September Daytime Meeting

To be held on Wednesday, 4 September from 1.00pm to 3.30pm in the Philatelic Centre, 67 Mandeville Street, Riccarton. Please ring your friends to remind them about it.

Buy, sell or swap Bring your spare stamps or money. Don Walker is bringing the Exchange books.

Raffles Don will have some items to raffle.

Report onAugust Evening Meeting - AGM

By the time I arrived at the meeting, there was already an enthusiastic crowd of members around the lots on the auction table. Auction sheets were being marked surreptitiously! Ian had the attendance book and nametags out for the members. Raffle tickets sold well - on the raffle table, Shirley Bone had a big box of groceries, a philatelic item donated by Hank Smits and some home baking brought along by Fay Isitt.

At the AGM, the previous year’s AGM minutes were read by the Secretary, Jackie van der Plas and the financial reports were given by our Club Treasurer, David Fortune and Exchange Branch Treasurer, Ken Cree. It is pleasing to see that the Exchange Branch sales continue to increase. President Steven McLachlan reported that it had been a good year for the New Zealand Stamp Collectors’ Club. Existing committee members stood for another term of office and were re-elected.

As the normal part of the evening began, Steven talked about the items of interest – there were a lot of them and it took a while to go through them all. I noticed that a few ‘returned mail’ items featured among the covers on the board.

Fred Saunders gave a report on the inaugural Interclub Competition that had proved to be a great success.

David Fortune gave a spirited talk about his trip to Nauru Island where he had spent most of his time helping teachers with the Maths curriculum. He did manage to get out and about and showed us some photographs that he had taken. Some of the scenes were astonishing, as the mining operations have left large areas of devastated landscapes. There was a display of stamps from Nauru, which enhanced the talk.

Our auction was thoroughly organised by Fred Saunders and it ran as smoothly as usual under the capable guidance of Steven McLachlan. David Fortune tells me that it raised a total of $479. Treasurer Fortune has had a busy time working on club matters what with presenting his financial statement, giving the talk on Nauru, keeping track of the bids and collecting in the money. Then he had to work out how much the vendors were to be paid, deduct 20% commission and write out their cheques.

Subscriptions

Our annual subscriptions are now due – please send your money to;

. The subscription rates are $15.00 per person or $20.00 per family if you pay before the end of the year. We have membership cards to send to members who renew their subs. Produce your membership card when you are buying items at a local dealer and you’ll get a discount on them.

 Stamp Fairs

Church Hall, Corner Papanui Rd & Rugby St, Merivale from 9:30am to 1:00pm on Saturdays 7 and 21 September 2002.

Many of our club members buy and sell items through eBay and should read this extract from an article in 2 September edition of Linn’s Stamp News.

A recent survey shows that approximately 10 percent of all stamps and covers listed on eBay are described inaccurately. The worst example occurred in 1999 when a Canadian carpet cleaner offered what he claimed was a rare United States 24c ‘Inverted Jenny’ error airmail stamp of 1918. It sold for $35 000. He was not selling the stamp but an electronic image of it that he lifted from an auction house web site. Other users made the buyer aware of the scam before money changed hands. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were asked to investigate, and fraud charges were later filed against the suspect.

On 12 August, images of two stamps taken from the Stanley Gibbons illustrated price list on its web site were used to sell other items on eBay. Both stamps are unused examples of early British stamps that Stanley Gibbons offered on its web site. A 1840 Penny Black from plate 1 was listed by Gibbons as ... example lettered EA good clear margins and lovely fresh appearance with a certificate of authenticity from the Royal Philatelic Society. Price: $5070. Using the Gibbons image, the eBay seller described his item as ‘Great Britain 1840 - 1d black - mint VF - low start - no reservations. Posted 7 August with a minimum bid of $9.99, the item closed five days later at $811, having attracted 15 bids from 12 bidders. Two of them withdrew their bids, one noting the Gibbons image and the other saying, ‘there seems to be a serious problem with this item.’ The second stamp was the 1880 2/- brown described by Gibbons in its price list as very fine unused ... lettered RF, centred slightly high, nevertheless, an extremely fresh and presentable example of this rare Victorian issue, Brandon and Diena certificates. Price: $10 140. The eBay seller described the image as 1865 2s brown — mint, adding 15 years to the age of the stamp. Like the Penny Black, it started at $9.99 and drew a top bid of $1526 in 24 bids from nine bidders, only one of whom retracted. Linn’s queried the seller, asking why the Stanley Gibbons’ images were used and whether the seller owned the actual stamps. No reply was received. Richard Purkis, a director of Gibbons, told Linn’s that the seller had appropriated at least six images from www.stanleygibbons.com

The survey of eBay descriptions of stamps and covers was conducted 3 August by postal history dealer Richard Frajola, a high-profile presence on eBay’s stamp chat board who goes by the username of 1covers. He is spearheading a petition to get eBay managers to recognize the problem of misleading and fraudulent descriptions and to do something about it. ‘I believe eBay would be well served to hire category-specific advisors,’ he said. ‘A set of qualified advisors, empowered to review complaints and act in a timely fashion, could substantially reduce the percentage of fraudulent auctions on eBay in the collectible categories.’

Ebay’s rules against interfering with auctions make it difficult for users to alert other users about practices that appear to be fraudulent. Users who violate those rules face suspension. Most recently, eBay prohibited the discussion on chat boards of supposed fraudulent listings, shutting down the method used most frequently to warn users of deception. Ebay frauds and hoaxes have been in the news regularly, leading the Internet auction house to respond to its stockholders and to the public. According to a CNET report 5 June, ‘eBay chief Executive Meg Whitman told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting that new software was helping the popular auction site make major strides in reducing fraud.’

Whitman told shareholders that technology has already helped eBay reduce its fraudulent sales rate, which she said is at less than one-tenth of 1 percent. Whitman said the software’s ability to spot criminals will get better as the database of fraudulent sales grows.

Frajola said he believes ‘the actual fraud rate, using a more standard definition of fraud, is probably significantly higher. Fraud is rampant in the collectible categories on eBay. Some of the frauds being committed, such as the sale of fakes and forgeries as genuine, cannot be determined using only high-tech solutions. Although it is sometimes not possible to determine if a listing is accurate, it is often easy to be certain that a listing is fraudulent. In the stamp category on eBay, which is the area I am most familiar with, I estimate the fraud rate at roughly 10 percent of all lots listed in the category.’

Frajola said eBay listed 121 000 lots 3 August in the stamp category. He sampled 100 lots in each of 10 main subcategories, and he estimates that 12 000 probably involved one of the following forms of fraud:

1. Forged stamps being offered as genuine stamps. He said these could - in many instances - be determined by examination of the electronic images, or scans.
2. Faked covers being offered as genuine. This involves covers with stamps substituted or missing, as well as postmarks faked. This is often evident by examining the scans.
3. Manipulated or repaired stamps and covers being offered without description of the manipulation. And major faults or repairs not mentioned in the description. This is often evident by examining the scans.
4. Material being offered ‘as is’ that is, or should be, known to be something other than as described. This includes material that has been manipulated by the seller or seller’s agent directly, as well as misidentified stamps and rarities that should be accompanied by a certificate of authenticity before being offered. An example would be an obvious forgery, or a misidentified stamp or cover, offered ‘as is’ in an attempt to deceive, Frajola says.
5. The sale of postage stamps that are commonly referred to as illegal issues. These are simply labels that have the appearance of real postage stamps. They were never valid postage in any country that is a member of the Universal Postal Union. These so-called stamps often bear the names of fictional countries, including supposed Russian republics or sub republics using various spellings. They are produced to deceive collectors and many appeal to topical collectors because they depict musicians, actors or other notable celebrities. Frajola feels they should not be placed in the postage stamp category except as cinderellas or they should be clearly identified as being fantasy labels rather than postage stamps.

Ebay’s feedback system, in which buyers and sellers leave public ratings expressing satisfaction or dissatisfaction with transactions, is ineffective in combating deliberate deception according to Frajola. ‘Victims rarely know that they have been deceived until well after the sale, if ever. As a result, they do not post negative feedback. Even though most of these types of fraud occur in the normal stamp-collecting marketplace, they are hidden from public view and can be adequately policed when the perpetrators are exposed. The high visibility of this type of fraud on eBay, and the fact that eBay has turned a deaf ear to collector complaints, is very frustrating to those who strive for an honest, viable and open Internet marketplace. In addition, and perhaps more important for long term health of eBay, sellers of correctly described goods cannot achieve full value because their goods are in direct competition with fraudulently described items.’

According to the CNET report, ‘eBay has 9 million items for sale on any given day and will likely process $13 billion in gross merchandise sales in 2002. Small percentages could add up to thousands of dollars wasted on hundreds of fraudulent transactions each day. The company has been working hard to clean up fraud, forging closer ties with police officials, the US Postal Service, international delivery services and authorities abroad.

‘Anecdotal evidence suggests that a disproportionate percentage of fraud happens from sales from sellers in Eastern Europe. Ebay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said that higher-priced items, such as computers and other electronics goods, have a higher rate of fraud than collectibles such as Pez dispensers and Beanie Babies.

‘Technology products, ranging from Sun Microsystems servers to Dell Computer laptops and a variety of smaller electronic gadgets, constitute the largest category of goods sold on eBay.’