Official Luthiers Forum!

Don’t want to call anyone out in a public forum, but check this eBay listing and see what your gut tells you:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/James-A-Olson- ... SwkvdaY7hz

I looked for the old link on the site to report a suspicious listing but it seems they don’t want to know anymore. I’ve seen this same layout 2 or 3 times over the past 3 years. Each time there are inconsistencies in the bidding/buy it now procedure, the location of the item, and every time the description is just all over the place wrong. You guys and girls have an awful lot of collective knowledge here on the forum. What do you think? Am I just paranoid?

The normal listing does not have a buy it now link. The guys has a lot of ebay transactions selling for 15 years and the reviews looks good. I looked at the sellers store and it looks a lot like the store a friend of mine has. My friend spends most weekend going to estate sales and buying things he thinks he can sell. So he has a large ebay store. There are so many items that need to be added that descriptions sometimes suffer. I suspect BVCOINSandCOLLECTABLES is much the same, or possibly a pawn shop.
edit
But when I viewed the more details I saw what scarred you. I would be nervous of buying it through his side channel method.

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Yes, he claims that the guitar is his personal one built in ‘82 and then reading the description it seems clear that he has no idea what this guitar is or what it’s built from. He “thinks” it has a spruce top (the photo is clearly cedar) and it “may” have a rosewood back (nope) and the sides are clearly mahogany. Also he states that it’s, “the first Parlor that Jim built with a ‘single’ cutaway”. Bad grammar, or is Jim building Wechter-esque double cutaways? And then the re-direct, to “buy it now, fast” and dubious email transacting.

Plus, it’s about $14,000 below fair market price!

An age old adage comes to mind. If it's to good to be true....
He has a wild amount of expensive merchandise. Images of items look like they are from all around the world.
Its certainly sketchy to me.
hey...its removed all of a sudden. ; )

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

There's some pretty questionable goings on that I've seen on eBay. A few months ago I came across an auction which I thought was from an Englemann seller in BC that I have bought from, but was located in China. Same item description and page layout, but prices too good to be true - 3A Englemann for $15, and $12 shipping from China. I messaged the legit seller, and gave him a heads up. A week later, same thing, with one of our OLF sponsors.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Of course, Squeebay doesn't give a flying crap about suspicious listings anymore. They are making money by the cubic yard right now off honest folk, and it doesn't pay to police the auctions.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

The "Report item" link is still there on listing pages on the right side, right above the item description section and the ebay listing number.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Yes, the “clicker” is still there but the list of options in the drop down doesn’t allow for a suspected fraudulent listing anymore. And, the guy removed the listing just like he did the other 3. Always an Olson, always sketchy.

And then the listing was removed.

Andy

The drop down list has an option called "listing practices". I used this option a few months ago to report a clearly fraudulent listing for a vintage electric guitar. It worked. Listing gone.

I recognize that there is scam activity on ebay, but there's a lot of the knee-jerk hate for site. I've had close to 500 transactions on the site over the past 16 years. Not a single bad one. YMMV.

In response to the original post, I have seen listings like that one before with the fake BIN option and I wouldn't even consider doing business with a seller like that for pretty obvious reasons.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I ordered a bargoon priced motor off evil bay on fri , false american adr ad . false chinese owner , false testimonials.Looked very legit .Even I can be fooled, paypal reimbursed us ebay took down the ad caveat emptor

Agreed. I’m not an eBay hater at all. I’ve only had one potentially bad purchase and when I wrote the seller and reminded him that I fly for free, have his address, and can be anywhere in the world in say, 3 days, he relented and refunded my money. That was several years ago and 1 incident out of almost 1000 transactions.

Yep, I thought about emailing him and offering his price as a COD transaction. Bet he’d have run screaming.