jediami65: Looking for input on a Bricklink transaction

jediami65

Looking for some items in Bricklink and see a seller with about 100 UCS/Modulars for sale ship free in US but all without boxes I asked if he was in US and if they were all Lego original sealed bags and he/she says yes all questions I asked a pretty much get a 1 liner and I see this 작성: in the emails which translates into Korean.

Thoughts?

Faedian7

It's a TRAP!!!

caperberry

You may wish to ask on the BL forum; I think they're fairly vigilant about these things.

rancorbait

1. That's a hell of a lot of modulars.

2. He says he's in the US but has Korean language in his email.

Conclusion: Its most likely a scam, but perhaps you could ask for pictures?

Aleydita

Pictures is definitely the way to go. Explain you've been burned once before so are always careful when it comes to buying high value items. Any seller would be happy to take a quick pic with a recent newspaper or something in the frame.

CCC

It seems fairly obvious that this is a scam.

Be aware that in the last few days there have been a number of less obvious ones. Beware of new sellers starting out with large inventories of common but cheap parts (often lowest price on BL).

samiam391

jediami65 said:

Looking for some items in Bricklink and see a seller with about 100 UCS/Modulars for sale ship free in US but all without boxes I asked if he was in US and if they were all Lego original sealed bags and he/she says yes all questions I asked a pretty much get a 1 liner and I see this 작성: in the emails which translates into Korean.

Thoughts?

How much feedback does he have? Feedback is worth a thousand words in the BL/eBay community.

fizicyst

He has 19 feedback, almost all as a buyer and within the last 2 months. He allows pickup in Queens, NY and accepts Korean won as a currency. Most likely he is a Korean immigrant and his prices for most things are not so good, so I would not jump to directly to scam.
His store is called EGO store, it was easy enough to figure out which seller/store.

TheLoneTensor

"When is a good thing to good to be true?"

You already answered your question. It's like headlights on a car. Back before headlights turned on automatically, you had to turn them on manually, so the old adage was: If you are contemplating whether it's dark enough to turn on the headlights, you should just turn on the headlights now.

In evaluation of a seller, their feedback as a buyer = worthless. This is a scam of some kind, of that there is no doubt in my mind. Perhaps they are stolen, who knows.

That said, there's a lot of consumer protection these days at many levels. You buy on ebay, paying via paypal via a credit card, you've got three levels of protection. So, there's not a whole lot you can lose except time, unless you're worried about identify theft or something. Bricklink has their own...kinda protection, and you have paypal and your credit card. In any case, the best way to ferret out a scammer is to communicate the hell out of them. Ask lots of questions and see how they respond. A good seller of expensive things knows that some people will have lots of questions, and will do his best to answer them honestly and completely. He knows that if he doesn't, he won't sell his stuff. Never communicate anything beyond the confines of the marketplace (i.e. only communicate via the marketplace messaging). After all that, you need to ascertain the overall risk for yourself, because in the worst case you get the police/FBI coming to your door asking for retrieval of stolen goods.

akunthita

I would strongly suggest, as @caperberry mentioned, to raise your concerns at the BrickLink forum. Members there are very vigilant and will alert the BL admin immediately who can look into details and shut the store down if it is a scam. Recently there has been scam stores like this opened on BL almost daily. Most of them are rookies and easy to identify (zero feedback, just registered today, and has a gazillion Death Stars for chazy prices), but some are getting smarter and spend a little time to pull their scam.

Calv

Looks dodgy to me, Registered since mid February, feedback for 1 sale, rest purchases, and a large "stock" of #41999, #10197, #10218 etc. Nothing on the BL forums yet but I would ask the question there.

jediami65

Calv said:

Looks dodgy to me, Registered since mid February, feedback for 1 sale, rest purchases, and a large "stock" of #41999, #10197, #10218 etc. Nothing on the BL forums yet but I would ask the question there.

I am trying to avoid all the hassle will just buy from a more "seasoned" seller and pay a little more.

Thanks for the feedback, I did looked in the BL forum and search the store and name but to me it almost looks like the feedback he is getting is just to make himself look good he may be buying $5 dollar items. It would be nice to see what was actually purchased and or sold to you have a better idea.

luckyruss

akunthita said:

I would strongly suggest, as @caperberry mentioned, to raise your concerns at the BrickLink forum. Members there are very vigilant and will alert the BL admin immediately who can look into details and shut the store down if it is a scam. Recently there has been scam stores like this opened on BL almost daily. Most of them are rookies and easy to identify (zero feedback, just registered today, and has a gazillion Death Stars for chazy prices), but some are getting smarter and spend a little time to pull their scam.

There are definitely some with a good knowledge of the market. There have been a few recently with zero or low feedback where they've parted out several new cafe corners or greengrocers plus other modulars - it isn't always the easiest to spot if you're looking at it on a part by part basis.