It's a small, small world in the coin community...
So a friend of mine (who collects coins) comes over to show me his latest collection acquisition (a Japanese coin set worth $400 USD - I had actually thought of buying one myself and breaking it apart, but wasn't sure I trusted the condition of the coins).
While he's here, he tells me about a dealer in Europe he bought some 2 euro coins from. I said "that's the guy that ripped me off last summer."
My friend says "oh, sorry... it's just he's the most reasonably priced for European coins."
I said "that's because he stole them from me to list them on his website." (And this dealer has zero idea that I figured it all out... I keep records going back as long as I've been on eBay, and had the email address since the late 1990s).
It's quite a small community we have going here... Kinda like when my annoying pest of a customer turned up at the B&M store's table at the coin show and spent an hour annoying them. It was really funny on Monday when we compared stories of "our most annoying customer" over the weekend and determined we were annoyed by the same guy.
C.
duncanvr
·3 years agoI found to many scammers in the coin world so gave up selling them. Just as your friend had his stolen so the other person could list it on their own site. The same thing happened to me on a Roman silver coin. Savvy buyer buys it then claimed it wasn't silver demanding refund. Listed it in his own ebay store as silver. And got his money back. Due to various incidents in the coin world like that I mainly stick with QV covers now. A lot less scamming go on. I wonder if my buyer was the same guy as yours who scammed lol.
sin-n-dex
OP3 years agoThe buyer scammed me, put it on his website, and my friend bought coins from him (not the same coins mind you... my friend was buying cheap 2 euro coins, what this guy scammed from me was a USSR set with a few bucks). I was pointing out to my friend the reason the stuff is so cheap on this guy's site is because he has a reputation from stealing things to list there (with first hand knowledge).
Not sure about your Roman coin buyer, I haven't really dealt with older stuff because I can't authenticate it (and will not trust the coin shop for doing their part... I identify so many things that they can't, like the Arabic coin I listed today... they didn't have a clue, it took me an hour, but I managed to sort it out). If they can't identify stuff, then I can't trust them when I don't know what it is.
There is a repeat scammer that has kept coming back to my store to try and scam again with different accounts, but I shut him down each time (and got him booted off eBay in 12 hours the last time he tried to scam me). He has a reputation on eBay and keeps getting booted, eBay just needs someone to let them know what his latest account is, and he's toast.
Some stuff attracts trouble. #1 on my list is US silver dollars. I get the biggest jerks ever buying them and doing returns, or leaving bad feedback (because I charged them too much for the coin, even though they knew the price and condition when they purchased). I won't deal in US dollars at all anymore just because of the number of jerks I've sold to (and had to pay to have them returned). Those guys are all on my BBL in case they want anything else that I sell.
I find that the best customers are the ones shopping for unusual things that have some value, but no value to a scammer. (My shop would pay diddly for it, so there's no sense in scamming it to liquidate quickly... silver bullion is different though). And I'm thankful for my repeat customers. Most of my more expensive things that I'm concerned about being scammed on are being purchased by repeat buyers.
C.
duncanvr
·3 years agoStamps are less trouble for me I still get the odd dead beat but not that many. Yeh repeat buyers are the best they rarely say anything just keep buying items every week. Yeh I think silver is just trouble I would never try gold coins.