How sad that our fine hobby has come to this.  I believe that several auctions which are run, and advertised on Conch-L are basically come on's and I use as evidence one which I shall not name.  That if they don't appear to get market value bid for a shell they never contact you on where to either send the money and if your send them e-mail they ignore you.  It appears there are dis-honest shell dealers just like dishonest politians.
Harry
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-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
From: Andrew Grebneff
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: C & S shell auction
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 2004 12:45:13 +0000

>I participated in a Shell Auction held by C & S Shell cabinet of Hong Kong on
>the 22nd Sept 2004.
>
>I bid on 5 items, of which 4 bids were less that $20, the 5 item I bid $202
>(Harpa costata).
>These bids were made 4PM GMT on the internet via my work address. (I do not
>have internet at home)
>
>The following morning I checked my status to see if I had won any of the
>items.
>To my surprise it stated that I had won 12 items, only one of which I had bid
>for.
>These totalled £1303 quite a considerable amount of money.
>
>I immediately E-Mailed the site & expressed my concerns, with full details of
>my bids and cut off time.
>The responded that the bids were made with my userID and password.
>
>C & S are un-repentant and have Black-listed me, saying that they shall
>inform all other shell dealers of my BAD REPUTATION....
>
>I wish to inform anyone interested that I did not place these fictitious bids
>and that they should be wary of C & S Shell Cabinet auction in Hong Kong
>before they are falsely accused of wrong doing.

They were hacked... couldn't this have been done by the same people?

The site DOES malfunction often (exactly as it did when Benny Wong had it)
... how many of you have bi $2.00 or more OVER
the minimum required bid, only to have a message
pop up that you have bid less than the minimum
bid?
... or returned to the list of offerings, only to
find that most of the time it jumps back to the
firt entry, forcing you to scroll again & again..

When Benny was The Man I had a bid go wrong... I
typed in my bid of $200.00 for a sinistral
Bucinum, and printed the page. When I submitted
it, to my horror the bid came up $2000.00. I
checked my printout, which showed my bid WAS
$200. I contacted Benny, who just cancelled my
bid. But he didn't drop the bid PRICE, and so
some fool bid over $2000 to buy it...

Do you by from dealers fairly often? If they know
you, they should vouch for you. I wouldn't worry
about what C&S says... after all, the whole site
is based on dishonest dealings.
--
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin
New Zealand
Fossil preparator

Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toota van nut

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