Talk about being honest!!!!hahahaha

Hello

Are those sellers from France? I usualy watch the goliathus on ebay because I sell some eventually and like to know how are they going on the market, but recently I've seen too some really expensive specimens for sale, like a big quadrimaculatus starting at 1200$ I was wacthing those, but suddendly I can't find them.

Regards

stringer - May be common, but definitely against Ebay policy. You get kicked off if Ebay finds out and all it takes is one disgruntled buyer to report them.

Charlie

This kind of bidding is of course dishonest and unfair. I didn't know that this particular seller was doing this..It's a pitty cause he had some really nice specimens on ebay. But after this, I don't think that I will bid on his listings. Thanks for the info.
As if was not enough the massive dishonesty of Africans, it seems that we are now threatened also from cheating activities of non Africans concerning Goliathus....and all this makes it even more difficult for a Goliathus collector to aquire good specimens at fair prices. These insects are not rare (most of the known 'very rare' forms are actually normal in terms of rarity/hardness to find in nature, and the normal specimens of each species are really common to very common -just all want to get the biggest and in the best quality, but even such fine big Goliathus specimens (even of f. quadrimaculatus) are much more easy to find in nature than other beetles), but not honest people have made it quite difficult to get them (best would be to go to Africa and collect them from their habitats, someone would have found many nice specimens, but this is not possible for many collectors for lots of different reasons).

Yes, it was possible for someone to buy a big quadrimaculatus mainly from honest dealers' sites out of ebay, a couple of years ago, for around 100 euro or so (that was a fair price). But it seems that it's not possible anymore. I check the best sites for Goliathus regularly, and some of them don't have any more good specimens to offer (after the first good specimens were readily sold at fair prices), and others do have good big specimens of most forms and species, but the prices are too high (not like in the past few years). Also, on ebay, in addition to the fact that good Goliathus males are very wanted from anyone and there is almost always a bidding war over them which increases the price to high levels (higher than their general market price out of ebay in many cases), there are also sellers like that one from France doing this sad thing...

'Within 5 minutes of the auction ending I got a second chance offer?'

- Hmm, really very suspicious.

'He would have been better putting a buy now price on the items.'

- I think he thought that if he was putting those crazy amounts as buy it now prices for each of his big males, probably noone would have bought them/very few would have been sold..So he thought (as it seems that he knows the psychology of a bidder on a good Goliathus male who likes the low starting price and hopes to get a good deal, but also likes too much the specimen and doesn't want to miss it, so he will bid again if outbid..) that it's much better to start almost all his Goliathus at 0.99 (except for the 97 mm quadrimaculatus which he started at the super crazy 1200 usd, as he saw that people -including himself/his friends- bid on his earlier smaller 94 mm one for up to around 500 usd), trying to reach his favourable very high sale price by bidding himself on his own items/putting friends to bid for him, so the interested collectors to see that his items are very wanted..and to bid crazy amounts in order not to miss them..., psychologically affected...And in case that this seller (from another account) wins his own items/friends of him win it, then he sends second chance offers to the real bidders-collectors, getting a crazy sale price.. And he tries to hide this activity, by having set all his listings as private, so that a buyer not to be able to check the feedback number of the other bidders and to suspect him or his friends (if this is being done systematically) or to check the feedback of his account(s)/his friends' accounts for 'double sold' specimens (this way also he gains more positive feedback for free..)...Of course it's not bad if someone has chosen to use private listings, but in cases like this, one of the disadvantages is that this 'covers' dishonest sellers who do this kind of cheating-bidding..

Anyone knows their name ?

One thing I don't understand : by acting this way, don't he pay twice ebay's crazy 15% fees Must not be really profitable.

'One thing I don't understand : by acting this way, don't he pay twice ebay's crazy 15% fees Must not be really profitable.'

- Maybe he cancels those transactions where he has won his own items -or where his friends won them- (I don't know if in this case ebay returns the fees ), or maybe the profit from the crazy prices he gets is so big, that he doesn't mind paying double fees..

Personally don't know his full name -otherwise I certainly would have pointed it out here- , as I never bought something from him, however in the response I got from him recently when I sent him a message regarding the beetles he was offering in which I was interested, he wrote his first name as 'Loic'. But I'm sure (checking the buyers' ebay ID's from his feedback) that members from this website have got stuff from him and know his full name/address. They should point it here.