BEWARE Buying Meerschaum from Turkey on Ebay ....

Well, over the last decade I've become quite the little eBay Detective having assisted in a few major busts concerning everything from the sale of fake Roman antiquities equating to $100k's (for a forum), to non-existent slimming powders involving many, to general rorts and shill bidding (shilling is when a seller uses other ID's, theirs or their mates', to bid prices higher).
So, the other day I purchased a Meerschaum out of Turkey. Afterwards, I researched the bidding to establish a rather large network of Turkish ID's all bidding on each other's pipes, hmmm very interesting indeedy - teeheehee, imagine their shock when I sent them an email setting out all the exact ID's, who had bid on what for whom, who was up who & who wasn't paying the rent. Told them they could jam their pipe where the sun don't shine, explained that what they were doing was dishonest, tantamount to stealing etc etc.
Their reply was one of indignation whilst, at the same time pleading with me to "go easy" (in relation to reporting them to ebay). They went on to say, "Look, listen, it's not like you paid $1m for the pipe, you paid $50 and our wholessale is $65" - and I care about that because? Thieving mongrel thing to do imo.
The only reason I bid on this pipe is because it was a particular rarely found animal, otherwise I would never gamble on buying a reconstituted pipe (albeit claimed to be "Block") from some local yocal eBay seller hawking his wares & predicably bidding up his prices.
Moral of the story - if you want to buy a Meerschaum new, due to the high number of ID's involved in this scam, then only buy from the most highly respected vendors on ebay (high & good f/back is an indication but does not always reflect 100% what's going on behind the scenes) or, better still, stick to a B&M store who only buy wholesale from trustworthy outlets over there. Otherwise, accept the risk that you were bid up by the seller or his mates, and if that doesn't bother you, go for it. NB: This usually only occurs with the low-end pipes from what I've obvserved, the ones that look like they're pretty much carved by beginners and learners, certainly not the super high end artist signed pipes.
If you ever have any doubts and want an eBay seller checked out just drop me a line and I'll see what I can do if there's a web that needs untangling

Why thank you Cortez, means a lot!

Hi Wallbright ... it's a long/involved process, but I'll do my best to explain ... when you suspect foul play, it always pays to open up 6 or 7 different windows as I did in this case because the bastards are all over the place, intertwined with each other, bidding on each others items - NB usually shilling accounts only buy (as opposed to selling) but there's always the exception to the rule, especially with this lot of clowns. So, you cut & paste each "suspect" www address into a new tab brower or right click & "open in new tab".
To start: In bidding history of any item that you're interested in (click on number of bids) you'll see s***a (4) for example.
The (4) represents biddder's f/back score. Click on their f/back number and you'll get a run-down on what categories they've been bidding on, how many bids they've placed with various sellers (who are numbered) and the % of bids placed with the seller of the item you're interested in. If the number of bids placed are high, as is the % of bids placed with this particular seller, then that's your first red light. At this stage they're still anonymous to you, so to solve that problem you do the following ....
Then view the seller's feedback of the item you're interestd in, set it to 200 per page down the bottom. Do a cntrl "F" and insert the bidder's f/back score (4) in the search box and keep pressing the next arrow. Keep doing this until you've established all user ID's with (4) that they've sold to. I open up a window for each separate buyer with (4) f/back & check their location, what they've bought and from whom. Red flags are (in the case of the Turkish debacle), their location is Turkey, they haven't bid outside their country on anything else, they've "won" other meer pipes from other sellers in Turkey.
Once you think you've smelt a rat, go to "Advanced Search" (on home page next to search item bar) and click on "Items by Bidder", insert just suspect bidder's name in there & click "Completed Items Up to 15 Days" - there you can review what items they bid on, won, lost (ie actually placed shill bids on) - you'll either see they bid solely on one seller's items, or on a few sellers. Then you can click on each of those items & delve even deeper to unravel more of their little web.
Basically each step of the way you'll find yourself being diverted to several different sellers who're shilling and several different "buyers" who're doing their bidding to jack prices up. Particularly pay attention to "No Longer Reg'd) accounts, that's always an indication of fraudulent behaviour & when you view their history, voila, up pops red signals all over the place.
Mind you, this takes a hell of a lot of practice and intuition - so many Powerseller ebay mates email me and say, "Hey, look at this mongrel shilling" and I email back saying, "Pull your silly head in, no they're not at all because ....." i.e. I used to buy literally 1,000's of items from individual ebay sellers and it would look for all the world like I bid on every single one of their items. I did, and won 90% of every bid I placed and did so for several years - of course, it was all legit, but a newbie "snoop" would get straight onto greedBay screaming, "Shill! Shill!" and, as a consequence, eBay get really sick and tired (read LAX) about following up every report they get.
If you have the eBay ID of someone you know, you can also "bid stalk" them using the "Advanced Search" method to find out and follow, even bid on, the items they're going for. Handy if they're a much better ebay searcher than you are
Be aware that this shill snooping method really only works in the smaller countries. For example in UK, USA, AU there is nothing to stop sellers from getting their mother, sister, mate from across the country to place inflated bids on things to run them up - that goes on more than any of you will ever know - some morons actually do it from their own computer with a different ID they've registered for that purpose which, of course, eBay can act upon straight away due to IP addresses. However, with friends, family (providing different surnames), collegues etc. there's nothing they can do to prove dishonest. So, on that basis, at the end of the day the item is worth what you're prepared to pay, on the understanding that someone, somewhere could be jerking your chain.
A word of advice - if you intend buying & selling on ebay, always have a separate buying account and separate selling account, otherwise those of us skilled enough can research what you bought and how much you paid and then see the thing come back up for sale at 10 times more Also helps to prevent bid stalking by competitors. You're allowed to have as many eBay ID's as you like but, be aware, if eBay deregister one, they'll deregister the lot of them and ban your IP, bank a/c's, credit cards, driver's licence etc. Honesty is ALWAYS the best policy with eBay, they're smarter than the CIA and it's rare to find an employee over the age of 35yo!!!

LMAO Baron, gimme your eBay ID & I can tell you the last time you flatulated! :P

Do bears shit in the forest Spartan?

Oooh, having said all that ... suppose you have a fave pipe seller and you see that a particular bidder is always winning the pipes you wanted or the types you would like to find. You can also check out his bidding pattern i.e. does he proxy bid or snipe so you can get the upper edge.
Scroll through the seller's feedback and when you see the same buyer popping up time and time again, cut & paste buyer's user ID into the "Advanced Search by Bidder" box and you'll get a run down of their past and present bids and item numbers/links to whatever else they're bidding on, then you can follow suit. Personally, I couldn't be bothered, I find my own treasures and snipe, half the joy is spending endless hours finding them and whoopin' everyone else's ass. Sniping can be real risky though because there can be a time lag between your computer & ebay's system.

Purrrr-fect boy, absolutely purrrr-fect for moi, in more ways than one