Wow, thanks for the warning. I was just about to buy his brick of JAQK Cellars and I was determined. Now I'm skeptical. But it's hard to believe that all the decks he's selling is counterfeit. He could have made it a bit cheaper to attract more people.
Personally, I will never deal with him again. You get burned once, and its just not worth the effort of going through the whole eBay / PayPal resolution process again. (What a time suck that was.)
I can't trust anyone who is selling something like a brick of "If An Octopus Could Palm" decks every single week. It just doesn't make sense because it is not possible to get that many and sell them for so low. MAYBE.... if you see one or two doubtful auctions here and there. But... when you look at all the auctions he is listing as a whole, its just absurd.
I'm sure some of his items are genuine. I imagine he (they?) have to first buy one of the original items, so they can study and scan images of it in order to create realistic counterfeits. At some point he is going to want to sell the original item back on eBay when he is finished with it. But, there will be far more counterfeits being sold and you won't know which you are getting.
I'm so glad I came across this thread. At least now I know to be wary. I actually have several items on my watch list from this seller, but I luckily haven't bought anything from him/her yet.
I'm glad this post is helping to raise awareness.
It seems more likely he is printing counterfeits and selling them as if they were the real thing.
...or (if I was to play "Devil's Advocate") perhaps he's a not-so-knowledgeable retailer buying counterfeits because he doesn't know any better, thinks they're real and was offered a great deal. Either way, though, it's not a good sign.
I agree it is not a good sign either way. I actually messaged back and forth with him (about a year ago) and he claimed ignorance of them being counterfeits. But the things he said to me (and the way he said them) also felt fishy. In addition to the other facts I was looking at, it made me doubt his honesty.
Either way, it is the seller's responsibility to ensure they are not selling false goods. Or else, at least NOTE in the auction that he isn't sure if it is authentic or a fake. But to sell them as originals is reprehensible. Here are some things I like to keep in mind:
- I alerted him to the issue of the UltraGaffs being counterfeit about a year ago. So he is now clearly aware of the issue of authenticity with expensive decks.
- At one point I looked and he was selling auctions like these week after week after week. So I have to assume he has either manufactured a large lot or has purchased a large lot.
- By selling these cards, he at least knows enough about these cards to realize who makes them, and how rare they are. It would stand to reason that at one point in his head, when buying a lot of 1,000 Sultan Treasuries or a lot of 1,000 Red LTD decks.... he might consider they cannot possibly be authentic.
So, given these thoughts, it occurs to me he is not entirely honest.
Yes, some of his auctions look authentic to me too.... and they very well might be.
But I just can't trust someone who willingly puts buyers at risk of loss by selling cards he may have reason to suspect are fakes.
I was looking through some of the stuff he had on sale and I think what puts the guard down for most consumers are the non-stock photos of the decks, which make it seem like the seller has the original deck in question. However, I've seen this happen many times, where the seller uses the non-stock photo of another eBay seller. For the JAQKs (or any other deck, really), the photos may have been taken from another seller, which is why the listing looks legit.
Some of them really might be authentic. But I will say that any photos of the UltraGaff brick I had purchased would have looked just like the originals. It was only upon very close inspection I started noticing a bunch of things were wrong. Someone who isn't looking as closely as I was may not even have noticed. The counterfeits were pretty good imitations at first glance. And if you didn't open the decks, you would have even less reason to doubt their authenticity.
If you all are interested I can put up some photos I took a while back comparing the UltraGaff counterfeits to the real decks.
Yeah. I'd like to know eBay's response to the matter though.
Well, FFN was the original complainant on this topic - it would be a matter of whether or not he reported it to eBay. No report, no response.
I mentioned in my first post that I did contact eBay about the issue and never heard back. My reports of violations just disappeared into a black hole of nothingness. I even sent emails to Ellusionist, Theory 11, and Dan & Dave to let them know about this guy. They all essentially replied with, "hey thanks for the info, we'll look into it" and then I never heard anything further. It's was quite akin to yelling into outer space.
