mess for 20 bucks... but 200$ ? The seller is taking a lot of money from my wallet). The seller absolutely refused, of course, claiming that 120$ per toy (ie. the bid from the fake bidder) is the right price...

    He asked me yesterday what would be an acceptable refund, I proposed that 20$ per toy would be fair, as in my experience most of these toys sell for between 50 to 100$. So, I did a very conservative proposal, and he refused even that, claiming again that 120$ is an appropriate and it should sell at this pricepoint (why propose a refund then ??).

    The only solution he offers now is to send these toys back to him probably at my own expenses to get a refund, claiming that if I am not satisfied with the toys, they have a return policy... He doesn't seem to understand that our case is not just a commercial disagreement but a legal infrigement that has far more serious implications.

    As a first action, I am considering keeping the toys when I will receive them, and give him a bad eval for his absolutely awful customer service. This would close the commercial disagreement. From a legal standpoint, things are not over, I am currently exploring the best way to proceed next, it is not easy because I am not in the USA, but I am paying for a legal protection insurance that can take over on such cases.

    But it is a different problem that does not concern the community, I was just warning people about this seller. To be fair, he seems very good when a transaction runs smoothly. However, when things go south, it becomes very difficult to solve an issue (even if he admits the issue !).

    Cheers !
     
    Last edited: Apr 26, 2018
  5. Blackout32

    Blackout32 ANTHRAX - PERSISTENCE OF TIME

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    I know what your saying. I was just explaining what trouble i had and i understood where your coming from. Plus typing an answer/reply isn't like talking to a person directly so one understands where one is coming from. That's really all i meant in saying my reply.
     
  6. Pilgrimfr

    Pilgrimfr Member

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    So, a follow-up on my issue with ebay seller oftimespast.

    As a reminder, here is the short version of the story so far : I purchased from this seller 3 toys (Japanese Gobots/Robo Machine) for a bit more than 120$ each without shipping. A few days after these toys were shipped, I noticed that my bids were inflated by some false bids done by a third person, a fact that was recognized as such by oftimespast, implicitely meaning that I most likely overpaid these items. Yet the seller didn't offer any satisfactory solution (A partial refund - even symbolic - would have been appreciated) except returning the items to him upon reception - at my own cost of course. It is amusing to note that the seller even tried to sell me, as overinflated second chance offers, those items won - but not paid - by the third party.

    Now the rest of the story : upon reception of the items (on the plus side, package was great, completely damage-proof), I checked the items, and found that one of them had yellowed plastics, probably as a result of being exposed to sunlight for a long period of time. The 2 other ones were pristine though, and I decided to keep them (I would have lost money anyway in the process of returning them).

    However, the yellowed toy was supposed to be mint, and it wasn't : so I asked for a return. As a professional seller, oftimespast should have offered free return shipping for a faulty item, something that has been confirmed by ebay. But the seller never replied to my requests about return shipping costs. As the the yellowed toy had no value in this shape, I decided to send it back for any refund I could get, and paid the return shipping costs with my own money.

    I have to mention that, at this point, the seller never replied to any of my messages regarding the details of the return, despite multiple attempts at contacting him. Very professional.

    Now the best part of the story : oftimespast received my items and did not make the refund until... the very last day he was allowed to do so (1 week post reception, no more, no less). I am still wondering if he forgot to do the refund or if he purposedly waited to the very last minute. Given the general behavior of this seller, I already made my own mind, though. And last but not the least, he only refund me the initial price of the toy, not the return shipping costs, as he should have.

    So to summarize : suspected shill bids ; attempt at milking a bit more his customer with inflated 2nd chance offers ; stopped communicating when solutions are needed ; 1/3 faulty item ; no post-sale service ; return at buyer's cost against ebay rules.

    Over 400 transactions on ebay, one of my two worst experiences was with this seller (the other one was with a chinese seller).

    To be completely honest, this seller has an outstanding ebay profile, and again its packing was great. It doesn't change the fact that, in case of problems, he does not assume its responsibilities as seller.

    I am sure that if a transaction goes without any problems, you will end up satisfied with him. However, my experience is that I ended up paying all the expenses related to his "mistakes" (and I wouldn't say fraud at this point, as it has never been proven, but again, I have made my own mind about it).

    This ends my transaction and relationship with this seller, just wanted to share my experience with the community.

    Regards,

    Pilgrim
     
  7. Pilgrimfr

    Pilgrimfr Member

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    Just a quick follow through : the seller - amazingly - managed to get rid of my negative evaluations for our "transaction", despite the fact they weren't against ebay rules (it was for the 2 item I kept : "Shill Bids, only solution provided : return at my own costs, poor communication". And for the yellowed item : "Shill bids, faulty item was returned at my own cost, poor communication"). Everything was in line with ebay rules (including the notion of "Shill bids" fitting ebay's own definition).

    So basically this thread is the only testimony to my problem with this seller.

    I am wondering how many negative feedbacks he is able to get removed, currently his pristine account doesn't reflect the entire reality of his business.

    Hope this could help someone in the future.