[meteorite-list] meteorite weight discrepancy

From: dean bessey <deanbessey_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:45 2004
Message-ID: <20030526122106.45190.qmail_at_web12301.mail.yahoo.com>

I also have the feeling that this guy is pulling a
scam. Every nomad and person over there has some kind
of scales and I would bet that that dealer never used
the weight of the box when he originally bought those
meteorites.
A week or so ago when this issue came up on this list
I thought that it was very odd that somebody from
Morocco would be going on ebay and selling meteorites
for 6 and 7 cents a gram. You cant go to Morocco and
buy meteorites that cheap and every nomad and dealer
over there knows where to go to get more than that for
their meteorites without resorting to ebay.
But after studying that guys ebay auctions fairly
closely a week or so ago I felt that he was selling
genuine meteorites and I just couldent see where the
scam was at. I figured that he was most likely honest
and must be just using small meteorites to break into
the ebay market and was willing to take a loss on some
to do just that (Not an unusual business practise by
any means).
But in going through the effort to sell things on ebay
one would logically assume that the game plan would be
to get more money for your meteorites - not less than
you can sell them for to foreign buyers who come to
your place to buy meteorites who will not only pay you
more than your ebay price but you also get to avoid
the time, effort, and ebay fees.
Most of the local dealers over there sell on
consignment for nomads and if the dealer is only
getting 6 or 7 cents on ebay he wont get to many
nomads lining up to give him their rocks to sell
unless he starts taking serious losses.
There are a lot of shady characters in Morocco and I
know a bunch of stories about people buying meteorites
from people in morocco and then never see their
meteorites or be able to find out who they sent their
money to. Most dealers (Although they often wont admit
it) who buy over there have their own rip off stories
and they are very careful and knows the local
conditions better than people who have never been to
morocco.
There are a lot of different types of scams and this
one just seems to be a new type of scam that is new to
me - probably because the seller has used ebay which
just gives a new tool to pull a scam. But weight scams
are certainly not new in Morocco. This one is just new
because ebay was used to commit it.
I expect that you will see more ebay scams by
moroccans over the next year as they learn how to use
ebay. In particular, I would expect fake meteorites to
appear on ebay by moroccan sellers soon.
But as always the two pieces of advice is to (1)
either know your dealer well or (2) if you dont know
who you are dealing with dont send more money than you
can afford to lose - because there is a good chance
that you will lose it all - especially if the
meteorites are being offered for 7 cents a gram. You
have herd it before. If it sounds like to good of a
deal it probably is.
Sincerely
DEAN
www.meteoriteshop.com

















 




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Received on Mon 26 May 2003 08:21:06 AM PDT