1904 (??) ADPi badge on eBay

[wptw]

There are more than 5 million new listings on ebay EVERY DAY. Does anyone actually in real life think that you can report the listing to ebay and have them close the auction because someone may have misused an incredibly subjective word like “vintage”?

Or that in real life the auction would be “null and voided” (a new verb) because someone assumes an item they can’t find simply MUST have been stolen rather than lost?

You’re “shocked that ebay hasn’t done anything”? REALLY?

Do you think there’s an ebay employee that sits there and looks at all 5 million auctions every day, finds this one and says “hmm, this pin is listed as vintage and from an estate, but the date is 04 and it doesn’t look old enough to be from 1904 because the hands aren’t flat, so I think this seller is a little fishy and I’m going to halt the auction until I can investigate further”?

OF COURSE ebay is often a “fence for stolen items”. Duh! But they’re only required to show some due diligence – they’re not going to pull auctions from a powerseller with 99.6% positive feedback just based on an email with a sad story.




OK, I know it’s not advisable to smack a hornets’ nests with a stick... but I’m gonna because I’m skeptical by nature. For instance, I get this weird “spidey-sense” thing whenever I smell a troll or something sounds urband-legendy. Now this is clearly neither a troll nor an urban legend, but I still have that nagging feeling. Something here doesn’t sound right.

So I’m reading the thread and my very first thought was: “Wow, she sure showed up fast – in fact, just as soon as the other ladies found out through the directory whose badge it really was. I wonder if she was afraid she’d be outed for pawning her own badge”.

But then I figured nah I’m just paranoid and kind of an asshole, so I kept reading. She posts to GC at 3:44pm, the auction doesn’t end until 7:47pm, 4 hours later, and the price stays very low, but she doesn’t bid. Odd. She’s talking to ebay but gets a phone call that makes her angry so she can’t continue. Oy. She tried to email the seller but can’t send email from her ebay account. OK, can’t remember ever not being able to send an ebay message from my account, and it seems like this would be easily fixed, but whatever.

Now, I know very little about women. The ones in my life tell me that women in general don’t react to crises in the way that most men and I would consider “rational”, and that I need to keep that in mind. So I’m trying to. I guess it explains all the head-in-sand wishful-thinking ebay-bashing above, but...

Especially with only 4 hours to do something, wouldn’t you just place an outrageously high bid for it and then work it out later? Obviously the seller is going to be a lot more responsive to the person that just won the auction for like $100, than to the person that emails them (or rather, has her message board friends email them) reporting it stolen. Obviously ebay is going to be a lot more responsive to a bidder that is potentially defaulting on a $100 bid, than to someone (or again, someone’s message board friends) who is making an unsupported claim of stolen property.

I know what I would do if I saw my badge for sale on ebay, and by contrast it just doesn’t seem like she wants it back all that much.

But I know you’ll find this whole insinuation terribly insulting, and there’ll be gasps of horror and how-dare-yous and the like, so I’ll digress.




“The buyer has no shame”, what a crock! Do you ladies realize how many emails the typical ebay badge seller or badge buyer gets that claim (among other things) that the item is stolen? If they’re not responding to you, it’s not necessarily that they’re a horrible person. More likely they’ve been scammed in the past and now won’t reply to ANYONE without a copy of a police report.

By the way, why do you assume the successful bidder is a badge collector (and a male) when a quick 30 day search of their bidding history shows they bid exclusively on ADPi items? If it turns out to be an ADPi, will you still say they have no shame?

***EDIT 2/27/08: I see that the winning bidder "jjdogface" is now on your GC list of known ADPi ebay bidders. Interesting...

And finally... I am, as ever, totally amazed - and disgusted - at how in an effort to preserve the badge, the symbol of all the noble and wonderful sparkly high ideals we represent, we somehow feel it appropriate to insult and threaten and lie to innocent strangers. Smashing! Bravissima!




Some practical advice, because believe it or not I am truly interested in making sure people get back badges that are rightfully theirs... If this situation comes up again, even if you DO have a police report: PLACE A BID. Ebay is a huge bureaucracy, it will take time for them to process anything. Buyers and sellers are highly skeptical of any email you send them, they’re jaded by experience and chances are almost nil that they’ll help you. Resist the urge to spam them or mass email them, that never works and only reinforces their suspicion that you’re a scammer. Place a bid. Work it out later.

Worst case, even if ebay and the seller never take any action, you would have paid probably $50 to win this badge. Twice what it’s worth on the market, but only a small fraction of its alleged symbolic and sentimental value. I can’t believe no one gave you this advice back on page 2 when there was still time to save it.

Meantime, everyone be nice! This ebay powerseller almost certainly didn’t steal the badge. For sure the auction winner didn’t steal it. And of course, neither of them lost it or gave it up in the first place.

Honeychile I think is taking the right approach by trying to bargain for it. But... I would find a way to email the seller YOURSELF and offer them twice what they paid for it. If that doesn’t work, offer them 3 times what they paid for it. IF you want it back, that is.

OK, gotta go, apparently the police are here and they want to put me in jail because the L’il Tykes plastic playhouse I bought through the Pennysaver ad turned out to be stolen.

wptw

[smiley21]

Originally Posted by texas*princess

The seller and Smiley are actually in the same state... just thought I'd throw that in there.

We are actually in the same city.

[texas*princess]

Originally Posted by wptw

There are more than 5 million new listings on ebay EVERY DAY. Does anyone actually in real life think that you can report the listing to ebay and have them close the auction because someone may have misused an incredibly subjective word like “vintage”?

Or that in real life the auction would be “null and voided” (a new verb) because someone assumes an item they can’t find simply MUST have been stolen rather than lost?

You’re “shocked that ebay hasn’t done anything”? REALLY?

Do you think there’s an ebay employee that sits there and looks at all 5 million auctions every day, finds this one and says “hmm, this pin is listed as vintage and from an estate, but the date is 04 and it doesn’t look old enough to be from 1904 because the hands aren’t flat, so I think this seller is a little fishy and I’m going to halt the auction until I can investigate further”?

OF COURSE ebay is often a “fence for stolen items”. Duh! But they’re only required to show some due diligence – they’re not going to pull auctions from a powerseller with 99.6% positive feedback just based on an email with a sad story.




OK, I know it’s not advisable to smack a hornets’ nests with a stick... but I’m gonna because I’m skeptical by nature. For instance, I get this weird “spidey-sense” thing whenever I smell a troll or something sounds urband-legendy. Now this is clearly neither a troll nor an urban legend, but I still have that nagging feeling. Something here doesn’t sound right.

So I’m reading the thread and my very first thought was: “Wow, she sure showed up fast – in fact, just as soon as the other ladies found out through the directory whose badge it really was. I wonder if she was afraid she’d be outed for pawning her own badge”.

But then I figured nah I’m just paranoid and kind of an asshole, so I kept reading. She posts to GC at 3:44pm, the auction doesn’t end until 7:47pm, 4 hours later, and the price stays very low, but she doesn’t bid. Odd. She’s talking to ebay but gets a phone call that makes her angry so she can’t continue. Oy. She tried to email the seller but can’t send email from her ebay account. OK, can’t remember ever not being able to send an ebay message from my account, and it seems like this would be easily fixed, but whatever.

Now, I know very little about women. The ones in my life tell me that women in general don’t react to crises in the way that most men and I would consider “rational”, and that I need to keep that in mind. So I’m trying to. I guess it explains all the head-in-sand wishful-thinking ebay-bashing above, but...

Especially with only 4 hours to do something, wouldn’t you just place an outrageously high bid for it and then work it out later? Obviously the seller is going to be a lot more responsive to the person that just won the auction for like $100, than to the person that emails them (or rather, has her message board friends email them) reporting it stolen. Obviously ebay is going to be a lot more responsive to a bidder that is potentially defaulting on a $100 bid, than to someone (or again, someone’s message board friends) who is making an unsupported claim of stolen property.

I know what I would do if I saw my badge for sale on ebay, and by contrast it just doesn’t seem like she wants it back all that much.

But I know you’ll find this whole insinuation terribly insulting, and there’ll be gasps of horror and how-dare-yous and the like, so I’ll digress.




“The buyer has no shame”, what a crock! Do you ladies realize how many emails the typical ebay badge seller or badge buyer gets that claim (among other things) that the item is stolen? If they’re not responding to you, it’s not necessarily that they’re a horrible person. More likely they’ve been scammed in the past and now won’t reply to ANYONE without a copy of a police report.

By the way, why do you assume the successful bidder is a badge collector (and a male) when a quick 30 day search of their bidding history shows they bid exclusively on ADPi items? If it turns out to be an ADPi, will you still say they have no shame?

And finally... I am, as ever, totally amazed - and disgusted - at how in an effort to preserve the badge, the symbol of all the noble and wonderful sparkly high ideals we represent, we somehow feel it appropriate to insult and threaten and lie to innocent strangers. Smashing! Bravissima!




Some practical advice, because believe it or not I am truly interested in making sure people get back badges that are rightfully theirs... If this situation comes up again, even if you DO have a police report: PLACE A BID. Ebay is a huge bureaucracy, it will take time for them to process anything. Buyers and sellers are highly skeptical of any email you send them, they’re jaded by experience and chances are almost nil that they’ll help you. Resist the urge to spam them or mass email them, that never works and only reinforces their suspicion that you’re a scammer. Place a bid. Work it out later.

Worst case, even if ebay and the seller never take any action, you would have paid probably $50 to win this badge. Twice what it’s worth on the market, but only a small fraction of its alleged symbolic and sentimental value. I can’t believe no one gave you this advice back on page 2 when there was still time to save it.

Meantime, everyone be nice! This ebay powerseller almost certainly didn’t steal the badge. For sure the auction winner didn’t steal it. And of course, neither of them lost it or gave it up in the first place.

Honeychile I think is taking the right approach by trying to bargain for it. But... I would find a way to email the seller YOURSELF and offer them twice what they paid for it. If that doesn’t work, offer them 3 times what they paid for it. IF you want it back, that is.

OK, gotta go, apparently the police are here and they want to put me in jail because the L’il Tykes plastic playhouse I bought through the Pennysaver ad turned out to be stolen.

wptw

hmmm... i'd say that was a pretty rude post. but that's just me.

Nice post for a pin/ritual collector. :rollseyes:

[smiley21]

Originally Posted by wptw

There are more than 5 million new listings on ebay EVERY DAY. Does anyone actually in real life think that you can report the listing to ebay and have them close the auction because someone may have misused an incredibly subjective word like “vintage”?

Or that in real life the auction would be “null and voided” (a new verb) because someone assumes an item they can’t find simply MUST have been stolen rather than lost?

You’re “shocked that ebay hasn’t done anything”? REALLY?

Do you think there’s an ebay employee that sits there and looks at all 5 million auctions every day, finds this one and says “hmm, this pin is listed as vintage and from an estate, but the date is 04 and it doesn’t look old enough to be from 1904 because the hands aren’t flat, so I think this seller is a little fishy and I’m going to halt the auction until I can investigate further”?

OF COURSE ebay is often a “fence for stolen items”. Duh! But they’re only required to show some due diligence – they’re not going to pull auctions from a powerseller with 99.6% positive feedback just based on an email with a sad story.




OK, I know it’s not advisable to smack a hornets’ nests with a stick... but I’m gonna because I’m skeptical by nature. For instance, I get this weird “spidey-sense” thing whenever I smell a troll or something sounds urband-legendy. Now this is clearly neither a troll nor an urban legend, but I still have that nagging feeling. Something here doesn’t sound right.

So I’m reading the thread and my very first thought was: “Wow, she sure showed up fast – in fact, just as soon as the other ladies found out through the directory whose badge it really was. I wonder if she was afraid she’d be outed for pawning her own badge”.

But then I figured nah I’m just paranoid and kind of an asshole, so I kept reading. She posts to GC at 3:44pm, the auction doesn’t end until 7:47pm, 4 hours later, and the price stays very low, but she doesn’t bid. Odd. She’s talking to ebay but gets a phone call that makes her angry so she can’t continue. Oy. She tried to email the seller but can’t send email from her ebay account. OK, can’t remember ever not being able to send an ebay message from my account, and it seems like this would be easily fixed, but whatever.

Now, I know very little about women. The ones in my life tell me that women in general don’t react to crises in the way that most men and I would consider “rational”, and that I need to keep that in mind. So I’m trying to. I guess it explains all the head-in-sand wishful-thinking ebay-bashing above, but...

Especially with only 4 hours to do something, wouldn’t you just place an outrageously high bid for it and then work it out later? Obviously the seller is going to be a lot more responsive to the person that just won the auction for like $100, than to the person that emails them (or rather, has her message board friends email them) reporting it stolen. Obviously ebay is going to be a lot more responsive to a bidder that is potentially defaulting on a $100 bid, than to someone (or again, someone’s message board friends) who is making an unsupported claim of stolen property.

I know what I would do if I saw my badge for sale on ebay, and by contrast it just doesn’t seem like she wants it back all that much.

But I know you’ll find this whole insinuation terribly insulting, and there’ll be gasps of horror and how-dare-yous and the like, so I’ll digress.




“The buyer has no shame”, what a crock! Do you ladies realize how many emails the typical ebay badge seller or badge buyer gets that claim (among other things) that the item is stolen? If they’re not responding to you, it’s not necessarily that they’re a horrible person. More likely they’ve been scammed in the past and now won’t reply to ANYONE without a copy of a police report.

By the way, why do you assume the successful bidder is a badge collector (and a male) when a quick 30 day search of their bidding history shows they bid exclusively on ADPi items? If it turns out to be an ADPi, will you still say they have no shame?

And finally... I am, as ever, totally amazed - and disgusted - at how in an effort to preserve the badge, the symbol of all the noble and wonderful sparkly high ideals we represent, we somehow feel it appropriate to insult and threaten and lie to innocent strangers. Smashing! Bravissima!




Some practical advice, because believe it or not I am truly interested in making sure people get back badges that are rightfully theirs... If this situation comes up again, even if you DO have a police report: PLACE A BID. Ebay is a huge bureaucracy, it will take time for them to process anything. Buyers and sellers are highly skeptical of any email you send them, they’re jaded by experience and chances are almost nil that they’ll help you. Resist the urge to spam them or mass email them, that never works and only reinforces their suspicion that you’re a scammer. Place a bid. Work it out later.

Worst case, even if ebay and the seller never take any action, you would have paid probably $50 to win this badge. Twice what it’s worth on the market, but only a small fraction of its alleged symbolic and sentimental value. I can’t believe no one gave you this advice back on page 2 when there was still time to save it.

Meantime, everyone be nice! This ebay powerseller almost certainly didn’t steal the badge. For sure the auction winner didn’t steal it. And of course, neither of them lost it or gave it up in the first place.

Honeychile I think is taking the right approach by trying to bargain for it. But... I would find a way to email the seller YOURSELF and offer them twice what they paid for it. If that doesn’t work, offer them 3 times what they paid for it. IF you want it back, that is.

OK, gotta go, apparently the police are here and they want to put me in jail because the L’il Tykes plastic playhouse I bought through the Pennysaver ad turned out to be stolen.

wptw

I have to agree with texas*princess. Other than being long winded, I would have to say that was kind of rude. Ebay would not let me send email from my account, because I had already put in a request (several weeks before) for them to terminate my account which takes 90 days. I was hoping I could still use it to send email, but I can't anymore. Whether or not that would have prevented me from bidding on my own pin, I am not sure. I decided that the best course of action would be for me to try and contact ebay before the bidding time was over. I have never been in this situation, so I was not sure what I was supposed to do.

And yes, I did get a troubling phone call that caused my pin to take a back seat. So I did end up losing my pin completely. And who cares what the seller's success rate is? Every complaint should be taken seriously. Who knows how she found my pin. The fact is that it belonged to me. I don't need you hinting that I could be some troll or some person that doesn't care about my pin. Like I said, I was not sure about what I should do at the time.

Your post did have some good points but they were hard to find. Oh and your "spidey sense" needs a tune up.

[honeychile]

I'm not going to take a lot of time on this, but:

1) The DAY this pin was listed, I let the seller know that it wasn't vintage, it was from 2004. She did not change the listing.
2) Concerning our pin; save the bravissimos. Maybe you don't care, but we do.
3) We (as GC) haven't "fought" together for one pin in a long time. We did, and will continue to do so, because we DO know who originally bought this pin. The value of either the seller or buyer is nothing compared to that of smiley.
4. As you talk about what it's like to be a pin collector/ebay seller, do you know what it's like to have a list of other women whose pins were stolen, having them beg you to please join them in a search for their pin?
5. I made a reasonable offer to the buyer, offering him an identical ADPi pin whose owner choose to sell it in exchange for this particular pin. Again, no response.
6. We're doing our best to play nice. Don't lump those who threaten in with us and expect us to think you're intelligent.

Thank you for showing us the viewpoint of "the other side".

[ASUADPi]

Originally Posted by wptw

There are more than 5 million new listings on ebay EVERY DAY. Does anyone actually in real life think that you can report the listing to ebay and have them close the auction because someone may have misused an incredibly subjective word like “vintage”?

Or that in real life the auction would be “null and voided” (a new verb) because someone assumes an item they can’t find simply MUST have been stolen rather than lost?

You’re “shocked that ebay hasn’t done anything”? REALLY?

Do you think there’s an ebay employee that sits there and looks at all 5 million auctions every day, finds this one and says “hmm, this pin is listed as vintage and from an estate, but the date is 04 and it doesn’t look old enough to be from 1904 because the hands aren’t flat, so I think this seller is a little fishy and I’m going to halt the auction until I can investigate further”?

OF COURSE ebay is often a “fence for stolen items”. Duh! But they’re only required to show some due diligence – they’re not going to pull auctions from a powerseller with 99.6% positive feedback just based on an email with a sad story.




OK, I know it’s not advisable to smack a hornets’ nests with a stick... but I’m gonna because I’m skeptical by nature. For instance, I get this weird “spidey-sense” thing whenever I smell a troll or something sounds urband-legendy. Now this is clearly neither a troll nor an urban legend, but I still have that nagging feeling. Something here doesn’t sound right.

So I’m reading the thread and my very first thought was: “Wow, she sure showed up fast – in fact, just as soon as the other ladies found out through the directory whose badge it really was. I wonder if she was afraid she’d be outed for pawning her own badge”.

But then I figured nah I’m just paranoid and kind of an asshole, so I kept reading. She posts to GC at 3:44pm, the auction doesn’t end until 7:47pm, 4 hours later, and the price stays very low, but she doesn’t bid. Odd. She’s talking to ebay but gets a phone call that makes her angry so she can’t continue. Oy. She tried to email the seller but can’t send email from her ebay account. OK, can’t remember ever not being able to send an ebay message from my account, and it seems like this would be easily fixed, but whatever.

Now, I know very little about women. The ones in my life tell me that women in general don’t react to crises in the way that most men and I would consider “rational”, and that I need to keep that in mind. So I’m trying to. I guess it explains all the head-in-sand wishful-thinking ebay-bashing above, but...

Especially with only 4 hours to do something, wouldn’t you just place an outrageously high bid for it and then work it out later? Obviously the seller is going to be a lot more responsive to the person that just won the auction for like $100, than to the person that emails them (or rather, has her message board friends email them) reporting it stolen. Obviously ebay is going to be a lot more responsive to a bidder that is potentially defaulting on a $100 bid, than to someone (or again, someone’s message board friends) who is making an unsupported claim of stolen property.

I know what I would do if I saw my badge for sale on ebay, and by contrast it just doesn’t seem like she wants it back all that much.

But I know you’ll find this whole insinuation terribly insulting, and there’ll be gasps of horror and how-dare-yous and the like, so I’ll digress.




“The buyer has no shame”, what a crock! Do you ladies realize how many emails the typical ebay badge seller or badge buyer gets that claim (among other things) that the item is stolen? If they’re not responding to you, it’s not necessarily that they’re a horrible person. More likely they’ve been scammed in the past and now won’t reply to ANYONE without a copy of a police report.

By the way, why do you assume the successful bidder is a badge collector (and a male) when a quick 30 day search of their bidding history shows they bid exclusively on ADPi items? If it turns out to be an ADPi, will you still say they have no shame?

And finally... I am, as ever, totally amazed - and disgusted - at how in an effort to preserve the badge, the symbol of all the noble and wonderful sparkly high ideals we represent, we somehow feel it appropriate to insult and threaten and lie to innocent strangers. Smashing! Bravissima!




Some practical advice, because believe it or not I am truly interested in making sure people get back badges that are rightfully theirs... If this situation comes up again, even if you DO have a police report: PLACE A BID. Ebay is a huge bureaucracy, it will take time for them to process anything. Buyers and sellers are highly skeptical of any email you send them, they’re jaded by experience and chances are almost nil that they’ll help you. Resist the urge to spam them or mass email them, that never works and only reinforces their suspicion that you’re a scammer. Place a bid. Work it out later.

Worst case, even if ebay and the seller never take any action, you would have paid probably $50 to win this badge. Twice what it’s worth on the market, but only a small fraction of its alleged symbolic and sentimental value. I can’t believe no one gave you this advice back on page 2 when there was still time to save it.

Meantime, everyone be nice! This ebay powerseller almost certainly didn’t steal the badge. For sure the auction winner didn’t steal it. And of course, neither of them lost it or gave it up in the first place.

Honeychile I think is taking the right approach by trying to bargain for it. But... I would find a way to email the seller YOURSELF and offer them twice what they paid for it. If that doesn’t work, offer them 3 times what they paid for it. IF you want it back, that is.

OK, gotta go, apparently the police are here and they want to put me in jail because the L’il Tykes plastic playhouse I bought through the Pennysaver ad turned out to be stolen.

wptw

hmm, my "spidey-sense" is tingling that you might just be the pin collector that honeychile has emailed but you want twice to three times the amount you paid for a pin that was most likely stolen.

[ThetaDancer]

Originally Posted by wptw

But then I figured nah I’m just paranoid and kind of an asshole,



wptw

You could have just left it at that.

[wptw]

Originally Posted by ASUADPi

hmm, my "spidey-sense" is tingling that you might just be the pin collector that honeychile has emailed but you want twice to three times the amount you paid for a pin that was most likely stolen.

Nah, I don't really collect any longer. Haven't bought or sold a badge in probably 4 years now. I frankly don't care about either the seller or the buyer. I don't know either of them.

Who said I don't care? I gave you some practical advice. Just seems to me with all these resources, the rescue effort could have been a lot more effective. Emotion clouded judgment in my opinion.

The world doesn't much care what's important to you, and an enormous engine of commerce like ebay is not going to grind to a halt for you. Yet many of you seem to expect it to, which I think limits your ability to effectively rescue badges. Take that for what it's worth. If it's rude, so be it. I tend to find inconvenient truths somewhat rude as well, but c'est la vie.

I can't help but shake the feeling that if it was my badge up there, armageddon couldn't prevent me from getting my bid in. But whatever, that's me.

My wish is for Smiley to have her badge back, and in fact I think she'll eventually be successful if she plays it the right way. That is, unless the seller or the winning bidder happen to read this thread (which should tell you something).

uncrash,
wptw