Postage Stamp Chat Board & Stamp Bulletin Board Forum
 

I think that is the default entry if you register on eBay.com (rather than eBay.co.uk) and do not enter a location.

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Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

These accounts were closed this morning. They now show Not A Regsitered User.

http://myworld.ebay.com/lao98_98
http://myworld.ebay.com/marys-finegems/

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=marys-gems&ftab=AllFeedback

marys-gems is now gone today from ebay. Along with "marys-finegems" and "lao98_98" - the latter two current selling accounts, had many 100s of lots of offer yesterday I am told, priced way into 5 figures at times.

It appears they sent a fake email to a group of stamp dealers yesterday, and had a hidden link to a rather disgusting porno video within it, urging the dealers to click it, saying it was about stamp faking.

Two large, prominent Australian stamp auction owners were personally named in the email as being the ones giving 'Mary' the rough treatment shown in the video.

The cartel probably thought it was wildly amusing, but many of the dealers receiving it did not it seems.

And one at least sent an outraged personal email to a member of top ebay brass in the USA he knew via a Church connection, copying in the email he'd received, to him.

Some ebay brass are very conservative souls it appears, and ebay being linked with hard core porn did not amuse either senior churchmen.

So oddly, it backfired incredibly badly, and these clowns literally banned themselves and their 3 biggest accounts in one hit, from ebay, by their childish actions.

Kind of bizarre really. And as I have that personal contact email now for ebay HQ top man, will keep it on hand in case I need to use it myself.

As posted earlier, using http://www.goofbay.com public records, "marys-gems" alone did £157,000 of LEGAL stamp sales via ebay in jut one 90 day period, and 'under the counter' sales many feel would likely be double that easily. Mostly for "Never Hinged" older stamps.

So ebay wiped a HUGE fee-earning Power Seller account here in "marys-gems", which can only occur with the OK from a super high level staffer usually.

The stamp dealer fraternity is a very close knit global community, and outsiders peeing on one, is peeing on all pretty much.

Not sure about their other dozen or so still active accounts? The fake email also helpfully annoyed someone enough to offer up the following account names at end of this post, from a person studying this group carefully, which was passed on to me - also stated to be all 105% connected to the Bristol UK Cartel of re-gummers etc.

Can folks please check if they are active, and report back here please. And if so, by all means report them to - http://www.ebay.com/scw - as being connected with the now long list of already banned accounts. Which include it seems -

golden-hoarde
golden_hoarde
mistatenpercent
mista-tenpercent
impact_2552
estampman12345
PhilatelicExpress
Emmastamps
westontreasure
6003406e82d1c895202e6f7bc3f405f7335876449
lao98_98
marys-finegems
marys-gems

Checking back old feedback to latter 2008 early 2009 seems to be when they often shilled each other's ebay lots actively. And proven Shill Bidding is crime number one on ebay.

Please keep an eye for when these apparently current accounts magically become active again, as is their tactic, selling all those "MUH" and "Never Hinged" stamps at super high prices.

2195p785641,
56188249,
79522aa56,
cookiestamps1947,
firstprime2010,
georga1954,
highgradestamps,
mayfieldstamps,
mista-ten-percernt,
rg1976_o,
s4884h22,
tassadar13,

Another one that was recently shilling was christoddd

http://feedback.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=christoddd&ftab=AllFeedback

They left feedback for a swag of marys-gems items recently, and have been keen bidders of late.

It's a very legitimate looking profile with a detailed "about me" page, high feedback of 471 and established in May 2003.

Gregbear. Looking at that member, my hunch is it is a real collector.

It does not have the usual hallmark of a name change to profile, the member says he is a Kiwi, and most recent purchases are collector style NZ - or Aust.

He has bought a lot of Marys-gems stuff, (but also a lot off Rubystamps) and this one alone below would have cost him 4 figures - a month back so he might be able to get a paypal refund if a real dealer checks the "NH" gum and disagrees, if he is sent this thread link to act fast.

==================

.-:*¨¨*:-.(¯`'-.¸ .-:*¨¨*:-. Fantastic eBayer .-:*¨¨*:-.¸.-'´Â¯).-:*¨¨*:-. Seller: Member id marys-gems (private)
No longer a registered user - Sale closed - 03-Feb-11 04:29
Australia SG 112 (Sc 101) 1929-30 10s OGNH (#200561650502) -- View Item Australia SG 112 (Sc 101) 1929-30 10s OGNH

It was also buying material a year ago from Marys-gems , and I contacted them then but no reply.

My first hunch was a geniune account too, but they have been keenly bidding and doing some buying from mary-gems. I have strong doubts about them anyway, one to keep an eye on just in case.

Geting the "Keystone Cops" after them might not help though...

A ban from eBay is little more than a speedbump for them, they can just turn around and set up a new account...

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

Quite possibly not a shill.

This is exactly the type of collector "Mary" loved to hook, someone who would bid and buy lots believing the spiel about the stamps being MUH, and it won't be until years later when it comes to sell that they discover they way way overpaid for likely regums.

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

I purchased a 6d 2nd MNH from marys-gems mid 2010. The back scan looked fine to me, the gum behaving appropriately at the perf edges. On arrival it was indeed original gum never hinged, problem was it had a single tone spot on gum not present on their eBay scan. The image had been doctored.

The subsequent process to get a refund was needlessly painful and so I left negative feedback, only the second time I've done that over 1000s of transactions. A few months later I list a Bill Ward (ex Black Sabbath) CD, which was won by bidder Lao98_98. Now I didn't know the link between these two eBay identities at the time. Lao98_98 left spurious negative feedback upon receipt and returned the CD (as he would, since he had no interest in it).

So, in addition to their other behavior, these folks hold a grudge and act on it. Note that marys-gems final feedback of 99.8 reflected the one negative that ever stuck to them, which was mine. I understand they've had other negatives that subsequently disappear. The trick is to avoid saying anything threatening, libelous or unprovable. That way their lawyers can't muscle eBay into removing the negative.

It wasn't until eBay debited my PayPal account today to pay back Lao98_98 (already de-registered!) that I noticed the trading name of keystone philatelics which raised my suspicions and led me to this thread.

I've contacted eBay rather miffed that such petty retribution could pass through PayPal dispute resolution without them making the obvious links. Interested to hear what they have to say about the whole matter.

This has been a fascinating thread to read.

It would be really good to have a "sticky" or "pinned" thread for all the known con artists and shill bidders as it's far more likely to get noticed and read, which in turn provides more sets of eyes on ebay spotting them when they surface.

I only noticed this thread by reading another thread, which had a link to Glen's newsletter, which in turn had a link to this thread!

When I do buy some serious stamps it wont be from ebay that's for sure, and it will almost certainly be from traders on this site or the one Oz dealer I've met here in South London.

Toby

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Collecting used world stamps to 1920, m/m and used Australia upto 2013 and used Australia State stamps.

Steve Irwin?

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Always on the lookout for Australian pre decimal First Day Covers.

That's the one! seems a good friendly bloke.

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Collecting used world stamps to 1920, m/m and used Australia upto 2013 and used Australia State stamps.

HAHAHAHAHAH

Hi All
Surfing ebay today, came across a Brand new eBay user, leman800 .... thoughts anyone?

(at) chos

In some of his sales he's asking for more money than the SG price that he's helpfully put.
One example: The "Rhodesia 1913-22 SG206 UMM Cat £40"
He's asking £50 for it....

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Collecting used world stamps to 1920, m/m and used Australia upto 2013 and used Australia State stamps.

...also known as Regums-R-Us.

With over 20% of the listings showing as UMM, you cannot help but be deeply suspicious, particularly when you qualify your listings with "Please remember we are all human and prone to error. I do not intentionally deceive..." !!

No question whatever in my mind new member leman80 is the Bristol Cartel.

600 high price listings from a new seller with 11 feedbacks? Most of which marys-gems had listed a month back before being banned by ebay.

For $4000s, $5000s and $6000s for "Never Hinged" material 100+ years back. Re-gums for sure IMHO -

http://stores.ebay.com/leman800/_i.html ... 34.c0.m322

Hopefully a number of folks will report theese very likely pricey regums to http://www.ebay.com/scw - (which has spaces for 10,000 characters) for not complying with ebay's clear rules that stamp alterations must be noted as such, and marked as such.

It wiill save many collectors many $1000s.

And suggesting ebay check their IP and paypal info against these other accounts they have had on ebay - most now banned for shill bidding and duplicate handles, and member complaints etc.

golden-hoarde,
golden_hoarde,
mistatenpercent,
mista-tenpercent,
impact_2552,
estampman12345,
PhilatelicExpress,
Emmastamps,
westontreasure,
6003406e82d1c895202e6f7bc3f405f7335876449,
lao98_98,
marys-finegems,
marys-gems,
2195p785641,
56188249,
79522aa56,
cookiestamps1947,
firstprime2010,
georga1954,
highgradestamps,
mayfieldstamps,
mista-ten-percernt,
rg1976_o,
s4884h22,
tassadar13,

Just about had enough of this seller and was going to call police when I saw this article

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -plot.html

Briefly as follows:-

The Merseyside police officers, from the force's Matrix unit, have been suspended from duty on suspicion of "misconduct in public office and theft".

The officers, who have not been named, were questioned earlier this month after a tip off last year that goods taken during police raids were being sold on the auction website.

The trio, aged 36, 37 and 43, are now the subject of an internal investigation being conducted by the force's Professional Standards Unit.

Sources said the inquiry centred on claims "valuables" were found to have vanished from houses after they were raided by police teams amid speculation these included "portable electrical" goods such as iPods, mobile phones and laptop computers.

A "covert" investigation undertaken over several months led detectives to a profile on eBay selling the stolen item that led to one of the officers. It remains unclear how the other two officers are implicated in the alleged plot.

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Long interest in stamps from Great Britain. Avid collector always after good pre 1930 lots

Huh?

Attempt at good old fashioned British sarcasm Glen. In that we can't expect ebay or the UK "authorities" to be too bothered about a few dodgy stamps if the British cops are filling their boots too selling a bit of knocked off gear on the site

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Long interest in stamps from Great Britain. Avid collector always after good pre 1930 lots

Well, I guess 3 bad apples means the whole force is rotten to the core?

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Nice new offices Mary, saves a Bristol girl actually having to travel to Brum. Those nice people at Arion even forward your mail from the "virtual office"

http://www.arion-offices.com/Serviced-O ... ingham.php


A Virtual Office is a combination of a mailing address and telephone answering service, your business can portray you as being in a professional business centre without actually being their. We receive post on your behalf and store until you can arrange collection, alternatively the post can be forwarded to an address of your choice.

So professional they can't even spell correctly on their web site

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Long interest in stamps from Great Britain. Avid collector always after good pre 1930 lots

Leman800 is almost certainly Marys-gems.

I bid for some of the former's items but when I tried to re-bid (after being out-bid on a few of the items) I found I was blocked from bidding.

The only person who would have blocked me was Marys-gems because I gave her/him a negative rating (which suddenly disappeared, don't ask me why!).

I was successful with some of my bids, placed before the block, and I have paid for them. I now await to see whether the stamps arrive.

The 600 leman80 sales just completed, with luckily, precious few sales -

http://completed.shop.ebay.com/leman800 ... p=16&_sc=1

However the IQ of some of the buyers really is mind blowing.

What kind of nut would pay leman80 full SG cat for this allegedly "U/M" 1d which is allegedly "Rosine". Apart from the spurious looking hand written note - WHO says it is "Rosine" SG 196, cat £500 - and not the far more likely SG 195 "Rose Red" - cat £10?

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rhodesia-1913-22-SG ... 1c1a7a1ad1



This alleged "U/M" 4d SG 245 got full SG of £1095 -- and the dopey note says "very rare". No scan of the reverse, so a total "Hail Mary" buy.



http://cgi.ebay.com/Rhodesia-1913-22-SG ... 1c1a7a2786

And this leman80 alleged "U/M" 1898 Falklands SG 42 got well ABOVE full Gibbons despite no scan of reverse and despite all kinds of regum hairs it looks to me along top and both top sides. Top right corner especially.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Falkland-Islands-18 ... 1c1a6ae78b



Hopefully when leman80 feedback from the Bunny Buyers shows up for all these 100+ year old "Pristine MUH top values, mystery ebayers will discreetly give them the link to this thread so they can hopefully ask for a refund for their "bargain".

Maybe the Cartel will offer them one of their in-house "PES Certificates" to keep them sweet?.

For the record here is the alleged ID of the seller - taken off the completed listings -

leman800

Lukaz Lemanski
Arion Business Centre
118 High Street
Erdington
West Midlands
B23 6BG
United Kingdom Phone: 07966720132

===============


If any member has time - please take a clear photo capture of some of these lots, and note the lot number, and date offered.

When this handle gets NARU - and they always do it seems, - having Lot number proof and photos of lots submitted by a banned member, by their new handle of the day, is then sudden death.

NOW is the time to grab some data on these folks, and keep it stored away.

If any member has time - please take a clear capture of some of these lots.

When this handle gets NURU - and they always do - having proof of lots submitted by a banned member is also sudden death.

The "never hinged" Falkland high values that weren't sold by leman80 have now all been relisted from 9689bruno.

However in the time that it has taken me to start writing this, they have been changed to a private listing.

Here's one from my cache:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0735835920

Michael

Well spotted Michael - looky here 250 lots of goodies for a 5 feedback newbie 9689bruno, and guess what LOTS of 100 year old "UNMOUNTED" goodies -

The highest price one being Private Feedback Rhodesia Admiral - a SURE sign it is regummed, and they do not want bunny buyer contacted -

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/9689bruno/m.html?_trkparms=65%253A12%257C66%253A2%257C39%253A1%257C72%253A5013&rt=nc&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14&_sop=16&_sc=1

....

And this "UM" Admiral on left has the SAME pencil handwriting as on all the others (or right) 2 posts above from leman80 - clearly the same person, and part of the Bristol Cartel

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1913-22-SG214-C-V-192-Rhodesia-NH-/270736082141

Get those reports in folks.

My email is on its way to the eBay law enforcement section.

Let's see what happens. One thing is for sure, this syndicate is persistant.

Looks like all lots have been removed.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

It's a never ending hunt

What amazes me about these crooks is how they obtain a few favourable feedbacks before they have made their first sale - usually from buyers who have many successful bids under their belt.

The buyers who give these feedbacks have to be watched carefully as they may be part of the syndicate, I feel.

A fast way to build up feedback on a new account is to shill-bid on your own items and post glowing feedback. Bidders who don't know any better will take it at face value "hey this person has made a few sales to a few people and got good feedback, so sure I'll plonk down $100's".

Stamps worth a thousand quid from a seller with feedback of 5? How do people get taken in by this? Do bidders think they've 'stumbled across a bargain'?

Great work connecting the dots on these eBayers!

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

Simple, they just spend an hour buying 100 lots like this for 15p apiece -

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290552702457

For $100 you can add over 100 feedbacks in an hour.

His feedbacks have came from cheap "padding" buys like this.

Then listing 300 lots of Century old "unmounted mint" material costing $1000s each is pretty transparent.

What further amazes me is that the stamps they offer are mostly very valuable even in mounted mint condition.

Where do they source these very difficult to find stamps in the quantities they seem to have?

That they are willing to risk re-gumming such scarce stamps, with the risk of possible damage, also beats me.

Most Australian Roos sell for THREE times more "unmounted" than hinged.

As 99% of Roos are hinged (gee fancy that for stamps near 100 years old) finding hinged copies is not hard, as 99% of collections are hinged, exactly as one would expect.

Spending $100,000 and getting $300,000 back, less a few $1000 regum cost is a fairly decent profit margin. Better money than drug dealing or prostitution, and far less risk from the law.

What "risk of possible damage" is there when someone sprays the back of a hinged stamp with an air brush loaded with a mist of matching glue?

At WORST it will look less hinged than it started.

At BEST it will fool the clueless ebay bunnies it is "MUH".

Seems pretty low risk to me.

Well, they have a bit of inventory they have to dispose of I guess.

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Peter
Hawthorn - AFL Premiers 1961, 1971, 1976, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 2008.

Marys Gems New website
http://www.stampandcoinsales.com/default.asp

Listing like this


1902 1 ½d SG M8(2) UMM.
Cat £90

http://www.stampandcoinsales.com/GB_Edw ... 100749.htm







Maybe too much fermented yaks milk when listing this one Mary? You could send it for one of your dodgy certs or check out the Edward thread where all becomes clear!

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Long interest in stamps from Great Britain. Avid collector always after good pre 1930 lots

This lot is barely worth 10% of the £3500 asking price.

http://www.stampandcoinsales.com/South_Australia_Mint_Stock_p/collection-s.aus%20on%20w.e.lea.htm

The more I read about this cartel the more convinced I am that it's large scale money laundering. Nobody would pay these prices...

Not sure about another UK seller grantstamps.

An eBay member since 19 March 2011 with 55 feedback for a bunch of "rubbish" lots, who has suddenly found a bunch of MUH classics to sell.

I am on the road with limited computer access but the link to his list is:

http://shop.ebay.com.au/grantstamps/m.h ... 4340.l2562

The lots finish in 3 hrs, so maybe someone else can have a look and take a screen shot?

Cheers

Bill

Well spotted Lakatoi Lover.

Weeks of selling junk at 99c a lot to build up feedback, and suddenly "grantstamps" has a decent batch of up to 130 year old "UMM" gems - and the dopes are of course bidding on them as can be seen -

http://completed.shop.ebay.com.au/grant ... 283&_rdc=1

"9689bruno" and "leman800" both had all their ebay lots wiped for being connected with the conga line of UK sellers, so please report it to ebay ASAP on the special forged/regummed stamps link - http://www.ebay.com/scw - as being inter-connected with this bunch of cons - most of whom are now banned from ebay -

golden-hoarde,
golden_hoarde,
mistatenpercent,
mista-tenpercent,
impact_2552,
estampman12345,
PhilatelicExpress,
Emmastamps,
westontreasure,
6003406e82d1c895202e6f7bc3f405f7335876449,
lao98_98,
marys-finegems,
marys-gems,
2195p785641,
56188249,
79522aa56,
cookiestamps1947,
firstprime2010,
georga1954,
highgradestamps,
mayfieldstamps,
mista-ten-percernt,
rg1976_o,
s4884h22,
tassadar13,
9689bruno,
leman800,
grantstamps,
kingswaysales,

Reported on the Virtual Stamp Club, another eBay seller NARU'd as part of the Cartel:

"Kingswayssales: one of our regular board readers that he suspected this seller was a Cartel member based on a stamp he recognized, I am pleased to report that eBay acted swiftly to NARU them! Special thanks also goes to the fellow who actually sent the report to ebay."
http://myworld.ebay.com/kingswaysales

_________________
Ian Billings - Norvic Philatelics GB stamps info: http://www.norphil.co.uk - also /catalog for our ecommerce site, blog.norphil.co.uk, shop.norphil.co.uk and Ian_norvic on twitter

leman800 was banned today - http://tinyurl.com/leman800 - the link just given here shows the page of 100 year old "MUH" stamps the Bunnies have cheerfully purchased - sad

'9689bruno' and 'grantstamps' are recent and both stated to be connected to the Cartel. I've reported both today - others please do so too -- a dozen reports on these accounts seems to get the job done.

My stamps from lemon800 arrived and all were ok.however, I only purchased mounted mint items.

Not sure if that was an intentional typo doubleheads putting him as a lemon as opposed to leman but quite appropriate.


A quick search on user i.d's produces a few too many leman followed by a number , all with low feedback. What price these are dormant accounts about to become active? You really would think eBay would do more to ban people permanently rather than just reacting to member complaints or is this saga to run and run ?

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Long interest in stamps from Great Britain. Avid collector always after good pre 1930 lots

The Americans over here report both these accounts are now banned this week. Global vigilance pays off.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/csc/graceysstall822012/m.html?rt=nc&LH_Complete=1&_fln=1&_ipg=25&_trksid=p3911.c0.m283

graceysstall822012 has offered the totally fake cancel Gandhi "FDC" TWICE recently as can be seen.

And high value KGV Cyprus etc, almost certainly regummed.

"Private Auctions" of course - a near sure sign they have something to hide.

Has the "smell" of the Mary's Gems Bristol outfit to me - how about others?

Any one else think our old friend Mary may be back? AKA air-mail born out of andy9741 a month ago

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/180874818809? ... 1438.l2649


This SG 212 £1 green unmounted mint Few natural wrinkles

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Long interest in stamps from Great Britain. Avid collector always after good pre 1930 lots

I just came across this post and freaked out, then realized that it wasn't me
My feebay name is grants-stamps. Way to close for comfort.

Grant

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Some things get better with practice,except for getting up each morning.