another ebay concern....pinpics associated

i received a 25 pin *lot*, which 6 were found to be counterfeit. thankfully the seller has agreed to exchange the 6 pins for 6 others. but when i asked the seller to review my "wants" list on pinpics to see if they had any of the traders i was looking for, they said "Also, I don't have a pinpic account. I believe that the information about Disney pins in many cases is incorrect."

So, I'm thankful that this seller has agreed to exchange the 6 questionable pins, but concerned that they don't refer to the "main" source of pin information. granted, there has been alot of chatter about pinpics recently, and i too believe that its not right that a 3rd party not associated with Disney, takes it upon themselves to number and catalog disney pins for the whole world to follow. But if the rest of the universe follows pinpics for information on pins, then a respectable ebay seller should also.

thoughts?

I have been told this by sellers a few times.

How much do you trust this guy as a reputable seller ?
Imho it really depends on what sort of lot it was, and whether you think he knew they were scrappers. I agree with the fact that it is a third party website, but I find it to be reliable. And if you don't trust it - why not just take the information you want from it and ignore the rest ?
Pinpics' greatest feature is the fact that it's a catalogue, just like you said. It helps us for the most part figure out what pins we want and how to get them.

I'm sure that some pin sellers who don't sell lots and lots never ever look at pinpics, but here's guessing that when you're selling in a major way (and making large amounts of money) you check up on things. (W/t ratios etc).
Just my opinion. Hopefully you get some real pins in return, then !

Hmmm. I dont get the fact that A DISNEY PIN SELLER does not believe in pinpics! This sounds like a lame BS excuse to explain why they are selling scrappers...i mean come on!!! Do not buy lots. period. They are mostly scrappers sold knowingly by law breaking, scammers. It is exactly like the guy in NYC selling "gucci" purses for $25 and saying they dont have a real one to compare the difference to. It is totally worth it for them to exchange your pins or even reimburse you all your money becuase they make so much off the lots they sell. Seriously, very few honest, pin loving, pin collecting folks who also sell on Ebay- dont have a pinpics account. OHHH this rubs me the wrong way!

txmedic1 said:

and i too believe that its not right that a 3rd party not associated with Disney, takes it upon themselves to number and catalog disney pins for the whole world to follow.

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Pinpics is a community based site. From what I understand, the first person to get ahold of the pin or pics of it, anyone, can create the pinpics page for it. Anyone can post comments about the pin. Moderators can then choose to put comments into the main info section. The number is just a chronological identity generated by the database. I believe it is a huge and necessary service to the pin community that pinpics exists. Why do you think it's not right?

I am bothered by how dated the site is and how poorly the search works and how boneheaded the UI is sometimes, and hopefully they don't ruin it when they try to monetize it in the next iteration.

Anyway, the fact that you could identify 6 fakes out of 25, means this seller is a bad person and you shouldn't trust them for anything or buy anything from them again. It is most likely the entire lot is fake and they are only selling from big bags of fake pins directly out of china. They have nothing to do with the hobby and of course they don't use pinpics, and of course they want you to think pinpics is telling lies. Pinpics is actually very hesitant to post scrapper warnings without very real proof, and they error on the side of there being many fakes with no mention on pinpics, which is sad to me.

I have several pins that I won't even add to Pinpics because of some of their practices. They are quickly turning into the wikipedia of pins. Pinpics is a wonderful source of pin trading knowledge, but it not the only source, many veteran pin traders can be just as informative and in many cases more reliable than a site that is only seldom updated.

Can you elaborate on their bad practices? I'm not being condescending I genuinely want to learn.

I wonder if the eBay seller was a certain someone on the boards or one of her friends.


- EDIT - I'm editing this post because I did not mean to call someone out or be mean. I was being logical in my assumption while trying to make a lame joke in the process, but I was given advice that my post came off a bit mean. I apologize to one and all for that as it was not my intention.

I have bought many times from tiggernut and NEVER had a damaged/scrapper or questionable pin. Just sayin. Im not sure what the bad practices are either. I am a bit bummed that they said they were doing all this work on the site to make it better, search etc...and over a year later NADA. I also have heard rumors that i can not confirm personally at all that scrapper warnings on certain pins have been removed---but let's not get into all that again. All and all i personally would be lost without it! How the heck would i know what i had, details about it, how to trade pins with others and yes i have actually confimed about 10 scrappers by the tips left by other traders on there, this year alone.

pinpics doesnt have a scrapper warning anymore. They have been removed I was told.
I wish I would have known about the no counterfeit warning on pinpics because I bought a
Jessica pin thinking it was NOT scrapped and later found out theyre are no warnings. yup, it was
fake LOL
I'm not on any sides, but why would they send you fakes in the first place?
good thing they are agreeing to send you 6 more pins, lets hope those arent fake too >.<

My understanding is that pinpics will put up a scrap or counterfiet warning IF they can see proof. Such as a sumbitted picture of the pin in question. If pinpics put a scrap warning on every pin out there that has some lower quality pins in circulation, just about every single rack pin in existance would have one.

Counterfiets are real, and the people making them are getting better. I have first hand seen counterfiet, (not scrap) jumbo jessica's, DA Stitches, and DS pins.

ryanfury said:

Anyway, the fact that you could identify 6 fakes out of 25, means this seller is a bad person and you shouldn't trust them for anything or buy anything from them again. It is most likely the entire lot is fake and they are only selling from big bags of fake pins directly out of china. They have nothing to do with the hobby and of course they don't use pinpics, and of course they want you to think pinpics is telling lies.

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I am not a confrontational person generally, so it is pretty surprising that I am quoting this. But this first statement is pretty rough, and also extreme since no one knows this seller personally. Those are all assumptions, and unnecessary ones at that.

As for the question about the validity of a seller who is not associated with pin pics, I can say that I have been buying pins for several years, about five or six, and I only just joined this forum and pin pics a couple of months ago. Just because a person buys/sells pins does not automatically mean they are associated with pin pics, and it also does not dictate wither or not they are a "bad person" or good person. I did not know the difference between fakes and real until recently, and I still have trouble. Not everyone is as schooled as all you amazing forum members.

I am not looking for details, just saying all of this as a general comment on the situation. Someone may come back with, "if a seller cannot tell the difference between real and scrapper, they should not be selling. " not true. They have offered a legitimate exchange, which is expected and a clear showing of appropriate seller terms and behavior. A seller sells what they can, what they find for their wares, and the fact that they are making an exchange is good. Do not base your opinion of them on he original fakes you received, but on the way they handled the situation. It is simply an issue of customer service, not on how deep a seller is with Disney.

If you get your 25 legitimate pins in the end, I would not worry.

You are right Becky I try to be more open to discussion usually and sorry for offending, but this subject gets me pretty emotional. I will stand by the opinion that if you intentionally sell fakes you are a bad person. We can respectfully disagree on that point if you think otherwise.

I will admit a small chance they aren't intentionally doing it, but the details strongly suggest otherwise. Most of the 25 pin ebay lots are fakes, and I would bet this seller has several lots for sale at any given time, all with the same hidden mickeys. While it's fine to not use pinpics, the attitude that this person, who one way or another sold fakes, doesn't use pinpics for the reason that they think it posts false information about fakes, proves that they are aware of the fakes situation. If they are not outright selling fakes on purpose, they are well aware that their pins might be fakes and just don't care to do the research. I still suspect the former.

The seller may not like Pinpics, it doesn't necessarily mean anything. I've never been to Pinterest, but I still manage to decorate the house and cook dinner.

There are still scrapper warnings, I typed 'hidden mickey cast' and just pulled these randomly from the very first page:

Pinpics is an amazing user-created database that many of us rely on and appreciate. I didn't know a thing about it for awhile but was sure happy when I found it. It doesn't have to be everyone's cup of tea. Over the years, yes, I've found errors on Pinpics, but that's why there's a section on the bottom. There's far, far more right than wrong about Pinpics.

Psycho Pixie said:

I have first hand seen counterfiet, (not scrap) jumbo jessica's, DA Stitches, and DS pins.

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don't tell me that, i just posted about 2 DA Stitch pins that i just acquired!!!!

txmedic1 said:

don't tell me that, i just posted about 2 DA Stitch pins that i just acquired!!!!

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The ones I have seen have errors that can be spotted if you know where to look.... usually its an error in edition size, a slightly larger font on the backstamp. The Jumbo Jessica's being counterfiet'd are actually a tiny bit different in size!!! But its sooo slight you have to hold them next to an authentic to tell. Occationally a totally different color metal. (I am aware AP versions of DA are diff, I am talking about DS and others in that regard.)

Something to remember also is that not every pin accused of being fake really is. I know first-hand about this as I sold two DA pins and was accused of selling fakes - the problem is I bought the pins myself from Disney. I am the only owner of them. So the person cheated themselves out of two genuine Disney pins all because they were paranoid. These pins never had a scrapper alert on them ever so it was just ridiculous.

nWoJeffDW said:

Something to remember also is that not every pin accused of being fake really is. I know first-hand about this as I sold two DA pins and was accused of selling fakes - the problem is I bought the pins myself from Disney. I am the only owner of them. So the person cheated themselves out of two genuine Disney pins all because they were paranoid.

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I know, right?! I've been buying since 2005 and there are several times that, had I not bought it myself, I'd have thought it was a counterfeit. Sometimes the glue/sealant that they put over the hologram on the back was missing, or leaked on the pin elsewhere, sometimes it looked like paper towels had been stuck on and pulled off the front of the pin. Even Disney says they're hand finished and may occasionally exhibit flaws.

Disney Auctions were the best on quality control, but still, some of them looked so wonky that I'd have been asking a lot of questions if I hadn't won them myself. The DS.com puppet series was hit or miss. Some in the series were stunning, others looked like they were made in someone's garage (though I only got one or two of each, Jiminy was the worst 'garage' version in that series for me).

What's that song about paranoia?!

OH! and i forgot the most important part...the ebay'er describes the pins as " all trade-able at disney". to me, this means this...i'm sure its "trade-able" .....to some unsuspecting 4 year old that doesn't know any better. and get this....they said they wont be available to send back my 6 pins until the end of the month because they are going to disneyland to "do some pin trading". so if your at disneyland to trade...be careful.

on that note, if this particular ebay seller is a member of DPF, and this story sounds familiar.....shame shame.