Please do not bid?

[kupo1121]

Hey, so I'm not sure if this is supposed to be in the Pin Discussion section, but I thought it might belong here after I saw the rules in the section about Scrappers/Counterfeits. Anyways, there is a seller on Ebay (who will remain unnamed in this thread) who had 2 pins I liked very much and have a very good want/trade ratio on Pinpics on Ebay in an auction. The 2 separate auctions (while ending very soon), had only 1 bid on each of them which I thought was fishy considering they are very popular wanted pins.

So after looking on Pinpics I found out that there are scrappers of both pins in circulation, so to express my concern I sent a very nice message to the seller, asking if they were sure the 2 pins they were auctioning were not scrappers. They got back to me very quickly with a simple and nice reply that stated that they were very sure that their pins weren't scrappers but they asked me not to bid.

I'm very torn and confused now and was wondering if anyone knows what I should do. The 2 pins that are being auctioned are very high on my wants list, but the auction didn't show what the backing looked like and I couldn't really tell if there was anything wrong with the front of the pin. I would have loved to bid if they were authentic, but now I don't know what to do.

Btw, both pins didn't come with the original backer card for the same reason (the seller said they traded for the pins and they no longer had the backing in the description).

What do you guys think I should do? I mean, obviously I shouldn't bid, but now I'm nervous that I'm missing out on 2 of my highly wanted pins

 

[Pin-A-Colada]

When in doubt don't bid. You will get those pins eventually and the seller even asked you not to bid in case you won. He might know that you will scrutinize his scrappers once they arrive to you.

 

[Aquata]

That is ... strange. They told you NOT to bid...yet the pins are supposedly authentic? If it were me, that'd raise red flags right there or at the very least, suspicions. Unless I'm reading this wrong, it sounds like they were offended by your question, which, if that's the case, why be offended if you are selling authentic pins and have nothing to worry about?
Do you know if they are a reputable Ebay seller as far as pins go...? Also, having a backer card doesn't always make it authentic so I wouldn't worry about that. I've gotten plenty of authentic pins from the bay that came without their cards and only one that came on it's supposed backer card but it was a scrapper. So, yeah... unfortunately backer cards aren't always a sure bet :\
Also, wanted to mention that I've been in that position. There was a Stitch pin this one seller had put up but it's a super HTF one and he used a generic pinpics photo, started it off a very low price and his feedback wasn't 100% positive plus I'd never heard of him (there's a few regular pin sellers that I know to be good and trust). I sent him an e-mail, stating that for this pin, I would bid high but politely requested a photo of the actual pin. No response... so as much as it pained me, I had to let it go. I hope that whoever bought it got an authentic pin but I just wasn't going to throw away $60 on a fake. In any case, be patient... those pins will come to you and you'll feel better having them when you know that you don't have to potentially worry that they are scrappers

 

[kupo1121]

So I asked why they asked I not bid and they said it was because I mentioned that there were no backer cards in my original question. To them, this meant I was a new trader and would probably receive the pin and return it immediately, claiming it was a "scrapper" if it wasn't up to my standards. Another thing I found odd is that they only had 1 negative feedback, but I read that feedback and in it, the person said something along the lines of "Clearly not a good seller, look at all the rest of the bad feedback." I thought this was odd considering there was no other negative feedback. Does Ebay get rid of all negative feedback after a certain time?

Thank you guys so far for your replies, I don't see it as a missed opportunity but rather a catastrophe avoided

 

[Tealke]

Since they said that there were very sure but not 100%, they may be worried that someone who took the time to ask the question would be very critical of the pins once they received them and could determine them to be scrappers and ask for a refund, thus creating a hassle for the seller. Then again they could know they were scrappers and just trying to save face by acting naive to save face. It pretty much sounds like a 50/50 chance.

Does the auction have pictures of the actual pin they are selling?

 

[kupo1121]

Does the auction have pictures of the actual pin they are selling?

Yes they had an actual photo of the front of the pin and I had a hard time telling if it is a scrapper or not. I'm nearly 100% sure you're not allowed to post the photos here, if anyone can help me I can PM them the 2 photos (if that is allowed).

 

[dizneyfanaddicts]

Negative feedback drops off after one year. Also if a certain buyer leaves alot of negative feedback for sellers they ban the buyer for a few weeks and erase the sellers bad feedback. Ebay truly favors sellers that is how they make money. When in doubt, DO NOT BUY. What will probably happen if you bid and do win, the seller will cancel the transaction and do a second chance offer to someone else that has bid if there are any other bidders. Good luck.

 

[kupo1121]

When in doubt, DO NOT BUY. What will probably happen if you bid and do win, the seller will cancel the transaction and do a second chance offer to someone else that has bid if there are any other bidders. Good luck.

I know many other people with Ebay accounts so if I truly wanted to bid I could easily use one of theirs and pay them back. However, as people are saying, I think it best I not bid, it seems odd that these highly sought after pins only have 1 bid each anyways and there seems to be a lot of bad factors against me bidding.

 

[Dalisair]

Negative feedback drops off after one year. Also if a certain buyer leaves alot of negative feedback for sellers they ban the buyer for a few weeks and erase the sellers bad feedback. Ebay truly favors sellers that is how they make money. When in doubt, DO NOT BUY. What will probably happen if you bid and do win, the seller will cancel the transaction and do a second chance offer to someone else that has bid if there are any other bidders. Good luck.

I was about to say this very thing. I have a 14 day ban due to 3 sellers selling me bad pins. I returned them all, even the ones ebay didn't say to. But all the bad or neutral feedback I left is gone. Over half my transactions were good, ALL the transactions after those 3 bad sellers were good, but eBay only protected the bad sellers. Oh, and I'm not protected by their buyer protection program anymore.

 

[PinHunters]

I was about to say this very thing. I have a 14 day ban due to 3 sellers selling me bad pins. I returned them all, even the ones ebay didn't say to. But all the bad or neutral feedback I left is gone. Over half my transactions were good, ALL the transactions after those 3 bad sellers were good, but eBay only protected the bad sellers. Oh, and I'm not protected by their buyer protection program anymore.

We've had a couple of problems with scrappers on the bay as well and find that the best way to get positive feedback (EVEN AFTER returning item/getting full refund) is the way you communicate with sellers. One thing they do not like is when you mention that it's a scrapper. They actually get angry // don't want to work things out. Usually we message them saying something of the lines of, "Hey, so we received your pin and we do not really like the quality // we are unsure of it's authenticity // we are unhappy with our purchase, please let us know if we can working something out." Every time we've made it clear that it is fake in very neutral terms, sellers allow us to return the item and leave positive feedback. Hopefully that way you avoid being treated unfairly by ebay system.

 

[kupo1121]

Usually we message them saying something of the lines of, "Hey, so we received your pin and we do not really like the quality // we are unsure of it's authenticity // we are unhappy with our purchase, please let us know if we can working something out." Every time we've made it clear that it is fake in very neutral terms, sellers allow us to return the item and leave positive feedback. Hopefully that way you avoid being treated unfairly by ebay system.

Even though the auction is over now and I didn't bid, I'll mention that in the description of the item they said that too many times people get the pins and say they don't like them, claiming they aren't authentic and send them back, so they stated in the description the pin is sent "As Is" and won't accept returns. So doing what you said wouldn't have worked with this seller as that is doing exactly what they specifically said they don't want happening.

 

[Amandie1989]

maybe the seller is just unhappy about being questioned？