Meteorite sellers are generally honest because the meteorite hobby is a trust-based business. The wise understand that 'reputation and honesty' are fundamental to 'staying in business'. With that in mind consider the following and judge for yourself.

wholesale*gem (aka mineralmall, mineral-station)

Please note wholesale*gem's auction:
(This Item sold for $100 on Oct. 9)

 

But wait, what's this?:

The same item sells for $80 on Oct. 16??? Perhaps the buyer backed out and the seller had to put it up for bid again. Yes, that must be what happened!

And again?:


The same item selling for $80.10 on Oct. 23. Hmmm! The same suspect meteorite selling every seven days....

No big suprise here:

Again, the same item sells for $76 on Oct. 31. Note: after publishing this page to the web the item reappeared below but without a photo:

This same pattern is consistent for other auctions (mineral-mall):

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250171633972
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250174471095
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250177427113
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250180324834
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250183053443

Not so strange that the above seller hides the bidder's IDs ("User ID kept private") on the suspect meteorite auctions but NOT on his mineral auctions. (This prevents any new buyer from being warned that the 'SOLID IRON-NICKEL METEORITE SPECIMEN' is not what is claimed.)

Matt Pasek, who informed me of this, notes, "These folk are obviously shilling their bids, trying to boost their feedback and appear respectable. I've reported them to ebay, but you know how effective that is. However, in general it doesn't look like that many folk are getting taken in by the scam, given that these pieces of junk get "sold" over and over again. At least they have to pay the ebay fee each time."

In the case of China mineral dealers, a potential bidder cannot rely on bidder feedback to determine the honesty of the seller. China mineral dealers have excellent feedback due to quality minerals and unsuspecting novice meterorite buyers. New Collectors, buy from IMCA members and/or established dealers who promote authenticity! Caveat emptor!

 

Home | Testing | On eBay | Suspect Auctions | In the News | Web Mis-Identifications | Hot Rocks | I.D. Links