Regular readers of my blog might remember the articles I wrote on January 3 and 4, about the fraudulent bass sale that resulted in a blog reader of mine from South America being ripped off his deposit on a bass saxophone that he was supposedly buying from an unscrupulous eBay seller located in Beijing. Luckily PayPal—after investigating the claim—returned his deposit, but many cons don’t turn out so well for the person being scammed.
Well in Part II—the January 4 post—I mention another seller who popped up immediately after the original con artist (goodmanner010) was booted off eBay. Ah yes, a seller going by the name of zaixiangliuluoguo, was supposedly selling the same type of inventory that goodmanner010 was: über expensive instruments at a fraction of their true cost.
zaixiangliuluoguo had been reported in January, and since then I haven’t seen him/her attempt to sell anymore bass saxophones. That is until yesterday.
Yesterday on the Woodwind Forum, Pete Hales noted a number of different bass saxophones currently for sale on eBay. Among these basses was this one listed by zaixiangliuluoguo:
Source: eBay.com
zaixiangliuluoguo is a man/woman of few words, and doesn’t provide a description of the instrument… Nor a reason why the neck was so professionally removed using a photo editing program. 😀
The only description is in the auction’s title, which reads:
bass saxophone sax play well
In the ad text itself, zaixiangliuluoguo simple writes this:
Payment Instructions:
I accept paypal .
Shipping cost :
120USD to worldwide
weight : about 19kg , packing material be included.
Ship this item by Air Mail,will reach in 15-28 days!
If you have questions, please feel free to contact us,we will reply within 6 hours.
Return Policy:
We are 100% Satisfaction Guarantee to our customers. If you are not satisfied with the item, we offer Full Refund to you.
What makes me suspect that zaixiangliuluoguo is either goodmanner010 with another screen name, or connected with that banned eBay seller, is that the 10 items that he/she has sold, are pretty much the same as what goodmanner010 had: cheap jewelry.
However, I can’t tell you if it’s exactly the same cheap jewelry, because I wasn’t really paying that close attention to the lovely earrings and bracelets that goodmanner010 was flogging. 😉
Yesterday when I first saw the auction, there was 1 bid on this bass saxophone. This morning there are 2. The high bid currently sits at $610.00. Sure… $610 for an Asian-made bass saxophone. Give me a break. This horn would sell for at least 5 to 6 times that amount.
If eBay doesn’t yank the ad, the auction is supposed to end on March 2. I have reported the auction. I hope you do too.
If you don’t believe me that this thing is a fraudulent auction, you might want to check out some of this seller’s other auctions. When was the last time you saw a contrabass bassoon for $900? Or a contrabass clarinet for $500?
Looks like he’s popped up again with a new name: “hetianjintian”.
Hi Jon. Welcome to my site.
I see what you mean. hetianjintian seems to have the same kinds of “expensive” instruments for “cheap” (both terms here being relative) as zaixiangliuluoguo did. Also like zaixiangliuluoguo, hetianjintian seems to have excellent results flogging cheap (in more ways than 1 I’m sure) jewelery.
It’s the gopher game all over again! 😆
What a bunch of jackasses. (A jackass?) They (he) deserve to be beaten, and not because they’re dead… :beat: … Unfortunately these clowns are all over eBay, just waiting to scam you out of your hard earned cash.
Thanks for pointing this new name out…helen
…and now it’s “sifanglaike”.
Hello Helen,
Do not worry about the answer for my e-mail with pictures … I understand that you are VERY busy!
well, let’s hope that ebay take some action!
I reported to paypal too …
yes,I know gopher games!
this picture you put is a good example of what really happens with this sellers types!
about my bass sax, yes, I can not wait to get my hands on it…
take care too!
Hi John!
Glad to hear from you. Sorry I haven’t emailed you back about the photos. I’m so busy right now. Thank you sending me the photos of your new real bass. I’m glad it’s arrived at your sister’s. I’m sure you will be happy when you finally get it a little later this year.
I can’t believe this guy is back in business! What a joke! And how stupid is he that he’s pulling the same scam again?
I reported the auction, and I’m sure you did too. I would think others have as well. I see the auction is still running as of this morning. I guess maybe eBay has so many fraud complaints to investigate, that they can’t act on them as quickly as we would like them to.
But what really bothers me, is that this seller was operating under this name already at the same time as his goodmanner010 account was being erased by eBay. I don’t get it.
Are you familiar with that gopher game at carnivals? (See attached image.) It’s where gophers pop out of holes in a board, and you try to hit them with a hammer? These sellers on eBay remind of those gophers in that carnival game. You can hit them all you want, but they just keep popping out of new holes.
Take good care John.
Warmest regards,
Helen
Hello Helen,
I am again …
yes, is the same fraudulent seller!
yesterday I sent a message to him showing interest, I asked him if he had any bass sax model copied from Selmer.
because to recognize me,I thought he would not answer me because I used my usual address e-mail the same when I “negotiated” with him the other time …
you believe he’s reply me?! and again with the same deceptive conversation: “if you negotiate directly with me without using e-bay, I can make you a big discount for you!
then asked if he had pictures…he readily said yes:
“I had a bass sax same model IW661!” (as was the other time) and sent me some pictures (the same as it has in the IW site) and this time with a MUCH lower price!
said that if I closed business yesterday with him, he would sell me for $ 800 + $ 90 delivery! O0
good, the way is to denounce him again E-Bay/PayPal and wait …