>> Well, finally the shells arrived... far from all the specimens I'd
>> sent payment for, but nevertheless of some value.

OK, I have to say on rechecking that the shells not sent were a couple
of small turrids and a Euciroa, so that's not a problem.

> I sincerely doubt that's how dealers do it -- unless you have a history
> with them. How did you pay? Please tell me you did not send cash!

I did... and have done so many times, with no problem. However I think
that someone in the Chinese PO has cottoned-on and has been busily
looking for my mail...

> That is untraceable. If you paid by check, bank draft or credit card,
> it's
> easy enough to check and see if the checks were cashed or your card
> was billed.

Yes... but with Shellauction you have to pay each seller separately,
and bank charges rapidly build-up at $25NZ (~$11US) per draft. And I
tore my creditcard up because I was spending far too much on shells!

> Bottom line is, he sent you shells not of the quality you had
> anticipated and without waiting (so he says) for the funds to arrive.
> That is not your problem, Andrew. You sent the money in good faith and got
> sub-par quality shells in return. Legally, there is no way for him to
> hassle
> you, since he had the option of waiting until the funds arrived. He also
> misrepresented the actual quality.

Actually, the images of the shells allowed me to tell the condition of
the shells pretty well. I have to say that there were problems with
communication, and it is quite likely that gmail was screwing me up
there... a LOT of messages I send do not arrive, and there is no
notification that there is a problem... so I don't KNOW that the
message hasn't arrived, at least not for weeks at least. Zhang waited
for a considerable time after I sent the money before he sent the
shells. I have the feeling that he is innocent here. Which doesn't
help me... but I'm not beating myself up on this.

One of the specimens was a live-collected Entemnotrochus rumphii of
decent size, w/o, good condition but the lower part of the aperture
(below the slit) was broken away for most of the length of the slit.
The images showed this, but I got it for 6 Euro... and this specimen
was sent to me.

A word about PayPal... they have a reputation of not wanting tio know
about it when there's a shafting (and eBay OWNS PayPal). PayPal is not
secure and is not a bank, so doesn't have huge resources. It has been
hacked more than once.

Feedback... crooks can get buddies to generate false feedback, and I
don't trust it.

Crooks are there on ShellAuction... one who regularly falsifies
locality data (and who I hear is litigation-mad, so I won't mention
his name), others who take your money and send someone else's order
(with no data) and refuse to do anything to rectify it (Qiqong).
ShellAuction does nothing about these people... I only know of one
seller  who was banned for crooked practices.

The Chinese sellers offer material otherwise difficult or impossible
to get (thick & heavy China Sea Rostellariella martinii; cheap Cypraea
guttata) and some of them are honest eg zyf, so they are not
necessarily a curse.

I do frequent Shell Cabinet; the Poppe auctions usually don't offer
anything I really want, though I have had some good deals there too.

--
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin, New Zealand
Fossil preparator
Mollusc, Toyota & VW van nut

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