Nicholas Denney Posted February 28 Posted February 28 Great price for a complete cake, but very sketchy listing and seller. Low feedback, no other antiques, grossly inaccurate description. Quote
Chris Campbell Posted February 28 Posted February 28 (edited) Description written by eBay’s AI model. Provide as much into the specific fields and description auto generates. Has been a feature some time and becoming common. Not sketchy, just a seller being prompted by eBay. You can click sell item like this and seller submitted data fields are visible. Same fields populate into auto description generator. “This is a vintage General Electric (GE) oscillating fan with a 12-inch 4-blade design in black metal. It features 3 speeds and electric power source, suitable for indoor use. The fan has a circular vent style and operates on a voltage of 110V, with analog/mechanical controls. Standing at 15 inches high and 13.5 inches wide, this antique fan was manufactured in the 1920-1949 period in the United States, weighing 14 pounds. It also includes an oscillation feature, making it suitable for use in any room.” Edited February 28 by Chris Campbell Quote
Nicholas Denney Posted February 28 Author Posted February 28 46 minutes ago, Chris Campbell said: Description written by eBay’s AI model. Provide as much into the specific fields and description auto generates. Has been a feature some time and becoming common. Not sketchy, just a seller being prompted by eBay. You can click sell item like this and seller submitted data fields are visible. Same fields populate into auto description generator. That's nice, but I sure wouldn't want to be receiving shipping from such a lazy and careless seller. Description doesn't even agree with listing details. Quote
Chris Campbell Posted February 28 Posted February 28 9 minutes ago, Nicholas Denney said: That's nice, but I sure wouldn't want to be receiving shipping from such a lazy and careless seller. Description doesn't even agree with listing details. Keep in mind a seller may not know what they have. Description is in fact 100% that of listing details as illustrated in screenshots provide above. Quote
Juan Varleta Posted February 28 Posted February 28 Wow. People don't even have to bother to write anything anymore. Or narrate anything. Or drive ... (Well maybe someday.) Just give it all a few years. Quote
Nicholas Denney Posted February 28 Author Posted February 28 (edited) 1 hour ago, Chris Campbell said: Keep in mind a seller may not know what they have. Description is in fact 100% that of listing details as illustrated in screenshots provide above. Nope. In the description it's "1-Speed". In the listing "It features 3 speeds". Edited February 28 by Nicholas Denney Quote
Nicholas Denney Posted February 28 Author Posted February 28 1 hour ago, Juan Varleta said: Wow. People don't even have to bother to write anything anymore. Or narrate anything. Or drive ... (Well maybe someday.) Just give it all a few years. Don't have to take photos any more since restaurants are allowed to use AI representations... they just have to be technically accurate. Quote
Chris Campbell Posted February 28 Posted February 28 (edited) You are referring to a Title as 1 speed. That is not the description. Just like you used a title on this forum “Who bought this scam” You said it was “very sketchy listing and seller.” Your justification was : Low feedback, no other antiques, grossly inaccurate description. Low feedback- not uncommon. Everyone starts at zero and many sellers use as platform to get rid of random items. No other antiques - that does not justify anything and certainly not that this is a scam. Grossly inaccurate description - as explained already how description was written. Title may say one speed vs description as three but that is not grossly inaccurate. Keep in mind seller did add asterisks to illustrate needs cleaned up and clearly stated not tested. You are claiming this is a scam and is sketchy without justification. Why did you feel need to post this to the forum? It is a decent parts listing. You seem to complain a lot about random eBay sellers and listings. The closer I look at listing it is more of a parts fan listing. Guess you just bitter someone else bought it. Edited February 28 by Chris Campbell 3 Quote
Anthony Lindsey Posted February 28 Posted February 28 eBay runs a tight ship for buyers. Even if you took the chance and it turned out to be a scam EBay would refund your $. 1 Quote
George Durbin Posted February 28 Posted February 28 (edited) The parts are worth $100... I would not trust the seller to ship... If I lived close I would buy it and pick it up... My guess by the description is a picker or just someone who doesn't know fans like we do... I run into this all the time... I prefer this description over others who claim they know something about it... $100 for the parts! DEAL!! Edited February 28 by George Durbin Quote
Paul Carmody Posted February 28 Posted February 28 (edited) I say if you are one to gamble it would certainly be a big win or a fan not in the picture. I buy many fans on ebay ,but on one occasion when I first started buying fans I got scammed on a fan and ebay did nothing.By the time I tried to fight it the seller was gone.Damaged blades is the biggest problem.If I see a brass blade cheap I buy it because eventually I will need it.I definitely get better deals and sure of what I'm getting at Stan's yearly event I would not take a chance on the fan posted for all the reasons Nicholas listed. Edited February 28 by Paul Carmody Quote
Nicholas Denney Posted February 28 Author Posted February 28 8 hours ago, Chris Campbell said: You seem to complain a lot about random eBay sellers and listings. The closer I look at listing it is more of a parts fan listing. Guess you just bitter someone else bought it. I watched it come and go, I just didn't want to step that circus ring. I did want to see if someone else jumped in and I used a snagline i felt was somewhat accurate. I'm buying nearly more than I can squirrel away as it is. The last time I recall complaining about an auction was an auction house on hibid that triggered my bank's fraud alert and who failed to return my calls and messages for a solid two weeks. Quote
James Lawson Posted March 1 Posted March 1 This one was literally a pig in a poke. Might have been legit and arrive to the buyer intact, it might arrive but be destroyed, or it may never arrive. Here's a few things I would wonder about such an ad: - Has the seller's account been consistently active? If not, were a bunch of items listed recently without having received any feedback for many months or longer? - Were the pictures lifted from somewhere, or do they appear to be original? - Are the pictures consistently of the same item? A few months ago, my wife bought something off ebay that never arrived. When she showed me the auction ad, it had all the tell-tale signs of being a zombie account. The person appeared to be last active years ago and all of a sudden they had listed about 40 random items in various categories. She filed a claim with ebay and got refunded after about a week. In that time, the account started getting a lot of negative feedback piling up. The same day my wife got her refund, this person's account disappeared and there was a banner that said "no longer a registered user". 2 Quote
Michael Rathberger Posted March 1 Posted March 1 It's pretty much a no risk try. If it comes broke, you send it back. If it never arrives you get your money back. Personally I wouldn't have bought it because it's not worth the hassle but to say it's a scam is a little outrageous. We all know what scams look like. No one outside the fan community could describe it accurately, expecting every eBay seller to know all the nuance of every fan is ridiculous. I hope the buyer gets it safe and enjoys it, it was a pretty good deal. 6 Quote
James Lawson Posted March 1 Posted March 1 8 hours ago, Michael Rathberger said: ... No one outside the fan community could describe it accurately, expecting every eBay seller to know all the nuance of every fan is ridiculous. I hope the buyer gets it safe and enjoys it, it was a pretty good deal. 20 years ago, I would have agreed with that statement 100%. Now, there's so much information out there that all it takes is 5 or 10 minutes of research to at least get a general idea of what you have. A person might not be able to describe it the same way a seasoned collector would, but there's enough information out there that they could have written a fairly accurate description. I think that was the point Nicholas was getting at when he said the listing was suspect to him. I think the odds of the ad being genuine are 50/50. Hopefully whoever bought it will get it intact. If it never shows up, they can file a claim and get reimbursed. Quote
David Kilnapp Posted March 2 Posted March 2 I wish i had seen this. I certainly would have purchased at that price if only for the parts 1 Quote
Chris Campbell Posted March 2 Posted March 2 5 hours ago, David Kilnapp said: I wish i had seen this. I certainly would have purchased at that price if only for the parts It was a good buy and nothing to fear under eBay protection. Seller did not know what they had. Congratulations to the buyer. Quote
Chris Campbell Posted March 2 Posted March 2 (edited) On 3/1/2025 at 3:22 PM, James Lawson said: 20 years ago, I would have agreed with that statement 100%. Now, there's so much information out there that all it takes is 5 or 10 minutes of research to at least get a general idea of what you have. A person might not be able to describe it the same way a seasoned collector would, but there's enough information out there that they could have written a fairly accurate description. I think that was the point Nicholas was getting at when he said the listing was suspect to him. I think the odds of the ad being genuine are 50/50. Hopefully whoever bought it will get it intact. If it never shows up, they can file a claim and get reimbursed. I have a Rolliflex camera to sell. Can guarantee you as being unfamiliar the time to figure out what I have, just like the Pancake, can’t be done in 5 -10 minutes. Unlike the pancake seller with BIN I will list as an auction and describe as best as can, but not researching it any further. Someone unfamiliar with an old fan see it as an old fan. It would take much longer than 5-10 minutes to figure out what they have. Edited March 2 by Chris Campbell 4 Quote
Nicholas Denney Posted March 7 Author Posted March 7 I guess ebay listings that look like nothing more than A.I. slop are going to be the current trend for awhile. Are you on our Facebook groups? At our worst we had a new scammer seller once every week for several weeks. 1 Quote
Marc Sova Posted March 7 Posted March 7 9 hours ago, Nicholas Denney said: I guess ebay listings that look like nothing more than A.I. slop are going to be the current trend for awhile. Are you on our Facebook groups? At our worst we had a new scammer seller once every week for several weeks. Definitely helps root out the scammers when a group is private which I belive the afca group is? I know sometimes when group start out the norm is to make it public for growth, but man that just lets in so many scammers. Who’s to have three good questions too. Quote
Paul Carmody Posted March 7 Posted March 7 (edited) I don’t think it would happen here because scammers don’t want to pay a membership due.I have no intention to ever join Facebook … Edited March 7 by Paul Carmody Quote
James Lawson Posted March 8 Posted March 8 I'm not a Facebook member either. From what a few friends of mine have told me, some of the groups for the vintage car community are loaded with scammer "ads". Until there's an effective way to bust those guys and prosecute them (most of them operate from overseas), it will sadly continue. Quote
Nicholas Denney Posted March 8 Author Posted March 8 5 hours ago, Paul Carmody said: I don’t think it would happen here because scammers don’t want to pay a membership due.I have no intention to ever join Facebook … You don't need to be a member to post here, the only restriction we ever made was replying to member's posts, which wasn't a very intelligent move as it mucked up the forum with excessive new/redundant posts. 1 Quote
Nicholas Denney Posted March 8 Author Posted March 8 40 minutes ago, James Lawson said: I'm not a Facebook member either. From what a few friends of mine have told me, some of the groups for the vintage car community are loaded with scammer "ads". Until there's an effective way to bust those guys and prosecute them (most of them operate from overseas), it will sadly continue. It's just that people aren't 'street smart' on the internet and unfortunately those people are sometimes the group admins. The scammers are almost always very obvious. The gender may not match the name/photos, they may have old photos of a different person that they forgot to delete or hide, the name won't match the ethnicity, the photos may be lifted from a recent or even current legitimate listing, etc etc. In general scammers are lazy and it's easy to catch them as long as you're not overly focused on the 'prize'. 1 Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.