legitimate fake autographs and a sticky situation

let me explain...

As an Ebayer and collector, I look for hand signed in person good
signatures. However, I came upon an auction that was described as:

"Set of 8 Black & White photos signed by the Star Wars Weekends
Celebrities."

I discovered this auction with less than 24 hours left and emailed the
seller with a question and no answer... but with less than 24 hours to
go, not much to be done and I bid going on faith the description was
accurate.

After the auction but before I paid, I sent a few emails to the seller
asking again.... I kept getting back one line emails. Here's an
example of what I wrote and the response:

Me: "Did you get these items in person?"

Response email: In answer to your first question, I live only 20
minutes from the parks and go each year as I am also a Star Wars fan.*

Vague and they didn't answer my question so I re-emailed asking if
they saw the celebrity sign the photo as I remembered when I was there
this year, an hour before the free signings, they were giving out
autopens. I got back this email: I already answered your question.

At this point, I went into a longer email, explaining the fine points
of autopens, preprints and seeing the item signed with a writing
instrument in person etc.... I get back this email: "So that's what
they're called."

At this point I am not paying for the item. They said fine, I don't
have to pay and they'll relist the item properly, but that they will
notify Ebay I am a non paying bidder and get credit. I say screw
that, you misrepresented the item and you should suck it up. By
saying Set of 8 Black & White photos signed by the Star Wars Weekends
Celebrities." It implied to me that the celebrity signed it and not a
machine. Easy to tell is something if forged on an auction, but a
legitimate sig that's a preprint or autopen is impossible to tell
unless you have comparisons in front of you....
Am I being picky? But the lesson here for all of us is this one
thing:

When asking questions, BE VERY SPECIFIC. Don't say "was this obtained
in person?:, Because an autopen can indeed be obtained "in person".
Instead, say did you see the celebrity put a writing implement in
their hands and sign this photo that you are selling? Lesson learned
and I hope this helps others!!!!!!!

Dahoov2 wrote:

I discovered this auction with less than 24 hours left and emailed the
seller with a question and no answer... but with less than 24 hours to
go, not much to be done and I bid going on faith the description was
accurate.

That was your first mistake.

After the auction but before I paid, I sent a few emails to the seller
asking again.... I kept getting back one line emails. Here's an
example of what I wrote and the response:

Me: "Did you get these items in person?"

Response email: In answer to your first question, I live only 20
minutes from the parks and go each year as I am also a Star Wars fan.

Vague and they didn't answer my question so I re-emailed asking if
they saw the celebrity sign the photo as I remembered when I was there
this year, an hour before the free signings, they were giving out
autopens. I got back this email: I already answered your question.

These are questions that you should have gotten answers to BEFORE you
bid. Not after. If you didn't get a reply before the auction closed,
you should have never bid in the first place.

At this point, I went into a longer email, explaining the fine points
of autopens, preprints and seeing the item signed with a writing
instrument in person etc.... I get back this email: "So that's what
they're called."

Maybe he didn't know that. Maybe he thought they were actually signed.
Not everyone is an autograph expert. Its not like he's listing 200
autographs a day on Ebay. You've seen all the reports on stararchive of
people getting photos from SFM and saying they're 100% sure its a legit
sig.

At this point I am not paying for the item.

Yet, you took the scans for your site? Weren't you the one bitching a
few weeks ago about someone stealing images from your site?

For someone who prides herself on her "research" capabilities, you sure
didn't do too much research into these before you bought them (even
though you had less that 24 hours). I took me a whopping 5 minutes to
find other scans of these photos using Yahoo. All of the scans I saw
had the signatures in the exact same place and the ones you bid on.

When asking questions, BE VERY SPECIFIC.

And, wait for an answer before you bid. The fact is that you, of all
people, should have KNOWN exactly what these were when you bid on them.
Its that simple.

Ok, no comments on this as we all know this is the same person who is
concerned about my site and goes there daily.... so worried about me
after all these years. Get a life.

On 14 Aug 2003 08:43:13 -0500, Buyers Remorse buyers@remorse. wrote:

Dahoov2 wrote:

I discovered this auction with less than 24 hours left and emailed the
seller with a question and no answer... but with less than 24 hours to
go, not much to be done and I bid going on faith the description was
accurate.

That was your first mistake.

After the auction but before I paid, I sent a few emails to the seller
asking again.... I kept getting back one line emails. Here's an
example of what I wrote and the response:

Me: "Did you get these items in person?"

Response email: In answer to your first question, I live only 20
minutes from the parks and go each year as I am also a Star Wars fan.

Vague and they didn't answer my question so I re-emailed asking if
they saw the celebrity sign the photo as I remembered when I was there
this year, an hour before the free signings, they were giving out
autopens. I got back this email: I already answered your question.

These are questions that you should have gotten answers to BEFORE you
bid. Not after. If you didn't get a reply before the auction closed,
you should have never bid in the first place.

At this point, I went into a longer email, explaining the fine points
of autopens, preprints and seeing the item signed with a writing
instrument in person etc.... I get back this email: "So that's what
they're called."

Maybe he didn't know that. Maybe he thought they were actually signed.
Not everyone is an autograph expert. Its not like he's listing 200
autographs a day on Ebay. You've seen all the reports on stararchive of
people getting photos from SFM and saying they're 100% sure its a legit
sig.

At this point I am not paying for the item.

Yet, you took the scans for your site? Weren't you the one bitching a
few weeks ago about someone stealing images from your site?

For someone who prides herself on her "research" capabilities, you sure
didn't do too much research into these before you bought them (even
though you had less that 24 hours). I took me a whopping 5 minutes to
find other scans of these photos using Yahoo. All of the scans I saw
had the signatures in the exact same place and the ones you bid on.

When asking questions, BE VERY SPECIFIC.

And, wait for an answer before you bid. The fact is that you, of all
people, should have KNOWN exactly what these were when you bid on them.
Its that simple.

The newsgroup is a place you can vent like Sue did but its not a place to
flame!

Why not? If you see something wrong, you should be able to point it out. I
believe that goes back to some old fashion thing called "Freedom of Speech"?

People instead of debating morals and ethics of ebayers that suck (no pun
inteadnded) we need to just say sorry that happend and end the disscussion!

This is a scary statement right here.

Is Clinton still in office? I bet you voted for him with this type of logic.

Yea, let's just sit back and do nothing.

Sitting on my fat carcus as we speak,
The Coach

Why should they eat the fees? Because the seller should know what
they're selling before they sell it! And no, they had time to answer
my email and chose not to, listed it wrong and though by accident
maybe, should not post an item they are not sure about. Accurate
descriptions are needed. I think all of us here would be kind and
agree to that.


On 14 Aug 2003 17:11:55 GMT, (GraphRackr) wrote:

but with less than 24 hours to
go, not much to be done and I bid going on faith the description was
accurate.

You shouldn't have bid on the item before getting the answer you were looking
for, item misprepresented or not. You jumped the gun.

At this point I am not paying for the item. They said fine, I don't
have to pay and they'll relist the item properly, but that they will
notify Ebay I am a non paying bidder and get credit. I say screw
that, you misrepresented the item and you should suck it up.


You bid on their item on your own, they didn't ask you to. Why should they
have to eat the fees because you bid and no longer want it? If you are
entitled to back out of the deal, they are entitled to get their fees back, OR
you should offer to pay for their fees, so they don't have to file a non paying
bidder alert against you. You're lucky they don't give you a negative feedback
as well.

Suck it up, offer to pay their fees in lieu of a NPBA, and chalk this one up
as a lesson learned.

Kevin

I am the one here who posted this with the intention of helping
others here. I thought my experience and the advice to "be very
specific in your questions" because some people are gonna try to avoid
answering you honestly-but using vague answers. I was trying to offer
some sound advice and get "you shouldn't have bid". The same people
always say that to everyone here. I am sick of hearing that. We
should be working towards betterment of internet auctions. If you had
your shot at a legitimate looking signature and saw an auction with
one hour left and couldn't get your preprint question answer, would
you bid? If price was reasonable and 12 other bids on there (like
mine was) wouldn't you think everyone thought the auction was good and
wouldn't you be tempted? Sure I bid and maybe I shouldn't have, but
because the description was wrong, that's called deceptive
advertising. JUST LIKE all those TV ads, pyramid scams, other things.
People get sucked in. Really should it be like Graphs post said "you
shouldn't have bid?" Why does the consumer have to bear the brunt?
That's just wrong! We here, have a voice and by my telling this story
and offering advice to help others, it should be welcomed, not
slammed! BUYER beware my ass.


On 14 Aug 2003 17:12:21 GMT, (CallMeCoach) wrote:

The newsgroup is a place you can vent like Sue did but its not a place to
flame!

Why not? If you see something wrong, you should be able to point it out. I
believe that goes back to some old fashion thing called "Freedom of Speech"?

People instead of debating morals and ethics of ebayers that suck (no pun
inteadnded) we need to just say sorry that happend and end the disscussion!

This is a scary statement right here.

Is Clinton still in office? I bet you voted for him with this type of logic.

Yea, let's just sit back and do nothing.

Sitting on my fat carcus as we speak,
The Coach

Why should they eat the fees? Because the seller should know what
they're selling before they sell it! And no, they had time to answer

And you should know exacty what you're bidding on before you place a bid.



they had time to answer
my email and chose not to

You said it was less than 24 hours. In your other post you say less than an
hour. That's not much time. You think they sit in front of their auctions all
day waiting for people to ask questions?

Accurate
descriptions are needed. I think all of us here would be kind and
agree to that.

Of course they are. But they didn't have one, and you bid on it anyway. They
have every right to file a non paying bidder alert and leave you negative
feedback. Like I said before, they didn't ask you to bid on it, you jumped the
gun and did it on your own thinking you were getting a great deal. That's your
own doing, not theirs.

kevin

When I said an hour, I was being hypothetical.... one hour to 24 is
acceptable.... as some people only check their emails once a day. Why
is it you are always trying to strat something?

I hold true to my belief that people should feel confident on bidding
as the description should be accurate...SIGNED by the Celebrity
does NOTmean MACHINE signed and they had deceptive advertising. If I
did the "you shouldn't bid then" like you said, I'd never bid on a
damned thing as EVERYTHING could be a lie. That includes YOUR
auctions. Think about it.



On 14 Aug 2003 19:49:29 GMT, (GraphRackr) wrote:

Why should they eat the fees? Because the seller should know what
they're selling before they sell it! And no, they had time to answer

And you should know exacty what you're bidding on before you place a bid.



they had time to answer
my email and chose not to

You said it was less than 24 hours. In your other post you say less than an
hour. That's not much time. You think they sit in front of their auctions all
day waiting for people to ask questions?

Accurate
descriptions are needed. I think all of us here would be kind and
agree to that.

Of course they are. But they didn't have one, and you bid on it anyway. They
have every right to file a non paying bidder alert and leave you negative
feedback. Like I said before, they didn't ask you to bid on it, you jumped the
gun and did it on your own thinking you were getting a great deal. That's your
own doing, not theirs.

kevin

Why is it that people like "The Coach" try to screw with people? Do they get
some sick pleasure out of it? look at all his posts!

I don't know. I just don't see why everyone is so hostile for no
reason. There's gotta be one and it's the problem of the person
putting others down. Many psychologists say people who do that are
ones with inferiority complexes.

On 14 Aug 2003 22:07:27 GMT,
(Christianmusic14) wrote:

Why is it that people like "The Coach" try to screw with people? Do they get
some sick pleasure out of it? look at all his posts!