{"id":16176,"date":"2010-01-21T10:21:03","date_gmt":"2010-01-21T18:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/?p=16176"},"modified":"2012-06-06T09:53:53","modified_gmt":"2012-06-06T16:53:53","slug":"4-fake-vintage-bass-saxophone-sales-on-ebay-that-got-me-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/2010\/4-fake-vintage-bass-saxophone-sales-on-ebay-that-got-me-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Fake Vintage Bass Saxophone Sales On eBay That Got Me Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I was doing my regular eBay search for bass saxophones, and I happened across not 1, but 4 vintage bass saxes for sale. They were all listed by the same seller: a person in Beijing, China, with a feedback rating of 0.<\/p>\n

Of the 4 bass saxophones that this seller ostensibly had for sale, 2 of them I’d seen in the last\u00a015 months, and had actually featured on my blog. One was a Beaugnier-stencilled Vito<\/a> that had been sold by Saxquest, while the other was a silver plated Buescher<\/a>, that had been listed by The Wichita Band Instrument Company.<\/p>\n

The other 2 bass saxophones didn’t appear too likely to be in the seller’s possession either. One of them looked like it\u00a0had been\u00a0on display somewhere,\u00a0while the\u00a0other\u00a0had been photographed standing in front of some pieces of cardboard.<\/p>\n

All 4 vintage bass saxes were being auctioned with a starting bid of $1,500 US. None of the\u00a0ads mentioned the brand names,\u00a0nor did any of them have a description of the horn, its condition, or any other information\u2014just a few photos.<\/p>\n

I didn’t really know what to do, since I’m not a member of eBay. I decided to post a cautionary note on the Bass Sax Co-op<\/a>, thinking that a member there would know what next steps should be. Sure enough, within minutes of my post, a member notified eBay, and in short order all the ads were pulled. (It turns out the Vito was already gone. Someone\u00a0must have\u00a0already notified eBay.)<\/p>\n

This got me thinking: The person who did this must really have had a set on them. Trying to fraudulently sell 1 bass saxophone is hard enough because these instruments are quite unique, and the bass sax community is quite tight-knit. But 4? What were they thinking?<\/p>\n

It is quite likely that this fraud artist is one of the stupider ones out there. Clearly he\/she didn’t realize that the vintage sax community in general, and the bass sax community in particular, keeps a very close eye on auctions, and notifies its on-line members of any fraud it comes across. Members also have no qualms about reporting fraud to the appropriate authorities.<\/p>\n

Since luckily\u00a0the auctions were cancelled by eBay before money could change hands, no one was ripped off. But for me these questions remain: What happens to this seller? Were there any\u00a0consequences for his\/her actions?\u00a0What\u00a0prevents him\/her from attempting to do this again under a different user name? Perhaps this is why they had a feedback rating of 0. Maybe this wasn’t their first attempt at a scam.<\/p>\n

As much as these on-line auctions have opened up a world of unique items for us that even 10 years ago we didn’t have access to, they also open us up to potential frauds and scams like never before. Although it is sometimes easy to figure out who’s a fraudster and who’s not, sometimes it’s not as easy as it was in the case of the seller of 4 vintage bass saxophones.<\/p>\n

\n
…this is just my blog<\/em>. <\/span> My \u201creal\u201d <\/b> website is<\/span> www.bassic-sax.info.<\/a> If you\u2019re looking for <\/span> sax info<\/strong>,<\/span> you should check it out too.<\/span>There\u2019s lots<\/em> there! <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

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The other day I was doing my regular eBay search for bass saxophones, and I happened across not 1, but 4 vintage bass saxes for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[619,67,660,435,633,646,643,31],"class_list":["post-16176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings","tag-bass-saxophone","tag-bass-saxophone-co-op","tag-ebay","tag-fraudulent-listings","tag-musings","tag-on-line-resources","tag-vintage-horns","tag-vintage-sax"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t