I placed this on RS just now. As not everyone visits there regularly, I thought I would put it here too. Thanks by the way to Mirco for the link to the auction.

Last tuesday an auction on ebay.fr ended in an absolute bargain for someone. A tri-logo Madine was won on a BIN for 90 euro's.

http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rt=nc&nma=true&_rdc=1&item=170567307454&si=oFfNIRyf0hFBE8nGxSBam0Jbkn4%253D&viewitem=#ht_500wt_1156

Shortly after that the auction was outed on a German SW collecting forum (and maybe more I don't know about).

And now, check the sellers feedback for the item (left today).

http://feedback.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=nicolas180479&ftab=AllFeedback&myworld=true

I'm not fluent in French, but I know the buyers follow up feedback says:

Quote :

For him selling off ebay for more money. Beware, fraudulent seller.

So obviously someone messaged the seller after the sale, told him he had gold in his hands and then offered him more money for it (possibly not what it is worth though).

So I guess this is a prime example of why auctions that have just ended shouldn't be outed until feedback is given. Now someone who thought he had the bargain of the century is robbed from his item by a less than scrupulous buyer and seller.

I would not be surprised if we see this item for sale again pretty soon by the way.

I have never been a fan of auction outing at all i dont like it but i know others dont seem to feel as strongly me.

A few years back i won a fantastic BIN item only to have the seller refund my money because someone PM'd him an offer he couldnt refuse after the listing had ended and i had paid

It wasn't down to the auction been outed on a forum but it still pissed me off royal what made it worse was the seller recieved the under the counter offer the night before he was about to ship it to me so i can appreciate how the guy who hit gold with the BIN Tri Madine must be feeling If i was him i would want to rip the fuckers head off who outed it on the German Forum!!!

Jay

Damn, bugger, imagine the disappointment of the buyer.

What does the other feedback comment say Emiel?

here's a quick translation:

JE LUI PAYEZ PAR PAYPAL LE FIGURINE ET J'ANNULE LE TRANSACTION UNILATÉRALEMENT
"i pay him per paypal the figure and i abort the transaction completely"

(which doesn't make much sense, grammatically)

Käufer:
Mitgliedsname red5-xw (privat)
20.11.10 18:09


*
Ergänzungskommentar von red5-xw (20.11.10 18:36):
POUR LE VENDRE OUTRE EBAY PAR PLUS ARGENT.BEWARE VENDEUR FRAUDULEUX. BON APPÉTIT

"for selling outside ebay for more money: beware fraudulent seller. have a good meal"

JE LUI PAYEZ PAR PAYPAL LE FIGURINE ET J'ANNULE LE TRANSACTION UNILATÉRALEMENT

means

I've paid him with paypal for the figure and have annulled the transaction unilaterally

Which doesn't make sense as a negative feedback comment really, maybe that's why he added the follow up.

Thanks, i guessed it was something like that. i used a translator & it didn't make much sense. Dodgy, dodgy!

Seems the buyer isn't French. Notice the use of 'beware' (which is obviously English). Maybe he used a translator too.

Edit: ah, he's Spanish.

Thats one reason why if I see something up like that, I never post a question with the link, not even in pm's anymore. You can never know who'll see it in a post or if the person your asking is also looking for the same item. I'd be pissed off to if someone pulled shit on me like that, too.

Lol, Emiel, didn't you 'out' this briefly???

Yep, for about 9 minutes.

Capetown wrote:

Yep, for about 9 minutes.

I wouldnt worry Emiel this is a good learning curve buddy

This type of thing highlights why is not worth outing bargain auctions until feedback by both partys has been left.

Jay

hehe, 9 minutes of shame!

At least it was finished. I would have probably thought it was ok too then. I wouldn't have thought of the fact the some unsrcupulous buyer would contact the seller after the auction had finished with an offer. Guess that says something about you & me at least.

Yeah I guess I got a bit enthusiastic because they were discussing on SWF how there were only around 5 or 6 known Tri Madines and only after posting realised what the consequences could be. I feel a bit bad about that but obviously not as bad as the seller and new buyer should feel about themselves.

I posted some thoughts over on RS, sure its sneaky if someone did get to the seller but it does happen, thats just human nature

What if the original buyer would have turned around and sold it for 6k? Would he be considered sneaky because he didn't do the honest thing with the original seller and inform him of what he had?

It's odd for me that two similar things can be looked at completely differently. I hope the seller was merely informed of the rarity of his figure and is now researching it for a future sale, hopefully in true auction style not BIN so we can finally see what the market value for a Madine is.

Don't get me wrong- if I had sneaked that BIN and someone stole it from me, I would be mad but equally I understand that if the seller gets an offer of even 500 euros let alone thousands more than I just paid for his item - he is not gonna send it to me, that's just the way it works- there are people out there that will do whatever they can to get an item, for all we know someone might have just paid full "market" price to the seller for this figure and would have paid a flipper the same amount.(so all he did was cut the middle man out)

Lots of grey areas on this one for me, I thought about it a lot from all different angles, as a buyer as the seller, as a guy who has the money and would pay full price for it, who deserves it more? is it just first come first served, I know on principle alone, regardless of who gets their first (i.e bad person or flipper etc) the deal should be carried out but like I said on RS - none of us would have gone through on a 90 euro sale if the item we just sold was worth as much as a madine trilogo. Sad but true.

I agree it can be seen from a lot of different sides, and sure the one who approached the seller could be like AJ and the TT MOC's, but somehow I have trouble believing that. I guess we'll see, or not.

Yep you are correct , I don't think anyone told him what he had but maybe if he had a few people asking him to deal outside of ebay it pushed him into stopping this sale + researching the item he has and get maximum $$.

VERY interesting story though, and you are right about the auction outing- everyone deserves a good deal every now and again and I would too be gutted especially on this item. Let's hope after all this the Madine finds a worthy home

Some very good points Joe (and everyone else really)...

Sometimes we only see our own side of the coin when viewing things and you only have to look at what AJ did to relise that not all whistle blowers are in it for their own gain.

Admitedly it is frustrating when you think you have lined up a bargin and suddenly the seller wises up and pulls the plug. Some of the most expensive things I had to buy for my Luke focus ... started off as bargins until a sneaky smuck emailed them with "generous" offer and the seller stops the auction and relists it at 4 -5 times your max bid.

The figure is well and safe...

Just to bring some highlight on this story; the buyer who originaly bin on the figure got the Madine. The problem is that he had to pay a lot more for it.
The auction was posted on several german and french forums and the seller saw him flooded under a myriad of offers. He really turned mad.

I spoke with the french seller. He and his 3 brothers are sons of a former toy dealer. He recalled me that at some point they had up to 30 unsold carded Madine. His father told them nobody wanted this character so he gift the cards to his sons and all the blisters were opened, played and the cards were trashed. That was a decade ago and a remaining carded Madine example was found with a couple of other Meccano cards when they cleaned the storage.

Offers the seller received were from 500 to 4000 euros, all from german and french guys, plus a ton messages saying that he was fooled with the sale.
I can understand the seller situation but he finally agree to sell the figure to the BIN guy at a reasonable market price.

Now, the Madine is for sale again and probably you'll see it on the bay next week.

JC

sweet i just saw the madine on the bay, nice super rare item and i am sure that for that price it swill be gone soon enough?

Lucky i am not intrested in TRI cards or minor charactars or else i would have an hard time at this moment

I am sure a few others that need this one to complete their tri logo collection are having a hard time deciding to hit the BIN or not....

Ah, good news! Thank you JC.

Now I'll go look for it on the bay. Can't out it in a thread about the why of the auction outing rule now can we.

Wow, not that expensive either at €3.500.

Yeah it's a good price indeed. Come on Joe, this one is yours, grab and you'll can complete your tri-logo collection whenever you want.

Lol Good luck with the sale JC

I like the rarer Tri-logo's but luckily I hate the General Madine figure so would never want him in my collection. Even so it's nice to see one of the rarest carded figures for sale.

Thank you guys,

I just do it as a favor to the owner. In fact he wanted to trade me the Madine against spanish stuff, but i already have that bastard so i suggested him to put it on the bay, get the money and pay me the stuff.

Sincerely, i am not sure it will sell that fast. The US$ is too low for the moment making it 1,25 time more expensive for the non-euro residents.

Hope it will...

JC