Auction sites: minimum ethical standards?

Ziad · Post by **Ziad** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 11:17 pm

Or Caveat Emptor one hundred percent?

Carefully, even slimily wordsmithed description of item - if I had an original, perhaps 3 words different in the entire paragraph to describe item.

But it is new. Almost the same picture on another site, and obviously the same item, honestly describing same as new merchandise. Retail, volume site. The one on the auction site (NOT eBay) is even described as "restored and refinished to nearly new condition"...

How the hell can you take a new item, and "restore" it? This is lying. Not just misdirecting, lying. Should an honest auction site allow this kind of crap?

Opinions?

Z

losthelm · Post by **losthelm** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 11:37 pm

Without knowing the auction it could be a miss print.
Like new is often used. paticularly if the packaging was damaged or a small cosmetic defect present. The place I worked spent a lot of time trying to accuratly discribe items and clean/test the equipment.
After a while the discriptions all start to look the same and detail can be lost paticularly if things need to be sorted/graded prior to listing.
A bit of polish or quality cleaner can solve a number of cosmetic problems.

Ziad · Post by **Ziad** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:10 am

Nope, no misprint. This is willful action. Plenty of chance to say that "this is a reproduction of - but they have specifically not done so. This is an absolutely unethical description of the object - it has only been available at retail since March, what kind of "restoration" are they doing?

It is a reproduction firearm, a muzzleloader, being passed off (almost) as a real antique. At over twice the retail of the original, as a minimum bid.

... ca.1770s, has been restored and refinished to nearly new condition. Fully functional, too...

and

Unmarked (mkgs. worn away during repolishing.)

These, when it is known to them to be a modern reproduction, is (in my opinion) absolutely unethical.

Z

Mike Garrett (Orc) · Post by **Mike Garrett (Orc)** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 6:05 am

You report it to the auction site. Been there, done that. They're normally on the ball for this sort of thing but can't police every auction, so they rely on honest citizens to report dodgy listings.

Ziad · Post by **Ziad** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 7:43 am

Thanks, Mike.

I notified the original seller; evidently he has had problems with this guy before. I like the company; even more so now that the company president emailed me back on a Sunday morning with a very nice letter explaining what he would do.

So here is a link - nice stuff, 17c to 19c muzzleloaders:

http://www.middlesexvillagetrading.com/index.shtml

Z

losthelm · Post by **losthelm** » Sun Sep 27, 2009 12:34 pm

That changes things quite a bit.
Paticularly with reproduction working fire arms.
Read the FAQ.