#ebay scam

[jadeazora]

So, I ordered the Planet X Deathsaurus costing $200 from a Chinese seller on eBay, who (at the time), had pretty much a 100% feedback rating over a solid period of time. But, nope, this month they apparently started shipping Lego minifigs. 11 angry reviews and counting.

(I was originally gonna go with an American seller who had the figure for $205, but someone else beat me to the punch.)

Edit: Someone in one of my TF groups I'm in correctly guessed the seller and said they were a good seller who just went rogue recently. So I must have bought from him just as he went off. What kind of crappy luck is that.

Also, I've decided that, once I get the figure from the company that actually puts them out, the minifig is going into Deathsaurus's mouth (since he transforms into a dragon), as tho he's going to be eaten or crisy-crittered. I feel it's the next most reasonable step.

[thinning0perfection]

Go watch my videooooo plzzz

[marzipanandminutiae]

BUYER BEWARE: eBay seller riaerica2000

This Bulgarian seller is well-known in the militaria community; they’ve been called out before for selling replica WWI and WWII pocket watches and medals as genuine antiques. But their scamming has apparently extended to general antique jewelry, and I’m not seeing any warnings about them on that score.

I purchased a pair of vermeil (gold over silver) garnet earrings from them that were listed as an authentic 19th-century set. But when I sent photos to a professional antique jewelry dealer I know to gush about how awesome they were, she informed me that they were reproductions. I did some looking into the hook style and found that it never appeared on antique pieces, only modern ones. Replacing hooks on antique earrings is common, but the garnets themselves were also a different cut in a different setting than 95% of Victorian pieces in that style. On top of that, skulls with garnet eyes dangled from the garnet flower elements, a design that was vanishingly rare in the 19th century. And when I went through the seller’s listings I found, among other things, pocket watches with Baphomet designs being listed as antique “occultist’s watches.” I thought I’d gotten a great deal on rare pieces, but it seemed more likely that I was being scammed.

I cancelled the order, and to their credit, the seller refunded my money right away, no questions asked. Still, I was incredibly lucky; I hadn’t bid on something extortionately priced (the earrings were about $170, a normal price for actual Victorian garnet earrings of that type in my experience) and I had a friend who could catch my mistakes. Others might not be so fortunate. So I’m putting this out there to keep anyone from falling into an expensive trap.

Be careful out there!

[kylo-ren-is-alive]

There have been some auctions up on eBay trying to sell slots for the ep IX panel at Celebration. These are either outright scams or, if real, they cannot be transferred! So, please don't bid on these!

[thetrinketgal-collection]

Warning about buying Q Posket figures online!

The lovely @briar-beauty-eah has recently brought to my attention that suspicious pre-orders for the recently announced Q Posket Petit figures are popping in eBay:

“I found Maleficent for $31.34 and Aurora for $47.49 on eBay.”

As I told her, these prices are too high for Q Posket Petit.

Q Posket (14cm) are usually 30-40€ (non-Disney characters can sometimes be cheaper, but we are talking about Disney right now).

Q Posket Petit (7cm) are usually about 15-20€ each - nowhere close to 50 freaking dollars!

Besides the crazy prices, another red flag is that what we saw so far is not even an official announcement, but prototypes in a toy/prize fair. Preorders open several months before the figures are actually available in Japanese arcades, but so far I’ve heard nothing about official preorders for any Disney Q Posket Petit after Set 4, and I am usually as up to date as it is humanly possible when it comes to Q Posket preorders. The aforementioned Set 4 will be released in September, if I’m not mistaken. These should come later.

So in a nutshell:

Beware of preorders of items with not even an official release date!

Beware of unreleased items selling for a price too high in comparison with the usual price for its brand, rareness, etc. Make your research!

And another important question from @briar-beauty-eah:

“Should I be weary of them being fake? And should I wait until they are officially released to buy them?”

According to my personal experience, the most important thing is for you to buy Q Posket from a reliable shop, the kind that never, ever sells bootlegs; mostly, because their boxes have no window, so telling apart the real thing from bootlegs is complicated; there are authenticity stickers (sometimes), but the moment the box is copied, you are fucked unless your source is 100% reliable.

I usually pre-order them, but I’ve bought the Sailor Moon 14cm ones long after their release with no problems.

If you have the chance to pre-order, I say do it!

If you are interested in older releases... Well, none of my Disney Q Poskets so far had authenticity stickers, but they look exactly like the ones in photos from Japanese arcades in their releases, arrived at the right date in relation to their release in Japan, and come from a reliable shop. So it is complicated, to say the least.

I hope this was useful! If anyone read the whole thing, wow, thank you!

[frc-ambaradan]

I'll never stop my personal crusade against these idiots 😖

We're talking about a free, FREE!!!, special edition!

And this ma'am here:

"68 sold". 68?!?!? Are you telling me you've ransacked Rome to get at least 70 free copies to sell them on ebay for 20€???

Even 10€ can be considered thievery, even more so if we consider it's the Pope we're talking about. Especially when all you need to do is to ask L'Osservatore Romano for a back copy and they only ask you to provide for the shipping cost!!! 🤦

Pls don't feed these idiots. Support the publisher.

[delcat177]

All kinds of "haunted" items are sold on eBay every day, but in less rampant abandon than the unregulated 00s. I distinctly remember a listing of $300 for a rubber ducky that was exactly the same make and model as my own, but supposedly superheated the bathwater of a child to boiling when it splashed down, something that did not keep the poor mother from selling the article, albeit in a plastic Tupperware container to keep the buyer from falling ill.

When are we gonna get THAT iteration of The Conjuring/Annabelle/The Remaining Warrens Appreciate Your Money Vehicle

[shinystarfishpenguin]

I finally like, actually tried playing the SNES Mini that I bought like six months ago and

It's a bootleg

Like I bought it on EBay because ofc it was sold out everywhere. So I even payed a surcharge on top of it.

But I realized yesterday that the menu didn't seem right so I looked up a vid and the menu looked really different. Like obviously they tried to emulate what the real one looked like but it wasn't the same.

So this morning I finally do my other test because frankly, if it played the games fine and saved I'd still be frustrated, but it'd be fine I guess.

And...the console doesn't hold saves. And when the two main games I bought it for were Earthbound and Final Fantasy VI, two long form Rpgs...thats kind of a problem.

So I don't know what I'm supposed to do with it now? Like I can't in good conscience sell it off to someone else, and if I advertise it as a bootleg like the post would probably be taken down for IP theft even though I didn't make the bootleg.

So at this point I'll probably just keep it on the entertainment stand because it looks legit at least, and it's nice to look at. Steam is getting a good FFVI port soon, and I guess I'll just have to buy a 2ds for Earthbound again. Maybe someday I'll try again to get a legit SNES Mini, but for now I'm really bummed. I should have done my research, and I didn't, so its on me.