Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2012 11:48:20 GMT -8
There is a person on ebay at the moment selling nice goliathus (not mentioning any names, but i'll call him quad 1), His bids go really high. Another person from the same country has a large goliathus for sale on ebay at the moment (i'll call him quad 2). I noticed on quad 2's feedback that he had already sold the goliathus to Quad 1 for a large amount and feedback had been left for the sale of the item.
I sent a message to Quad 2 asking why he still had the goliathus for sale, when he left feedback saying thankyou to Quad 1 for the quick payment. The reply i got back from Quad 2 ON EBAY MESSAGES was, "he's my friend and bid it up for me, this is usual, no?"
hahahahaha.
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Post by suzuki on Dec 13, 2012 17:14:38 GMT -8
With friends like that he will go far but not financially!
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Post by Borja Gómez on Dec 14, 2012 5:53:49 GMT -8
Hello
Are those sellers from France? I usualy watch the goliathus on ebay because I sell some eventually and like to know how are they going on the market, but recently I've seen too some really expensive specimens for sale, like a big quadrimaculatus starting at 1200$ I was wacthing those, but suddendly I can't find them.
Regards
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Post by thanos on Dec 14, 2012 16:31:30 GMT -8
The seller from France who was offering recently the big 97 mm G. goliatus f. quadrimaculatus of the 1200 usd (btw a ridiculously high amount for not a so rare insect, even if the quality is very good) is no longer a registered user, and all his last listings seems that were cancelled. Who knows why.
Btw, however I haven't bought something from him, I recently sent him a message about some beetles he was offering on ebay and I was interested in, and I have to say his response was prompt.
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ckswank
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Posts: 239
Country: USA
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Post by ckswank on Dec 14, 2012 18:20:18 GMT -8
stringer - May be common, but definitely against Ebay policy. You get kicked off if Ebay finds out and all it takes is one disgruntled buyer to report them.
Charlie
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Post by nosorog on Dec 14, 2012 20:47:20 GMT -8
stringer - May be common, but definitely against Ebay policy. You get kicked off if Ebay finds out and all it takes is one disgruntled buyer to report them. Charlie Not true. It's in ebay interest not to notice shillers. Ebay gets more money this way and that's what they care about. I've reported obvious shilling (100% of bidding activity with that particular seller; lots of incremental bids; bid retractions and cancelled purchases in case of winning) several times already and nothing was done. |
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Post by thanos on Dec 14, 2012 21:45:19 GMT -8
This kind of bidding is of course dishonest and unfair. I didn't know that this particular seller was doing this..It's a pitty cause he had some really nice specimens on ebay. But after this, I don't think that I will bid on his listings. Thanks for the info.
As if was not enough the massive dishonesty of Africans, it seems that we are now threatened also from cheating activities of non Africans concerning Goliathus....and all this makes it even more difficult for a Goliathus collector to aquire good specimens at fair prices. These insects are not rare (most of the known 'very rare' forms are actually normal in terms of rarity/hardness to find in nature, and the normal specimens of each species are really common to very common -just all want to get the biggest and in the best quality, but even such fine big Goliathus specimens (even of f. quadrimaculatus) are much more easy to find in nature than other beetles), but not honest people have made it quite difficult to get them (best would be to go to Africa and collect them from their habitats, someone would have found many nice specimens, but this is not possible for many collectors for lots of different reasons).
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 15, 2012 0:38:43 GMT -8
The thing is, you can buy direct large quads for 100 euros each. If you can't make a profit from a 90+ G. Quadrimaculatus@ 100 euros there's something wrong. I placed a single bid of €450 on one of his goliathus and got outbid. Within 5 minutes of the auction ending I got a second chance offer? He would have been better putting a buy now price on the items.
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Post by thanos on Dec 15, 2012 2:05:32 GMT -8
Yes, it was possible for someone to buy a big quadrimaculatus mainly from honest dealers' sites out of ebay, a couple of years ago, for around 100 euro or so (that was a fair price). But it seems that it's not possible anymore. I check the best sites for Goliathus regularly, and some of them don't have any more good specimens to offer (after the first good specimens were readily sold at fair prices), and others do have good big specimens of most forms and species, but the prices are too high (not like in the past few years). Also, on ebay, in addition to the fact that good Goliathus males are very wanted from anyone and there is almost always a bidding war over them which increases the price to high levels (higher than their general market price out of ebay in many cases), there are also sellers like that one from France doing this sad thing...
'Within 5 minutes of the auction ending I got a second chance offer?'
- Hmm, really very suspicious.
'He would have been better putting a buy now price on the items.'
- I think he thought that if he was putting those crazy amounts as buy it now prices for each of his big males, probably noone would have bought them/very few would have been sold..So he thought (as it seems that he knows the psychology of a bidder on a good Goliathus male who likes the low starting price and hopes to get a good deal, but also likes too much the specimen and doesn't want to miss it, so he will bid again if outbid..) that it's much better to start almost all his Goliathus at 0.99 (except for the 97 mm quadrimaculatus which he started at the super crazy 1200 usd, as he saw that people -including himself/his friends- bid on his earlier smaller 94 mm one for up to around 500 usd), trying to reach his favourable very high sale price by bidding himself on his own items/putting friends to bid for him, so the interested collectors to see that his items are very wanted..and to bid crazy amounts in order not to miss them..., psychologically affected...And in case that this seller (from another account) wins his own items/friends of him win it, then he sends second chance offers to the real bidders-collectors, getting a crazy sale price.. And he tries to hide this activity, by having set all his listings as private, so that a buyer not to be able to check the feedback number of the other bidders and to suspect him or his friends (if this is being done systematically) or to check the feedback of his account(s)/his friends' accounts for 'double sold' specimens (this way also he gains more positive feedback for free..)...Of course it's not bad if someone has chosen to use private listings, but in cases like this, one of the disadvantages is that this 'covers' dishonest sellers who do this kind of cheating-bidding..
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Post by thanos on Dec 15, 2012 3:27:47 GMT -8
lb29200 and rb4429 ------> both no longer registered users.....both from France...., both left many positive feedback comments to each other !!  Tragic ! |
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Post by wollastoni on Dec 15, 2012 5:03:08 GMT -8
Anyone knows their name ? One thing I don't understand : by acting this way, don't he pay twice ebay's crazy 15% fees  Must not be really profitable. |
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Post by africaone on Dec 15, 2012 10:53:09 GMT -8
isn't such post for the "trading report "  |
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Post by thanos on Dec 15, 2012 22:38:18 GMT -8
'One thing I don't understand : by acting this way, don't he pay twice ebay's crazy 15% fees Must not be really profitable.' - Maybe he cancels those transactions where he has won his own items -or where his friends won them- (I don't know if in this case ebay returns the fees ), or maybe the profit from the crazy prices he gets is so big, that he doesn't mind paying double fees.. Personally don't know his full name -otherwise I certainly would have pointed it out here- , as I never bought something from him, however in the response I got from him recently when I sent him a message regarding the beetles he was offering in which I was interested, he wrote his first name as 'Loic'. But I'm sure (checking the buyers' ebay ID's from his feedback) that members from this website have got stuff from him and know his full name/address. They should point it here. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2012 1:44:09 GMT -8
I have just been offered some quadrimaculatus from a collector in cameroon for 45 euros @65mm. Even at such a small specimen i believe that collectors would buy them and still there would be a profit to be made. Would cameroon be a safe place to visit to buy direct? I know that many african countries can be dangerous and it would be better to travel with several people.
regards
peter
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Post by lepidofrance on Dec 16, 2012 3:13:58 GMT -8
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Must not be really profitable.
