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Persistent Ebayer wants to deal privately

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What this thread is about... so there's no mistake, is - IF you knowing go outside of eBay to buy a book that is listed on eBay, to avoid eBay receiving fees, you are breaking their terms of service.

 

Will you go to hell?

 

No.

 

In general, would I like some of you to go to hell?

 

Yes.

 

I'm kidding.

 

Sort of.

 

Whatever other scenario's you want to build around that to make yourself feel better, go for it.

 

But YOU know when you're cheating and when you're not.

seems like you need to start cheating(standard business practices)

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:news: Sellers listing books are charged a listing fee. :news:

 

A seller lists a book on eBay. If a person sees the book, messages the seller and figures out a way to contact the seller off of eBay and figure out a way to purchase the book off of eBay, what violation has occurred? hm

 

The seller paid for that service already - a listing and advertisement of the book. When they cancel the listing and sell the book via other means, neither party used any additional service provided by eBay such as checkout, buyer protection, eBay bucks or anything else eBay offered.

 

There is nothing wrong with doing this. Otherwise every seller that simultaneously lists their book on eBay and another site such as ComicLink, MyComicShop or their own site is "violating the rules of eBay."

 

eBay knows this which is why the place filters to prevent messages being sent that include "yahoo" or "hotmail" etc. to prevent off-site communications and keep sales on-site so they can collect their fees.

 

I posted this on Saturday and I'm still sticking by it.

 

Seller's list things and subsequently end the listing all the time prior to the end of the listing all the time. Is this because the item is "no longer available for sale"? YES! Is this because it has sold off eBay? hm Maybe some sellers have a change of heart like the guy here who recently listed an AF15, but do you think that makes up the majority of those cancelled listings?

 

Sellers have an "obligation" to complete sales through eBay, but what ethical/moral obligation does a buyer have? (shrug)

 

My personal feeling is that eBay charges (for the most part), listing fees and those fees are paid by a seller to advertise, market and list an item for sale. eBay WANTS you to fully complete the sale on the site so they can then collect their cut of the sale. But if an item sells off site, so be it.

 

I've messaged plenty of sellers on eBay who tell me "no" they will not complete a deal off of eBay. And that's fine - I either decide if I want to pay the listed price or not. In the past, several sellers have said "No, I won't sell off site, but I will change the listing to include a Best Offer and will accept your offer." Cool. But I don't think talking to someone who has an item listed on eBay and buying it elsewhere is anything morally corrupt.

 

Again I'm pointing at MyComicShop's listings. If I first see a book on eBay (which is often the case) and the seller is MyComicShop, I KNOW I can buy the book cheaper on MyComicShop.com. I don't even need to contact anyone. I can just go over to MCS's site and *presto* - eBay fees avoided! There are also plenty of Board friends that have eBay stores. If I see them list a book, I'll absolutely message them here and buy the book minus fees.

 

I can't understand how you all think this is something morally wrong? ???

 

Again :news: Nearly all of my listings are free to list :news:

 

So if I advertise on Ebay, find a customer, and then pull the listing and sell it to them privately, then I paid nothing to Ebay for the use of their site and access to their worldwide customer-base (even though I agreed I would pay them a percentage of the sale if I used their site to find a customer), so how is that "right", especially considering I first agreed (in order to gain access to Ebay's vast buyer-network) that I wouldn't do that?

 

How is that "right"? (shrug)

its not right. but it's smart.

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So, again, IF you see a book listed on eBay and the seller is MyComicShop.com, you should buy it on eBay?

 

If you go to MyComicShop.com and purchase the book there "to avoid eBay receiving fees, you are breaking their terms of service."

 

What did I get wrong? I'm honestly trying to figure out if, morally or contractually, I shouldn't be using MyComicShop anymore?

 

Of course buy it on mycomicshop

There is no moral dilemna there for you as a buyer because you already have a relationship with MCS, even if it is just that you know that their product line is available in both places. If you know the seller, as a buyer, you are under no obligation to purchase sellers goods through ebay

 

The dividing line, as I see it from a buyer's perspective, is in using the ebay messaging system to attempt to circumvent fees.

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Ebay policies: Offers to buy or sell outside of eBay

 

My thoughts:

 

- There's no problem with items being listed in multiple venues. Ebay does not require exclusivity in order to list an item on eBay (fixed price; auction format obviously must be exclusive). They expect that if you list something for sale, it should be in stock, so if you do list in multiple venues you need to be good about keeping your inventory listings up to date. That's the same whether you have a store account or a regular individual account.

 

- There's no problem with a buyer making his purchase from his venue of choice, when he knows that an item is available from multiple places. Nothing about using eBay obligates the buyer to make the purchase through eBay if he also knows the same item is available elsewhere, whether that other venue is Amazon, the seller's own site, in person at a retail comic store, etc.

 

- If the item is not available through other venues, and the buyer and seller do not already know each other, then a request by the buyer to transact offline is clearly against eBay's policies since it involves exchanging contact information that the buyer would have no access to without using eBay. By transacting offline, the buyer and seller are receiving a service from eBay (bringing together buyer and seller) without paying the agreed upon price of the service.

 

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Regarding the question of whether Vger7 is the same person as Sagat....

 

No, they're different people. A little Internet sleuthing shows this.

 

Unfortunately, Vger7 has been less than helpful in sorting this out. He fails to acknowledge the optics of the situation to an outsider. The fact that Vger7 and Sagat were using the same email address is at least suspicious. The least Vger7 could do is offer a plausible explanation, and then further explain his relationship with Sagat and how it led to all this confusion.

 

Here's the rundown of Internet-findable facts:

 

Vger7 is confirmed to be Charlie Kim. I only mention this because others have already used the name. Charlie Kim's name is confirmed in the website domain's publically available info of the page he used to post and remove images, www.eltoro505.com. Charlie Kim has an extensive series of blog posts on ComicBookDaily.com.

 

You can click here to read one such blog post . Scroll down and you'll see a picture of a man the caption refers to as Frank Chang. I believe this is Sagat.

 

When Sagat was on these boards, he ended up on the Prohibition List for a deal with "Twisty" or whatever the name is. In that deal, Sagat sold what he claimed was an unrestored comic for $1,200 or $1,300 (the exact number is forgotten but it was in that range). Twisty, who was relatively new to detecting restoration, nonetheless soon figured out the comic was restored and had extensive color touch on the cover. When Twisty tried to get a refund from Sagat, Sagat avoided Twisty for something like three years, refusing to return emails or phone calls. Eventually, Twisty encountered Sagat in a gym (since they apparently both live somewhere in/near Toronto) and confronted him about the deal. Sagat agreed that he had sold Twisty a restored comic, and paid him $400 as restitution. Apparently, Twisty reported on this topic in the CGC forums, and Sagat denied that he had scammed Twisty intentionally. But another user, named October, showed up and said he had personally witnessed Sagat purchasing the restored comic in question, at a convention I guess, and that he clearly remembered the comic being sold as restored. He also recalled hearing Sagat joke that he intended to sell it as unrestored for a profit. So Sagat lied when he claimed he didn't know the comic was restored, it seems. Twisty was able to sell the comic as "restored" on eBay for $480, and having recovered $400 from Sagat, that means Twisty got $880 back for a comic he spent $1,200 to $1,300 on. The cumulative details of this matter led to a board decision to put Sagat on the Prohibition List, but Sagat tried to remove his name from that list, and I am not sure what happened after that -- but he ended up leaving the boards.

 

Then, another user showed up, named carebear or carebears. This user had the same ISP address as Sagat. When questioned by CGC admin, carebear claimed he was Sagat's roommate. This dubious defense led to carebear being ousted from the CGC boards as well.

 

While carebear was using the CGC forums, he made several purchases with people, and during those interactions he signed his name as being "Frank."

 

Fast forward to Vger7's time on the CGC forums. Vger7's email address has been listed in a mesage as rave505@aim.com. Previously, in one message, Sagat had mentioned the rave505@aim.com email address as the contact for the sale or purchase of a single comic. At no other time did Sagat use that email address, however, and in all other cases Sagat consistently used another email address, miffyinhk@yahoo.com, which is consistent with Sagat's ebay account of miffybunny. This is consistent with Vger7's claim that Sagat was doing Vger7 a favor by listing the buy/sale of that comic on Vger7's behalf. This actually holds up because Vger7 wasn't a boardie at the time and Sagat may have been helping him by posting on a forum Vger7 wasn't yet familiar with. This claim is also bolstered by Vger7's post of an old email exchange between himself and Sagat, a screen capture that Vger7 quickly removed but others here saved.

 

So Vger7 is Charlie Kim, Sagat/carebear apparently both are possibly Frank Chang from the photo in Charlie Kim's blog article. (The name "Frank Chang" showed up in one of the other images Vger7 posted-and-deleted to prove his case.)

 

Interestingly enough, the name of Symbiotic, an ousted user (from a couple years ago) caught shilling repeatedly, is Drew Kim. He's probably not related to Charlie Kim, but it's a noteworthy coincidence.

 

As for Vger7 and his posts here about ethics, I think he pretty completely lost in when he made a comparison between adherence to eBay policy and forcing black people to drink out of separate water fountains.

 

wow --- excellent recap

 

now I sort of understand the amount of posts flying around in this thread.

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Regarding the question of whether Vger7 is the same person as Sagat....

 

No, they're different people. A little Internet sleuthing shows this.

 

Unfortunately, Vger7 has been less than helpful in sorting this out. He fails to acknowledge the optics of the situation to an outsider. The fact that Vger7 and Sagat were using the same email address is at least suspicious. The least Vger7 could do is offer a plausible explanation, and then further explain his relationship with Sagat and how it led to all this confusion.

 

Here's the rundown of Internet-findable facts:

 

Vger7 is confirmed to be Charlie Kim. I only mention this because others have already used the name. Charlie Kim's name is confirmed in the website domain's publically available info of the page he used to post and remove images, www.eltoro505.com. Charlie Kim has an extensive series of blog posts on ComicBookDaily.com.

 

You can click here to read one such blog post . Scroll down and you'll see a picture of a man the caption refers to as Frank Chang. I believe this is Sagat.

 

When Sagat was on these boards, he ended up on the Prohibition List for a deal with "Twisty" or whatever the name is. In that deal, Sagat sold what he claimed was an unrestored comic for $1,200 or $1,300 (the exact number is forgotten but it was in that range). Twisty, who was relatively new to detecting restoration, nonetheless soon figured out the comic was restored and had extensive color touch on the cover. When Twisty tried to get a refund from Sagat, Sagat avoided Twisty for something like three years, refusing to return emails or phone calls. Eventually, Twisty encountered Sagat in a gym (since they apparently both live somewhere in/near Toronto) and confronted him about the deal. Sagat agreed that he had sold Twisty a restored comic, and paid him $400 as restitution. Apparently, Twisty reported on this topic in the CGC forums, and Sagat denied that he had scammed Twisty intentionally. But another user, named October, showed up and said he had personally witnessed Sagat purchasing the restored comic in question, at a convention I guess, and that he clearly remembered the comic being sold as restored. He also recalled hearing Sagat joke that he intended to sell it as unrestored for a profit. So Sagat lied when he claimed he didn't know the comic was restored, it seems. Twisty was able to sell the comic as "restored" on eBay for $480, and having recovered $400 from Sagat, that means Twisty got $880 back for a comic he spent $1,200 to $1,300 on. The cumulative details of this matter led to a board decision to put Sagat on the Prohibition List, but Sagat tried to remove his name from that list, and I am not sure what happened after that -- but he ended up leaving the boards.

 

Then, another user showed up, named carebear or carebears. This user had the same ISP address as Sagat. When questioned by CGC admin, carebear claimed he was Sagat's roommate. This dubious defense led to carebear being ousted from the CGC boards as well.

 

While carebear was using the CGC forums, he made several purchases with people, and during those interactions he signed his name as being "Frank."

 

Fast forward to Vger7's time on the CGC forums. Vger7's email address has been listed in a mesage as rave505@aim.com. Previously, in one message, Sagat had mentioned the rave505@aim.com email address as the contact for the sale or purchase of a single comic. At no other time did Sagat use that email address, however, and in all other cases Sagat consistently used another email address, miffyinhk@yahoo.com, which is consistent with Sagat's ebay account of miffybunny. This is consistent with Vger7's claim that Sagat was doing Vger7 a favor by listing the buy/sale of that comic on Vger7's behalf. This actually holds up because Vger7 wasn't a boardie at the time and Sagat may have been helping him by posting on a forum Vger7 wasn't yet familiar with. This claim is also bolstered by Vger7's post of an old email exchange between himself and Sagat, a screen capture that Vger7 quickly removed but others here saved.

 

So Vger7 is Charlie Kim, Sagat/carebear apparently both are possibly Frank Chang from the photo in Charlie Kim's blog article. (The name "Frank Chang" showed up in one of the other images Vger7 posted-and-deleted to prove his case.)

 

Interestingly enough, the name of Symbiotic, an ousted user (from a couple years ago) caught shilling repeatedly, is Drew Kim. He's probably not related to Charlie Kim, but it's a noteworthy coincidence.

 

As for Vger7 and his posts here about ethics, I think he pretty completely lost in when he made a comparison between adherence to eBay policy and forcing black people to drink out of separate water fountains.

 

wow --- excellent recap

 

now I sort of understand the amount of posts flying around in this thread.

 

+1 glad to see doohickamabob bringing this bad boy back on-topic. Now what's to be done about this?

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