E-bay Gold weight be ware.

I think that if anyone who my be thinking of buying gold nuggets on E-bay better check the wieght first before bidding. Check this out, item No. 120855496602 This seller had a nugget up as 15.20 GRAINS and it show that on the scales and in the discripition as well, but the winning bidder must have thoughts that it said GRAMS and paid $455.00 for the nugget. I did a quick calculation 1 grain = 0.06479891 grams. 15.20 grains will then equals to 2.35grams. The buyer paid $455.00 divided by 2.35gms = $193.61 per gram. Not bad for the seller but the pore buyer got his pockets burnt by not reading the sell properly. Most gold nugget are advertised as GRAMS and not GRAINS

Wombat

Wombat wrote:I think that if anyone who my be thinking of buying gold nuggets on E-bay better check the wieght first before bidding. Check this out, item No. 120855496602 This seller had a nugget up as 15.20 GRAINS and it show that on the scales and in the discripition as well, but the winning bidder must have thoughts that it said GRAMS and paid $455.00 for the nugget. I did a quick calculation 1 grain = 0.06479891 grams. 15.20 grains will then equals to 2.35grams. The buyer paid $455.00 divided by 2.35gms = $193.61 per gram. Not bad for the seller but the pore buyer got his pockets burnt by not reading the sell properly. Most gold nugget are advertised as GRAMS and not GRAINS

Wombat

This same seller had about 8/9 nuggets ranging from about 8-17 grains,and they all had bids into the hundreds.I may be wrong but i thought that there was approx 15.4grains to 1 gram,so that would have made it $455 for under a gram?Correct me if i am wrong.

Sorry guys I stuffed up with my calculations this nugget was under a gram. I got onto Google and check out Grains and Grams Calculation converter.
Shebabrock you are right mate 15.20 grains does equal to 0.984944 grams and this buyer paid $455.00 for it Not bad for the seller getting that much for a nugget under one gram
wombat

Heres another nugget from the same seller,item-120855517496.This nugget weighed 14.6grains and sold for $492+$4.00 postage.So from just this nugget and the one wombat noted equals to about a total of 1.93grams,sold for a total of $947 +postage,=$490 a gram!

I have just sent a message to this sell informing him about his possible diception by not stating more clearly that he is sell them as Grains and not Grams and that if he keeps going this way he may be reported to E-bay of his selling tactics.
I have also noticed that the seller is saying " No Returns Excepted"
I now think this bloke may be a "SCAMMER"
Wombat

Gday

If the seller is experienced in selling gold then he would know that all nuggets are sold in grams, and if he was going to use grains then he should have provided the information for the buyer much like when you see someone selling a specimen nugget where they also put down the calculation for the specific gravity test.

If the seller is new to selling then he will be getting some pretty awful feedback and some distressed buyers contacting him, I know that it could be considered that some of the blame should go to the buyers for not reading the listing description properly as well, and if the seller is a jerk then he might use that in his defence, but as people have contacted and told him then anything he sells from that point on would be considered fraudulent I would think, as he could not say he was unaware.

Unfortunately sometimes ebay takes so long to get around to investigating things it will more than likely be all over before they act on the complaints, his feedback will cripple his sales in the future but if hes a scammer that wont matter as he probably has multiple seller id's as well, and will just go on to another one the next time and so on.

Anyway I hope he does the right thing as ebay is becoming so full of cheats and scammers that its becoming a veritable minefield for the unwary, but it all comes own to the saying "buyer beware".

cheers

stayyerAU

Just another note, if you look up gold for sale in USA a percentage of it is sold by grains, not grams. Not backing this guy, just when we were looking at selling gold on fleabay 12 mths ago the overseas stuff was listed as grains.

Maybe he is a yank, they talk in Grains often.
Also he has not deceived anybody and has stated the weights clearly in grains.
If you are a gold buyer you should know the price of gold before you buy. Also I imagine that the buyer/s thought they were getting a ripper deal when they thought they were getting a lot of gold for a piddlin price. Ya don't see them offering the seller a fair price per what they thought were weights in grams. Greed does funny things to people. Two sides to every story I think.

Just tossing some thoughts about. Yes he may have been playing with the not so observant amateur gold buyers, but I doubt it because everthing was described correctly.

This item is in Maslin Beach South Australia, and we mainly deal in Grams here in Auzzie.
Wombat

Yes I agree, however Grains is legal and is often used to weigh small gold in pref to grams, it is more accurate.

Plus there were about 5 bidders on it, all different identites, only the last couple of bidders went way high with there bids, so who really know what people are thinking. As Adrian says it was clearly stated he was selling his gold in grains not grams. It may be a play on words for the unwary, but I doubt any serious buyer would get caught out by this.

cheers dave

Adrian ss wrote:Yes I agree, however Grains is legal and is often used to weigh small gold in pref to grams, it is more accurate.

Yer I agree but I think that the seller should state in his sale that "this nugget is weighed in GRAINS and NOT GRAMS"

Wombat

Wombat wrote:

Adrian ss wrote:Yes I agree, however Grains is legal and is often used to weigh small gold in pref to grams, it is more accurate.

Yer I agree but I think that the seller should state in his sale that "this nugget is weighed in GRAINS and NOT GRAMS"

Wombat

I suppose he, the seller is well aware of what he is offering. Using a legal scale of weight no one can accuse him for setting up a scam or fraud. He sold in grains and cannot be hold or accused on any irregularity’s, not even bad faith to get whatever price people (due to the lack of checking back) consider to be right to put on the bet.
I assume of course it’s a scheme to push out $ from Customers not aware to covert to their known weight standard cohesively to what is in the spec of offer.
I am a burned Ebay customer and would check upside down (and flybay is on my boycott list) before I would make any buy anyway, as they provide a platform to any type of scam and criminal con-artist without reacting on customer warnings and red light flashing.
$ 70.000 was made on 22 customers in a gold sale scam within three weeks about three years ago. Ebay called in a forum with very experienced “customer relation employees” who fired up a rant against Flybay just to calm down the initial anger and to make sure the whole thing is passing out quietly for their business. One year later I received a letter from the office of the state attorney stating “all further action is cancel due to the lack of evidence and the fraudster cannot be named or identified.”

Ebay is nothing else than a street corner, anyone can offer anything to any condition he is pleased, the longest he appears to fit suit.

Cheers
All-AU

There are some bargains on ebay and some not so good bargains. I believe personally the person did nothing wrong with the way he advertised his gold. We used to sell gold on ebay and always sold it as per gram and had a good picture with item next to a ruler and sitting on 1mm x 1mm graph paper. Our best sell equated to $505.00 per gram. That same buyer bought several small nuggets of us over the next couple mths and always won on anything that he bid on. We ended up selling to him privately and he payed $107.60 per gram for nuggets (between .5 and .9gram each.) We would send him pictures of various bits and he would pick out which ones he wanted. That was a win for us and a win for him as well as he got what he wanted. (I think some of the members on this forum saw the prices that we got for gold on ebay)
Just saying, the purchasers of these bits of gold, I would think would have not been misled unless they were totally green at purchasing gold.

Just noticed there were 4 bid retractions on that nugg. I guess some noticed their mistake.

The use of Grains instead of Grams has been done deliberately in Australia a few times in the past and I've seen people bid exactly Spot Price for what they clearly thought was a nugget listed in Grams when it was in reality weighed in Grains. Whilst this seller hasn't broken any rules, it's clear that the bidders were not aware of the true sizes involved... The Australian standard for gold which is Grams (never Grains) and Troy Ounces (never avoirdupois ounces)

On the subject of Troy Ounces, MANY American sellers have been caught intentionally selling in standard (avoirdupois) ounces rather than Troy Ounces. Gold and Bullion (and minerals for that matter) are ALWAYS and ONLY measured in Troy Ounces, never avoirdupois. likewise, the Gold Price is always displayed only in Troy Ounces on the Stock Exchange. Avoirdupois ounces are used for cooking etc.

What some unscrupulous dealers of gold were doing in the USA is they were selling nuggets at Spot Price but they were selling them in standard (avoirdupois) ounces instead of Troy. A woman who sold several of ounces of gold to a mineral dealer in the US found out some time later that he had taken advantage of her by giving her just 28.3 grams of gold per ounce (or one standard avoirdupois ounce) for Spot Price. It wasn't until she had dinner with a friend that he pointed out to her she was short-changed 2.8 grams for every ounce she bought. The dealer who sold her the gold had walked away with 5.6 grams of her gold that she wasn't even paid for!

If you don't know how the nugget was weighed and that gold is correctly only weighed in Troy ounces, you are in a position to be taken advantage of. Grams used to be used for measuring gunpowder and some dealers in the USA still use grains instead of grams. A 5 gram nugget would be 77.16179 grains.

Some measurement (weight conversions) below that might be of interest to those trading internationally:

1kg = 32.15 ozt
1kg = 1000 grams
1 ozt = 31.1 grams
1 avoirdupois ounce = 28.34952 grams
1 dtw (pennyweight) = 1.555 grams
1 grain = 0.0647989 grams
1 gram = 15.43236 grains

Small typo there nero-
5 gm =77.16 gns

I still have my grandfathers gold scales in original box and they have oz, dwt gms and gn weights

Adrian ss wrote:Small typo there nero-
5 gm =77.16 gns

I still have my grandfathers gold scales in original box and they have oz, dwt gms and gn weights

Thanks Adrian ss, you are absolutely correct. I was using the weight converter app on my iPod and didn't switch grams for grains. Have corrected the post above to reflect the correct weight.

Well I made an absolute killing on that sale? I've still got 1 grain left, any takers it's only 30 bucks
Just kidding!

GIDDAY ALL. DUNNO IF THE GUY IS GENUINE, OR SHONKY. no worse than the fake nuggets on feebay anyway. i guess if you list 0.04 of a gram,whatever, it won,t impress too much. naturally, fleebay are making their $.s. do they care about consumerism?.......................................................................[pregnant pause.] mbe this guy sells used cars too. creative sales?
i always thought that if you can,t touch it, don,t buy it. no offence to the genuine sellers on the forum. cheers

I guess when you can use large numbers that represent small quantities you are more likely to attract interest from impressonable people.

It is a bit like our decimal speed limits and restrictions.
For eg, there is a 40 km/h speed limint for school crossings in the A.C.T but if you go 10 kays over that limit and get booked it will cost you money and loss of points off your license. But when you boil it down, that 10 kays is just a brisk walking pace and is only a small overspeed but attracts a big punishment..

So you might say that the law is a bit like the bloke selling gold in grains.....Using large numbers to overstate small offences to rake in big dollars.

I see that there is another seller, selling he's gold in GRAINS so if anyone here thinking of making a bid bewear that he is sell by the Grains and not Grams. The seller is dep911 he is from Sth. East N.S.W. with 88 feed backs item No.'s 180818161396, 180818158811, 180818164495, 180818203945, 180818218389, 180818222797.

Now there is another seller that has come on the market doing the same thing, selling in GRAINS and not GRAMS But this seller is running a scam. Right now he is selling under the name of Goldstrong 11, Maslin Beach S.A. with only 1 feed back, item No. 160734324399. Now this is were it gets interesting the other seller that I mentioned in an earlier post on this subject item No. 120855496602, seller in the name of, Leviemelia and he has 22 feed backs, also comes from Maslin Beach S.A. So I went into Leviemelia feed back section and found out that Goldstrong 11 has bought gold of him and left feed back and viserversa, with Goldstrong they are one of the same person who bids agains other bidders to knock up the price and if it gets knocked down to himself he leaves himself feed back so no one will get suspicious and then resells the nugget later on. If you check out these item numbers and then check out the feed backs you will see what I mean and you will also see that they come from the same place in S.A
I will now keep my eye on dep911 to see if he is doing the same.

Wombat

Did you report this to ebay Wombat.
Paul

the way i look at it is that you have to read what the seller has stated and look at the photos. you can tell this nugget is small or he has bloody big scales...if you couldn't see that the nugget is small well there's something wrong. i think it's come down to the buyers problem for not reading what he was bidding on... when you are out buying a car do you check how many ks it has done then do a check to see if it has been in a crash? if you don't and you buy it that's your problem, the seller wont care as he's making money... need to read the fine print and check if you are not sure... i'm not agreeing with what the seller is doing but he has said it's in grains...
cheers
stoppsy
ps, if they are scammers report them

Wombat wrote:I see that there is another seller, selling he's gold in GRAINS so if anyone here thinking of making a bid bewear that he is sell by the Grains and not Grams. The seller is dep911 he is from Sth. East N.S.W. with 88 feed backs item No.'s 180818161396, 180818158811, 180818164495, 180818203945, 180818218389, 180818222797.

Now there is another seller that has come on the market doing the same thing, selling in GRAINS and not GRAMS But this seller is running a scam. Right now he is selling under the name of Goldstrong 11, Maslin Beach S.A. with only 1 feed back, item No. 160734324399. Now this is were it gets interesting the other seller that I mentioned in an earlier post on this subject item No. 120855496602, seller in the name of, Leviemelia and he has 22 feed backs, also comes from Maslin Beach S.A. So I went into Leviemelia feed back section and found out that Goldstrong 11 has bought gold of him and left feed back and viserversa, with Goldstrong they are one of the same person who bids agains other bidders to knock up the price and if it gets knocked down to himself he leaves himself feed back so no one will get suspicious and then resells the nugget later on. If you check out these item numbers and then check out the feed backs you will see what I mean and you will also see that they come from the same place in S.A
I will now keep my eye on dep911 to see if he is doing the same.


Wombat

Give this exact info to ebay security and I am sure they will take notice

I have now reported this sell (goldstrong11) to E-bay and they are going to do a few investigation, and they are also doing the same with dep911.

Wombat

Wombat wrote:I have now reported this sell (goldstrong11) to E-bay and they are going to do a few investigation, and they are also doing the same with dep911.

Wombat

"GOOD STUFF",Wombat.

Hi wombat, that is some good work you did. hope ebay follows up and sues his arse off. Not likely though

Having read the listings I must agree with Stoppsy.
There is nothing wrong with the description and the nuggs are clearly in grain weights.

I see ebay gold seller,"godstrong11"is selling (gold nugget)item number-160736927124,12.2 grains currently bidding(32) sitting at $455.01,with three hours to go.