As a rule of thumb, if our pictures are great, thank you, they’re Marc’s. If you see my fingers in the picture, sorry, but at least you know that I’m actually holding the item I’m selling. If you see other sellers using Marc’s beautiful pictures, please know that they do this without our permission and could be selling ANYTHING.

I recently bought a beautiful Tiffany gold key ring on eBay. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found that the “Tiffany gold key ring” was actually gold-painted straw. When I contacted the seller, they insisted that they had shipped an authentic gold Tiffany key ring. I could have lived without the aggravation and hassle that came with trying to return the piece of straw to it’s owner. Fortunately I paid with Paypal and they helped me sort that out.

I have noticed an alarming increase in counterfeit designer jewelry on eBay recently. Someone is banging out a lot of silver cufflinks and charm bracelets (in addition to the usually suspect pieces). When I notified eBay that the increase in counterfeits was getting alarming, their answer sounded a lot like something I heard two-years ago. That, “many people like buying counterfeits and enjoy wearing them.”

I have to wonder, how many buyers will see the first counterfeit as the “final straw” that keeps them off eBay forever. One person selling counterfeits hurts all online sellers.

If you’re considering buying an item where the seller is showing a piece that’s too perfect (only Tiffany themselves sell their items new), or using a photo that is so blurred that the details are lost, be reasonably cautious and ask for additional photos; honest sellers who actually have the pieces they’re selling shouldn’t be too hard-pressed to take some extra pictures.

That’s being phased out. The new “gold star” will be the blue “Top Rated Seller” ribbon. According to eBay, the ribbon will be worth a whopping 20% off final value fees. It’s a fantastic incentive, but those PowerSeller stars that we’ve been working hard toward for so long will be capped at 5%. I know it may not seem like a lot, maybe only around $4 or $5 difference per transaction, but those are savings which we have been happily been able to pass along to our clients.

Ebay assured me at length, while dismissing my concerns, that these measures are meant to weed out dishonest sellers. But if this incentive switch is meant to make eBay a safer, more inviting place for people to shop, why spend 10 years baiting us honest sellers with the PowerSeller rankings just to slash them so dramatically? There’s nothing stopping the systems from being fairly combined; the power sellers I’ve asked are, naturally, reaching for the highest mark to reflect the quality they consistently offer. With the Blue Ribbon discount, I could probably start offering patterned tissue instead of solid when gift-wrapping. There’s no need to threaten us honest sellers with cutting incentives and, as great as the Blue Ribbon might seem on paper, I’m seeing a lot of sellers who have less than glowing feedback, a couple even selling blatant forgeries, sporting a “Top Rated Seller” badge.

Of course, in our particular field of fine jewelry, the greatest concern we have is for our clients. With the ease that some classes of seller seem to be able to acquire a blue ribbon (according to one source, “some scammers will even setup 100+ accounts just to make themselves look like a trustworthy seller), I’m most worried that the line separating the good from the bad just got blurrier.

It seems to me the height of irony that, in their effort to remove counterfeits from some sellers stores, eBay is creating a stronger incentive for the dishonest few to counterfeit their own feedback.

ps…for any other fans of courtroom drama, I got to sit mere meters from Kenneth Starr (my new celebrity crush) and Gerald Ullman (also riveting) during a moot court proceeding this week at Santa Clara University School of Law. I was wearing a peach-cashmere sweater set and gold Peretti jewelry. In a courtroom filled with law professors and students in shades ranging from charcoal to navy, I hope I stood out enough to catch his eye.

As far as the best offer feature…I’m all for it. In theory. It makes it fun for buyers and makes it easier for both parties to come together on a price. This is especially true if a buyer has picked out a number of items and wants to work out a deal with with seller. The problem is the buyers who makes ridiculously low offers, then becomes angry and rude if it’s not accepted. Clearly, if a seller has an item with a scrap value of $2,000 and a listed price of $3,900, an offer of $100 is just ridiculous. Then, if you don’t accept the offer, they might go ahead and raise it to $101. I’m curious to hear what other sellers do when this happens (since I get at least five low-ball offers a day, I’m sure others must be getting them too). I usually think it’s best to just ignore these low ball offers and move on to the serious buyer who is asking questions. The fun of eBay is looking for a special buy and hunt for a special treasure; I can’t understand tainting it with insulting offers and aggressive, almost hateful messages.

As a side note, my son, Michael, is participating in a walk on Sunday to raise money for the Susan G. Komen charity. If anyone is interested in participating with or donating money to this very worthy cause, more information can be found here

And a Tiffany related side note, did anyone notice Tiffany’s Fifth Ave on CSI: New York? Loved seeing those big blue bags =)

I was especially thrilled to watch the artisans in Murano create their spectacular works of art from a blob of hot glass. Just amazing! I brought home some treasures from Murano and have already listed a few pieces in my ebay store. I also fell in love with a few of the small towns; I found them much more comfortable than many of the capitals. Paris was glorious, but Strasbourg felt like a place I could come to call home. I could have stayed for months. Brussels was exciting, but Brugge captured my heart. The most spectacular jewelry store was in The Hague.

We visited jewelers everywhere but this one shop in The Hague had the most magnificent jewelry of all. Every piece was exquisite. The funny thing was, the areas devoted to jewelry, like Ponte Vecchio in Florence, just overwhelmed me. I prefer the hidden treasures and small out the way places. I was thrilled, one morning, when Michael and I got off the tram in Brussels, to find a lovely Tiffany & Co. store. It was a with a feeling of complete contentment that I looked through the familiar glass cases.

We visited the Vatican, the Uffizi, Versailles; the place I was afraid to visit (but I’m glad that I did) was Ann Frank’s house. I knew it would break my heart, and it did. But it gave us a lot to think about. Interesting, with all of the landmarks and museums, the two place with the longest lines were Versailles and the Ann Frank house.

After we climbed the dome in St. Peters, I developed a fear of heights. Actually, a fear of looking up and looking down. I was almost hysterical on the lift on the Eiffel Tower. After that, Michael made sure I kept climbing and it really became fun for me. I love climbing now! I can be such a complainer…

We walked for miles everyday. My feet were in such need for a pedicure that the sheets on the bed started to hurt my toes. I did find some fun pieces of vintage jewelry at the tiny shops I love so to explore. Every meal was unique and delicious; one of my favorite meals was a buttery apricot Danish and cappuccino in Paris.

In Florence, after two weeks of pizza and pasta, we decided to have Mexican food….what a huge mistake that was. They confused our order, the manager yelled at us, and a fly even crawled OUT of Vito’s burrito when he got to the end. I was amazed that no one got sick after that meal.

We stayed in some very strange hotels and some truly luxurious places. The first night we were in a hotel that actually terrified me. After that we moved to a hotel that made me feel like a princess. My bed was the size of two queen size beds, pushed together. It had 8 pillows!! I could have stayed forever!! Everything was marble and I was so happy there…

I was worried about Marc trying to locate and ship everything, but it looks as though everything went smoothly and I was not missed at all. Now, where to go treasure hunting next???

I guess everyone would love to be a
jewelry designer. That’s fine, but a real artist knows the value of a unique
design and the frustration of having work stolen. If these celebrities want to
call themselves designers and artists, how about some originality? Lots of
brilliant designers are able to come up with ideas that haven’t come out of
famous design houses, maybe Heide and Jane can take a lesson.

Inspired
and curious, I looking around eBay looking for Kay pieces. I happened to find an
interesting item from Mary Kay. A silver Floating Heart that, also, looks
suspiciously like a Tiffany Floating Heart (plus three dreck pink
crystals).

It’s an interesting gray zone we’re at. Some factory in China
makes Tiffany-esque pieces and they’re banned from ebay (in a shake that brings
many legit sellers with it, by the way), a domestic company blatantly flaunts
knock-offs and it’s celebrity art work.

Please

Hello,

I am emailing in response to your new policies regarding checks and money orders. I would strongly suggest that you add jewelery to that list of categories exempt from this change. We sellers of high-value jewelry are already too vulnerable toward Paypal charge backs and the less we are able to work with our customers while ensuring secure payment for ourselves, the more vulnerable we will be. Additionally, my buyers usually prefer to pay with a money order rather than use a paypal e-check because of the processing time. By sending a money order, one of my customers can get his item within the week, with paypal delays, it might be a week or two before I even ship.

Further, due to the risk for us sellers to deal with chargebacks, more sellers will no doubt chose to downgrade their paypal status so that they cannot take credit cards. This means less payment options for buyers and much less revenue for paypal/ebay.

We all appreciate ebay trying to bring more business to sellers and safer business to buyers, but with this policy in place, no one will win.

Please reconsider this policy and the adverse effect it will have on buyers and sellers of high-ticket items, and ebay itself.

Sincerely,
Diane Wiesner

If a buyer gets stuck with a counterfeit from ebay, the chances are good that they will become loyal retail buyers at a designer’s licensed store.. No one wants to feel the true humiliation and feeling of being ripped off brought on by getting stuck with an ebay-counterfeit. I think that by now, we’ve all been there. In a good situation, the seller graciously refunds your money and everyone walks away a better informed consumer. All too frequently, the seller is a jerk or dedicated con-artist and you are out of luck. Has anyone else noticed how incredibly rude so many sellers are these days?? It really takes the fun out of ebay.

Now that sellers are not allowed to leave anything but positive feedback, its tilted the after sale atmosphere. So far, I’ve had gold earrings returned broken (crushed) and someone who waited a month to say a ring was not really what she wanted. Then admitted she found a better deal and wants a full refund. Ebay’s now given free-license to scam sellers who don’t get prosecuted (because it’s the authentic merchandise that gets ebay into trouble) and petty buyers to act like spoiled children (because they knew full well they will never be childed for such behavior). The only thing we can hope for after a series of very unfortunate decisions by ebay is that more sham sellers will get stuck with the childish buyers against whom the rest of us have no recourse.

Summer is in full swing here. We have 1400 fires burning our beautiful state. The air has been thick and gray. So sad…Vito is in Italy for a few weeks getting ready for the summer visitors. Michael had a big adventure to Chichen Itsa. Marc is always busy, working on his computer projects. I am only driving 3 days a week and trying to become an aware consumer. Another great reason to try to find hidden treasures on ebay..All the shopping happens without driving all over the place. I really do love ebay Since most of us have to drive, Marc found a website called: www.terrapass.com. They let you purchase carbon off-sets for your car and plane travel. I love this site and feel very passionate about it.

On the subject of my passions..Of course, my boys and dear Vito…I guess its actually a long list… I also feel we should all take special care to be very kind to each other. This past weekend was the Gay Pride parade in San Francisco. It made me so proud to see how open minded and generous our community is All the weddings!! All the wedding rings! I hope everyone can find and be with the love of their life. No matter who they love, they have this right. We are all equal and all deserve the same rights and protection to find happiness. So, please, find every happiness and be very very good to each other. ]]> http://blog.tiffanycollector.com/2008/06/30/trouble-at-ebayahhthe-french/feed/ http://blog.tiffanycollector.com/2008/02/27/the-price-of-fraud/ http://blog.tiffanycollector.com/2008/02/27/the-price-of-fraud/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:34:10 +0000 acarlover My Friends at eBay http://blog.tiffanycollector.com/2008/02/27/the-price-of-fraud/ I am trying to wrap my mind around whats going on with paypal these days. Since December, I have had 5 payments reversed after having shipped the pieces. The latest three of which are items I shipped back in November! Now, if paypal wants to charge fees, issue credit cards, and keep financial information, they have a clear fiduciary responsibility to their members. From the minute they send an email titled, “You have funds,” they have charged their fee and issued the seller funds. If they’re not sure they can guarantee the money they say we have, they shouldn’t promise it’s ours. Its up to paypal to verify funds; that’s the service we’re paying for.

After I have shipped to a buyer’s paypal-confirmed address and the buyer is happy, I don’t need to hear about it from paypal ever again about it. Money has been exchanged for goods, transaction complete. The notion of reversals clearly means its not a safe method of collecting payment on ebay. So, once again, the buyer has my Tiffany jewelry, paypal took their funds out of my paypal account. I paid ebay fees plus I am out the jewelry and $1200.00. Paypal, after 2 hours on the phone with Marc, they told him that after 75 days to research and collaborate with the customer’s credit issuer, we will probably get a refund because we shipped to a confirmed address. They wouldn’t guarantee it and deterred him from contacting legal authorities to report fraud or theft. As far as I can tell, this is going to be happening on a regular basis now.

I still believe ebay sellers need protection. It’s getting to a critical stage and if we don’t do it as the management team makes new rules, when will we organize?

Last night I had the pleasure of being in the company of a group of smart, accomplished women. As it usually does, at some point in the evening the subject to jewelry. I throughly enjoyed taking about my collection and having the opportunity to look at their own treasures. Everyone has an interesting story about the jewelry they wear. I love those stories. I think that is part of the reason I enjoy being part of the process of acquiring special pieces of jewelry; they become hallmarks of life. Part of a person’s life. A necklace maybe just a necklace at first. But at some point it becomes the necklace. Like the necklace I wore to work the first day of my new job. The necklace I wore when we moved into our new house. The necklace I wore to my son’s graduation.

Even with all the frustrations and haranguing I get from eBay and Paypal, that’s what keeps me going. To help someone find their next the necklace or the ring, or the bracelet. I love what I do because of what I collect and sell becomes to another.

I thought it might be of interest to those who are looking for Tiffany & Co. pieces on eBay to see exactly how easy it is for those lacking moral fiber to buy fake Tiffany and resell it. I was scouring the Internet for some information about a necklace my mother found at an estate sale when I came across an interesting link for a Tiffany jewelry catalog. Thinking it might hold more information about the necklace I clicked over and was utterly shocked by what I found.

Pages and pages of fake designer jewelry. Tiffany & Co., Cartier,  Bulgari, Dior, and Chanel to just name a few. All touted, by the manufacturer, to as “100% Copy Original Tiffany Jewelry” and “Top Grade Quality,” with most pieces costing less than $10. You can see engravings and hallmarks in their pictures and orders over $2,000 even get free shipping. I can understand some people might want a fake if they can’t afford an original piece and don’t care about wearing a knockoff, but ordering enough to get free shipping means more than 200 pieces of fake jewelry. Is the person ordering 200 pieces really going to keep those for him/her self? Would you order 200 pieces of fake designer jewelry as stocking stuffers? This is clearly aimed at those who are looking to get into the designer fake market.
Here’s the icing on the cake though. Looking through this website’s news and announcments section, there’s a warning to their customers to be wary of copy-cat websites that have started to spring up. Isn’t this the height of irony?

This manufacturer and whole seller of fake designer jewelry is feeling like they’re getting ripped off!
Take a look at the website [link] and know what you should be wary of buying. If you see any of these items being sold for $20 when the owner could have taken it back to Tiffany’s for $300 you should probably pass on it because it probably came from this factory (or one of there new rivals).
Safe Shopping