Forgery ring has been robbing eBay stamp collectors blind for 9 years

[mandy]

It may be the stickiest scam on the Internet — a nine-year saga of deceit that has seen thousands of altered postage stamps sold to unwitting collectors on eBay and other Internet auction sites. More striking than its longevity, though, is that the mastermind has never been charged with a crime, even though his identity apparently is known to eBay security, law enforcement officials and some of the nation’s leading stamp experts.

The man believed to be behind the scheme is a longtime stamp dealer living in upstate New York. He has been investigated by law enforcement, suspended by eBay and exposed in Internet forums devoted to stamp collecting. Yet the massive operation continues to churn out philatelic fakes, burning collectors and, some say, undermining the very foundations of the hobby...

full article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17171372/

[FiberGuy]

The scheme was exposed on MSNBC.com in 2002, in a two-part series looking at whether eBay adheres to its stated anti-fraud policy. Months later, eBay suspended accounts identified in the article, but a small group of collectors that uncovered the scam says the forger merely moved the operation to another Internet auction site for a few months before returning to eBay, setting up new accounts and picking up where he left off.

That's the status quo for ebay scammers, is it not?

ebay is no place to buy stamps... or so I'm told. 

[BellisimaJ.]

ebay is no place to buy stamps.

I no longer shop on ebay at all. I stopped during the boycott.

If I were still shopping on ebay, I would not even consider buying anything of value---too many fakes/forgeries in damn near all categories. 8)