Hi sharmes.   I see the sellers account is still valid, and both sales to you still show as valid sales.

There are many ways for ebay to verify if ebay accounts are linked in anyway, if one account is closed by ebay, all linked accounts are also closed, this can even extend to friends, relatives and work colleagues .

So a bit unusual that the account is still active. (has not sold since december).

Have you made any attempt to verify if the premier signings actually took place and if the items you purchased are in fact genuine or not,  I am sure the relevant companies can readily confirm.

Return postage for international sellers is a pain, and something ebay really need to address.

That is very lucky, especially if, as gutterpunkz says, the accounts have not been closed down, which sort of implies that ebay has not yet classified them as frauds.

Just as a matter of interest, were you able to keep the posters, rather than having to send them back? I am assuming that was the case as you received no reply from the seller about supplying funds for a return.

I still think that any seller whose items were legitimately valued at $1000 would be keen to get the items returned if they were going to have to refund. They wouldn't just ignore messages completely.

I can't help you with the authenticity of the posters but from what you have said, you have enough reason to at least suspect they are fakes.

If so, and if the seller is associated with other accounts, or if you strongly suspect this to be the case, then it follows that you suspect this was a deliberate scam and not an honest mistake.

In that case, the seller is not to be trusted. You say you paid over $1000 for these 2 posters and you have spent money framing them.

Personally, there is no way on earth I'd be posting them, at my own expense, back to this seller, and expecting that when they arrived, I'd get a refund. If that seller has over 60 recent sales, he could well be past the 30 day hold on funds so all he would have to do is close that account before the posters arrived and skip over to another alias.

I no longer sell so I don't know for sure if that is how it could work, but that is what I'd be worried about.

Then you'd be out of pocket for the $1000 plus extra postage and to add insult to injury, you wouldn't have the posters either!

I'd just keep the posters I think. You say they look amazing, you've spent that extra money for frames. You could check to see if the claim you opened was for not as described and if so, and if the seller does not provide return postage, then escalate it to get your money back & if I have it right, you wouldn't  have to return the posters either. 

If the seller doesn't provide postage, that would sort of prove your claim as if the posters were genuine, a seller would be keen to get valuable items back.

@sharmes6 wrote:

I would be curious to obtain others thoughts on the validity of a seller with (apparently at least) twenty accounts already shut down, and five current that I have found with a few minutes research, all with different addresses in different states, but with the same photo backgrounds, extremely similar products (Signed posters, COA, lanyard all with holographic stickers), same title and description layouts.

 

 

Aside from whether the posters are genuine or not, the fact that identical photos appear under several accounts may only indicate that the sellers used the "Sell Similar" option when creating their listings. 

As a seller yourself, you would be aware of this possibility. 

Ebay do investigate listings if there are reports put in about a seller. I have lodged several reports for various reasons. Some were for feedback, where they buy their own items to give themselves feedback, usually from another account. In those instances, the feedback from those accounts was removed.

Same seller as one of the reports above were very blatant about shill bidding. That particular seller was put on BIN for 6 months.  They weren't allowed to list auctions. I know that, because I pretended to be an interested buyer and wanted to use the auction rather than BIN.

Yes, ebay don't tell you the reports of investigations, but you can certainly keep an eye on the accounts you've reported.

Reported listings, they don't really attract attention from the "investigators". That said, I have reported quite a few scam listings over the years and it was surprising how many were removed. They things like Makita drills with all the bells and whistles for $20. They would list in the automotive section, often under pocket bikes, so buyers couldn't open a dispute (there is no buyer protection in automotive).

There were also other listings for things like DVD players that had lost of flashy graphics. To buy one new in store could be upwards of $400. Scam listing, $20. Some were removed quickly, others could take a few reports. Again, listed in automotive.

Some of these scam sellers were why the 30 day hold came in. More often than not, they'd hijacked an account. They would sit there and watch the money come flooding in, and they'd be gone. The 30 day hold slowed some of them up a bit.

Hi E D,  Yep, I would be keeping it to, but I would prefer people had not scribbled all over it.

Anyway, I would be  contacting  MARVEL  to verify the  authenticity, if not authentic  I am sure MARVEL,  LUCASFILMS/WALT DISNEY PICTURES, would like to know.

Actually , as I stated in my post above, I have quite a bit of evidence that the posters are fake, given that in the poster collecting community, it seems to be common knowledge that these signings at movie premieres do not occur.  At the very least the seller has some shady business practices, having at least 24 different known selling accounts selling the same or similar items, with the same photo backgrounds, same descriptions,  title layouts etc.  The seller accounts are all in different states, yet all the photographs across these seller accounts are taken on the same polished hardwood floor.

I would be curious to obtain others thoughts on these accounts.  Do they seem suspicious?

That one looks pretty legitimate to me, given the photographic evidence.  Pretty expensive too.  Mine were definitley not that expensive, but I did pay over $1000 AUD for the two posters.