psycho seller on eBay rkk521
 

There is one psycho seller on eBay, rkk521, that blatantly lies about what she is selling and has done it for years-in this case one of your pins.
First, see where she bought the pin:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Antique-Nouveau-...QQcmdZViewItem
Now....see the story she makes up as she sells it this week:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Antique-ALPHA-XI...QQcmdZViewItem

Just thought you all should know!

/crash....

is this an authentic quill? Would it be possible for the leters to be "rubbed out"?

/end crash

It very well could be an authentic quill with simply the letters rubbed off or removed. Maybe a pawn shop thought it would sell better without the personal information on it, including the letters.

Or, it could be some sort of recognition pin that didn't have letters on it to begin with.

But, remember that this seller bought it off ebay a month ago and it had no date on it, so it was most definately a lie when the seller said, "This pin belonged to an elderly (94 years old) neighbor's sister. She said that her sister would wear it on a coat lapel and when she was wearing clothes inappropriate for the official badge. She commented that meant slacks in the "olden days.""
:rolleyes:

To me it looks like an official quill badge that has had the letters removed from the front and the identification information removed from the back (for what ever reason) ...

a recognition quill is very very tiny in comparison and the ones I've seen have either no pearls or just one pearl .. not 20.

So, yeah, even with out the evidence of purchase just a few weeks ago, the story sounds very bogus to me ... no member would remove the letters or identification information.

If you're going to lie about stuff on ebay ... at least make it sort of believeable...

here's the link to our HQs jewelry page ...

http://www.alphaxidelta.org/merchandise.asp?Section=12

if you want to see a recognition quilll just scroll down

I've sor t of been MIA from GC lately, but I can't believe I missed this thread! How crazy...you can't even tell from the picture that the letters have been rubbed off. There was a winning bidder...I wonder if they knew what they were getting their hands on?!

I 'talk' to the winner of this pin quite a bit. She is an Alpha Xi also and I told her about greekchat and she was going to register. I also told her about this thread and she looked at it. I haven't talked to her yet to see if she received it yet. I also emailed the original seller and she didn't know too much about the quill...the story was total BS! Anyway- I'll let you know if I hear anything from the winner.

Just got an email and she received the quill... of course it's an altered full size quill. She's trying to decide what she's gonna do... pursue it with ebay, communicate with the seller, or leave it be. Hopefully she'll be posting soon and she can let us know what's up!

Yes -- have her come register!!! :)

I hope she is able to pursue this through eBay. Maybe she could copy this thread & send it to them as proof?

How is this fraud other than the story being embellished? Seller said it was AXD but there are clearly no letters present. You cannot blame person selling it for buffing them (either seller) - I once found a badge at an antique show that had the letters buffed out. Sometimes jewelers think they are removing "personalization" so that it will have wider appeal.

You can see that the letters are buffed out in the photo? If so, CAVEAT EMPTOR, let the buyer beware....unless I missed something. Thanks.

First of all, in the second link, the picture is not large or clear enough to notice that there are no letters on the badge. Any bidder who had not seen the first link related to the second link would not have realized the letters and barbs had been buffed off.

Second of all, the story the seller wrote in the second link is a bit more than "embellishment."

What upsets me the most about this is that this is one of our older badges that has been ruined due to the jeweler/collector/whomever buffing off the letters and the barbs. I am quite interested in owning one of the 20-pearl badges, and here is one I might have bid on had it been an official badge. It pains me to know that there are people out there who are defacing my badge.

Unfortunately, you are correct in that eBay offers more protection to the seller than to the buyer. Nothing I can do about that, except continue to educate our members about proper insignia/badges/etc. so we can do our part against perpetuating the standards on eBay.

Are you a regular poster on greekchat? If so, I'd like to know what your regular screen name is as we might take your opinions on eBay and pin collecting a bit more seriously. Or do you only troll threads on here that are related to pin collecting?