Ebay Fraud

[Jay Wolt]

Colt, your card looks like the one that Huggins & Scott recently auctioned of at $13,200.
You may want to contact them to see what they know.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=STRK:MEWAX:IT

[Cat]

You can match up the print defects to determine it is the H&S card. It is almost certainly the same scan (with the addition of blocking out the cert numbers). Hmmm

[bobbyw8469]

Ditto...the Mantle was sold last month from Huggins and Scott....no seller would sell the same card one month later for less money....this whole transaction reeked of scam from the get go.....the old saying....if it is too good to be true....

[sox1903wschamp]

It does reek of scam. Looking at the sellers feedback, it's 100% but from what you can see over the past 90 days, they are not selling anything remotely close to "Vintage" cards. Here is to hoping you get your money back.

[murcerfan]

Colt.
surely you had him send the package usps registered mail with insurance right? no worries in that case, just get your postmaster on it.
will call you tomorrow....

[Jay Wolt]

Originally Posted by murcerfan

Colt.
surely you had him send the package usps registered mail with insurance right? no worries in that case, just get your postmaster on it.
will call you tomorrow....

Dave, he stated the empty box arrived from UPS today.

[egbeachley]

If you haven't already done so, grab the scans off Ebay before they are deleted.

[D. Bergin]

Buyer shouldn't have problems getting money back on this transaction. All points look to be a scam, seeing as the scans were stolen and the fact it doesn't make sense offering the Matthews and the Mantle in a single lot.

Looking at the feedback of the seller he must be perfectly aware of how things go with with Ebay and Paypal. I think this is a much more subtle scam and something people should look out for, even if they are not the intended victim or they receive a refund on the transaction from Paypal.

I believe the intended victim here is UPS to be perfectly honest. I worked at UPS for over 10 years. Packages valued at over $5000 are treated completely separate from all the other packages. They get handled separately throughout the entire system and are kept track of separately from the time they are picked up from the time they are delivered. They are kept separate from the rest of the load on whatever truck they are on to avoid damage or crushing. They also do not spend time on the same conveyor belts as most other packages.

I imagine it's similar to Registered Mail through the USPS. Because of this extra handling, if something does happen UPS is likely to pay out the claim quickly because the package is under watch at all times and claims rarely happen on packages of those values.

However there's no way of knowing if an Insured package actually had the items in there it was claimed since they don't search the boxes after they are Insured.

I think this guy sent out an empty box full of packing materials and a concealed slit in the packaging at the bottom of the box, hidden just enough so the driver picking up the package wouldn't notice it and it would at least get into the system before detected.

Now the guy has evidence of rifling when he goes to file a claim. He has to know Paypal is going to refund the customer so the final intended consequence is a nice windfall from a UPS claim for a couple of cards he never owned at any point in time.

I'm actually surprised we don't hear about stuff like this happening more often.

I'd have a hard time believing a UPS driver stole these cards. Any driver with a brain knows any packages of this type of value could be tracked back to him in less then a minute by the claims department. UPS drivers are well paid with very good benefits. No way one would risk losing that in a no-win situation.

I'm sure it's happened somewhere, but I've never ever seen or heard of a UPS driver stealing packages, not even as a rumor amongst themselves.

I have seen part-time warehouse guys get caught rifling through low value packages on occasion. These are usually new-hires who aren't aware UPS has cameras everywhere on the belts to check on if issues arise. When they catch somebody they make a big show of them. They call the police in the middle of a shift and have them brought out of the warehouse in cuffs in front of everybody working that shift as an example.

I remember we also had a Part-time supervisor caught slapping his own labels on computer boxes and diverting them to his own computer store. Once again easily tracked and a pretty dumb idea.

Not to say UPS is all gravy. Packages that aren't classified as high value or "hazardous", are usually beat to hell by the time they get where they are going. Everything is about efficiency, getting things done as quickly as possible, and packing trucks as tightly as humanely possible..........which is why they can pay guys as well as they do and still make a nice profit.

Christmas time the conveyor belts are jam packed and it's like sorting through an avalanche sometimes for the sorters and truck loaders (actually most of the time). If you ship through UPS, make sure you've packed the item to survive a war.........is all I'm saying.

That said, it's been nearly 10 years since I've worked there so I'm sure some things have changed, but I still talk to some of the guys and I don't think it's changed THAT much since I was there.

[Davidbvintage]

I am not sure if UPS works like USPS or FEDEX with their labels but i assume they do something similar so this is what i would suggess. If the box was sent with a printed shipping label, check the weight of the shipment on the label. If it was not sent with a label ask the seller for a copy of the shipping receipt as it shouldl have the weight on it or contact UPS and see if they can tell you. Compair the weight to the actual package you received to the weight of the package sent and that will tell you if cards were actually included in the package. Good luck.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Davidbvintage

I am not sure if UPS works like USPS or FEDEX with their labels but i assume they do something similar so this is what i would suggess. If the box was sent with a printed shipping label, check the weight of the shipment on the label. If it was not sent with a label ask the seller for a copy of the shipping receipt as it shouldl have the weight on it or contact UPS and see if they can tell you. Compair the weight to the actual package you received to the weight of the package sent and that will tell you if cards were actually included in the package. Good luck.

UPS rounds up to the nearest lb., and the weights can easily be manipulated by the shipper.

Packages aren't re-weighed when they get back to the building like FedEx. Too much volume.

UPS, at least when I was there, trusted most shippers to be honest with the weights. Only heavy packages that were obviously under-weighed on the label were pulled off and re-weighed for billing purposes when a loader noticed an obvious discrepency. Usually, this only involved packages over 70 lb's.

Even on a scale, a couple a slabs can easily get lost in that 1 lb. round-up.

[Davidbvintage]

Sorry Peter, we were typing at the same time with the same idea.

[cmcclelland]

Thanks to everyone for their responses. Here is a quick update:

I actually subscribe to vintage card prices and was just sloppy here and didn't look at the auction history to see that the scan was from Huggins and Scott. Thanks for pointing that out to me. I talked to Huggings & Scott this morning, and they were very helpful. Turns out that the guy who bought this card in their last auction has not even paid for the card yet, and Huggins & Scott still has the card!

My next call was to Paypal to give them the updated information. Again, they were very helpful. They put this on an expedited list and told me all I would need was a police report from my local police department, and I would then get all my money back.

Finally, I decided to call the seller. He had called me last night and acted very surprised and shocked that this had happened. He appeared to be very helpful and assured me that the package was insured through UPS and I would have no problem getting my money back. This was all before I realized the scan was stolen, and I have to admit I was very convinced he was telling the truth.

So, I called him back today, laid out the facts, and told him that I knew exactly what he had done. I also told him that if he did not issue me a refund via Paypal by the end of the day today, I would pursue criminal charges through his local police as well as the FBI. I also told him I would notify his employer since he had shipped it from his work using the company UPS account. Two hours later he issued me a refund.

Everyone is right on the money regarding the intentions of this guy - he knew I would get my money back and was trying to scam UPS. I'm sure UPS will call me if he tries to make a claim, and I will definitely let them know the facts.

Glad this nightmare is over. Thanks to everyone for the helpful information.

Colt

[e107collector]

It' kind of ironic that the ebay seller states in his description that he "blocked out the serial numbers on the slabs so scammers won't steal the scans." It appears he stole the scans from Huggins and Scott.

Tony

[cmcclelland]

I am planning to alert the proper authorities as well as Paypal, ebay, and UPS. I've already got a phone message from UPS asking me to follow up on the insurance claim (I assume he filed the claim with UPS before everything blew up on him). I plan to wait a week or so to see if this guy is really going to still pursue the insurance claim after all of this. If he does that, then I'll have no mercy. Bottom line - don't worry - I'll make sure he pays for what he did.

However, I agree with Leon. If this just goes away without any real damages (just an "attempt" to defraud and steal money), I'm not sure the police, FBI, or anyone else will really want to spend much time doing anything about it. It sucks that a-hole's like this are out there. I guess we can all at least learn something from this. I certainly did.

By the way, anyone got a nicely centered 1952 Topps Mantle in a PSA 4 holder they would like to sell for around $10k? I was flying high thinking I got this great deal - now I'm back to square 1. lol

[Fred]

This guy is a dirt bag. If he already filed a claim with UPS then I'd, at a minimum, I would alert UPS to this scam. This $hitbag deserves everything he has coming to him. It's people like him that totally screw up things for everyone else. If UPS had to pay out $10K+ for this you know who's going to pay for it.... all the other consumers. For all you know this guy could be a total con. Why let him get away with this. He needs a good beat down by the authorities. Maybe, just maybe he'll learn his lesson.

Do you know why you received an immediate refund via paypal? Because the guy is a thief and he knew he was caught. He's probably praying that you just let this go. Do you think he'll learn a lesson from this? NO - if he gets away with it he'll think he can pull the scam on someone else because he got away with it.

It took years to finally prosecute that idiot "Crazy Canuck" $hitbag and it was worth the effort and time to do it because he's no longer screwing people.

This board deserves a pat on the back for the effort that resulted in this positive outcome.

Leon, perhaps you could create a new categorey called CAVEAT EMPTOR and allow the community to post the names of bonafide dirtbags (ebay sellers, etc) that need to be avoided. I would say that the list should be reserved for only those that are absolute buttheads.