This page contains affiliate links. We may earn commissions when readers interact with or purchase items through these links. For more information, see our affiliate disclosures here.

(ebay) Oftimespast

Make a trade in Carbombya and want to give the other person a "shout out", post all your trade/sell feedback here.

(ebay) Oftimespast

Postby Pilgrim76 » Wed Apr 25, 2018 4:44 am

Hi everyone,

I hope I am posting in the appropriate section of this forum (if not, let me know and I'll move this post asap).

I am currently experiencing a problem with this ebay seller (oftimespast). Although my issue does not concern Transformers specifically (it actually concerns Robo Machines/Gobots), this seller has many Transformers listed, so I decided to share my experience to warn you that you have to be very careful when bidding on his items.

In short, I have been the victim of shill bids on 3 items I purchased from this seller, and I basically ended up paying a lot of extra money for these toys.

The long story now :
This seller has listed a few days ago many Japanese Robo Machines that are valuable to collectors like me. The listings ended last friday and I noticed that the same day, a profile (with only 1 evaluation) was bidding on every Robo Machine listed by oftimespast. In most cases, that would be highly suspect, and I am very cautious, but the seller has more than 187 000 (!) positive evaluations, and a 99,8% rating profile, so I assumed that this bidder was just a new player in the Robo Machine collection field.

I decided to bid on every Robo Machine listings I was interested in with my maximal bid (120$), and ended up losing most of them to the bidder mentioned above. I only got 3 of them for which I decided to go beyond my 120$ limit (and won against this same bidder).

So far so good, I got my 3 items for a significantly high price but I was happy. I paid. (on a side note, the seller invoiced me higher combined shipping costs than the one discussed before the end of the listings. I tried to contact him about it but he never replied. It was a few bucks, so I didn't insist as it was marginal in regards to the overall price).

And yesterday I received a second chance offer at my highest bid price (120$), for 11 of the Robo Machines I "missed"...

So you can probably see where this is going : there was a fake bidder artficially inflating bidding prices, and I ended up paying more than 360$ for these 3 toys. Funny thing, if I remove all the fake biddings on my items, the maximal biddings went down to less than 150$ for the three toys... What would have been the real market price if this fake bidder did not bid ? Nobody knows for sure, but somewhere between 150 and 360$, which is a huge range...

In any case, I immediately contacted the seller to tell him that I highly suspect a fraud. We have been exchanging messages since yesterday, but he basically stands in the position that he is the victim, complaining because he is wasting time to relist the items, because he paid the seller's fees to ebay but never get the money from the fake bidder and so on. At some point he even found "suspicious" that I bid more or less at the the same time as the fake bidder (was he suggesting that I used a secondary account to bid over my own bids just for the sake of paying extra money for my toys ?).

So far, he didn't offer any satisfactory solution to my case (at some point he proposed to send back the items to get a refund, but of course shipping costs being at my charge, so in any case, I am the one who is losing money here). And exchanging with him is excruciatingly painful, as he is victimizing himself, and doesn't acknowledge the real issue.

I will not give my personal judgement on this seller. Just consider these facts : he said to me that he is not the one who artificially inflated the prices of his listings. Yet, he is the sole benefitor of the situation, and, although he knew that a fake bidder inflated his prices, he purposedly sent me second chances offers that were also inflated. I am still waiting an explanation about this behavior, as he deliberately tried to get more money from me with aldedgedly artificially inflated listings.

I have a copy of our exchanges that I am willing to copy-paste here, but I don't know if it is legal to do so without the consent of my interlocutor. If it is, I can post our messages here as additinal facts supporting this problem.

So beware, I have a bad experience with this seller, and despite that facts are proving I am a victim of shill bids, I have no satisfactory issue with him so far (his last reply was "see with ebay"...).

As an additional information, oftimespast is "the on-line store for the Time Capsule. Located at 537 Pontiac Ave in Cranston RI, we specialize in comic books, toys, records, video games & other collectibles." (this is an excerpt from his publicly available ebay introduction, no personal informations here).

Cheers :)
Pilgrim76
Micromaster
Posts: 50
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2016 1:12 pm

Return to Carbombya Feedback

Transformers and More @ The Seibertron Store

Visit our store on eBay
These are affiliate links. We may earn commissions when you purchase items or services through these links.
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "TRANSFORMERS #3 2nd ptg Cvr A Skywarp Image Comics 2024 1023IM977 (CA) Howard"
TRANSFORMERS #3 2n ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "TRANSFORMERS #4 Cvr A Image Comics 2024 Skybound 1123IM342 4A (CA) Johnson"
TRANSFORMERS #4 Cv ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE #4 Marvel Comics 1987 (CA) Trimpe (W) Budiansky 230926X"
TRANSFORMERS UNIVE ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "THE TRANSFORMERS #50 Marvel Comics 1989 (W) Budiansky (A/CA) Delbo 210422B"
THE TRANSFORMERS # ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "Transformers KING GRIMLOCK #5 RI 1:10 IDW Comics 2022 OCT210414 5RI (CA) Byrne"
Transformers KING ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "TRANSFORMERS #1 3rd ptg Image Comics 2023 1023IM896 (CA) Parel + Chuong"
TRANSFORMERS #1 3r ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "THE TRANSFORMERS #17 Marvel Comics 1986 (CA) Trimpe (W) Budiansky 210422A"
THE TRANSFORMERS # ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "Transformers SINS OF WRECKERS #2 IDW Comics 2015 (W/A/CA) Roche 230227"
Transformers SINS ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "TRANSFORMERS BACK TO THE FUTURE #1 RI-A 1:10 IDW Comics 2020 AUG200530 1RIA"
TRANSFORMERS BACK ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "TRANSFORMERS #19 RI IDW Comics 2020 BOLD NEW ERA 19RI JAN200700 (CA) Williams II"
TRANSFORMERS #19 R ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "TRANSFORMERS GENERATION 2 #3 Marvel Comics 1994 (W) Furman (CA) Yaniger 230915M"
TRANSFORMERS GENER ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "TRANSFORMERS BEAST WARS #13 Cvr A IDW Comics 2022 DEC210543 13A (CA) SidVenBlu"
TRANSFORMERS BEAST ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "TRANSFORMERS '84 #0 IDW Comics 2019 JUN190704 (W) Furman (A/CA) Guidi"
TRANSFORMERS '84 # ...
Visit shop.seibertron.com to buy "TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE #4 Marvel Comics 1987 (CA) Trimpe (W) Budiansky 230926W"
TRANSFORMERS UNIVE ...
* Price and quantities subject to change. Shipping costs, taxes and other fees not included in cost shown. Refer to listing for current price and availability.
Find the items above and thousands more at the Seibertron Store on eBay
Transformers Podcast: Twincast / Podcast #346 - Gas Station Jamboree
Twincast / Podcast #346:
"Gas Station Jamboree"
MP3 · iTunes · RSS · View · Discuss · Ask
Posted: Saturday, March 23rd, 2024

Featured Products on Amazon.com

These are affiliate links. We may earn commissions when you purchase items or services through these links.
Buy "Transformers: Generations Power of The Primes Legends Class Battleslash" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers: Bumblebee -- Energon Igniters Nitro Series Barricade" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Studio Series 07 Leader Class Movie 4 Grimlock" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Deluxe Ratchet Action Figure" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Studio Series 08 Leader Class Movie 1 Decepticon Blackout" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Combiner Wars Blast Off Megatronus Prime Master" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Generations Power of the Primes Deluxe Class Autobot Novastar" on AMAZON
Buy "Cyberverse Warrior Class Acid Storm" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Attacker 15 Peterman Action Figure" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers B1798AS0 Warpath Figure Combiner Wars" on AMAZON
Buy "Transformers Generations Titans Return Deluxe Sergeant Kup and Flintlock" on AMAZON
Buy "Hasbro Transformers Generations Legends Class Windcharger Figure" on AMAZON