Now this is intersting...

budnonymous · Top Poster

$3+ Million Record Deal On ebay Looks like it turned out having a fraudulent winner

budnonymous · Top Poster

Record Rama bidder turns out to be a fraud

Saturday, February 23, 2008

By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The $3 million winning bid for the Record Rama collection on eBay was a fraud, according to J. Paul Henderson, agent for the sale.

Mr. Henderson said he got a call from an eBay executive last night explaining that the "jopsoup" bid was not legitimate and the account has been suspended.

The Irish man with that screen name says he didn't even know about the bid until after the fact.

"Jopsoup" told the eBay executive that he was a victim of identity theft.

"He claims he went to an Internet cafe and got the e-mail with the invoice from us and wondered 'what the hell is this?' " Mr. Henderson said.

Mr. Henderson says he and owner Paul Mawhinney plan to re-list the collection and run the auction in a more "semi-private" fashion with screened bidders.

They also have a few private collectors coming into town who will examine the collection of 3 million albums and CDs, cassettes and 8 tracks.

First published on February 23, 2008 at 12:00 am

editing to add screencapture: full page size here click to enlarge:

-- Edited by budnonymous at 00:48, 2008-02-25

budnonymous · Top Poster

Now this is intersting...

It looks like maybe ebay has not notified the press that the winning bidder was fraudulent bidder, let from the above aricle we see that ebay had notified the seller/victim the night before... Very curious indeed.

Records spin a fortune

2 hours ago

A record collector from Pittsburgh is planning to retire after he sold his entire selection of vinyl albums, singles and CDs to a man on eBay for £1.5 million.

Paul Mawhinney said the winning bidder has already deposited £150,000, and a bank has confirmed he has enough money to buy the collection.

Mr Mawhinney, 68, has closed Record Rama, which opened in 1968, to spend time with his wife, three children and five grandchildren.

budnonymous · Top Poster

In fact, it looks like the press articles reporting false info are STILL rolling off the press:

A record for records? $3 million eBay sale

By The Associated Press

PITTSBURGH A man said he can retire because someone bought his massive record collection on eBay for the minimum-bid price: about $3 million.

A buyer from Ireland agreed to shell out $3,002,150 for the collection of 3 million vinyl albums and singles and 300,000 CDs, owner Paul Mawhinney said Thursday.

The winning bidder has deposited $300,000, and a bank has confirmed he has enough money to buy the collection, Mawhinney said.

The price tag is one of the highest recorded by eBay, said Karen Bard, a spokeswoman for the online auctioneer. A Gulfstream II jet once sold for $4.9 million, she said.

On Thursday, Mawhinney, 69, closed Record-Rama Sound Archives. He said he wants to spend time with his wife, three children and five grandchildren.

"I am legally blind. I had a couple of strokes a few years ago ... and it's time at my age to think about doing something else with my life," he said.

budnonymous · Top Poster

Look at the time and date on this one, the eariiest one I found so far, yet it is still dated after ebay had contacted the seller.

Now why, oh why wouldn't ebayy have notified the press of such a developement, and why now, after this long have they still not?

Man sells record collection on eBay for $3-million

Associated Press

February 22, 2008 at 7:04 AM EST

PITTSBURGH This could be a record record.

A Pennsylvania man says he can now retire because someone has bought his massive collection of vinyl albums, singles and CDs on eBay for the asking price $3-million (U.S.).

Paul Mawhinney says a buyer from Ireland agreed to shell out $3,002,150 for his collection of nearly three million vinyl albums, singles and CDs.

The winning bidder has already deposited $300,000, and Mawhinney says a bank has confirmed he has enough money to buy the collection.

EBay spokeswoman Karen Bard says the price is one of the highest recorded by the online auctioneer. She says a Gulfstream jet once sold for $4.9-million.

The 68-year-old Mawhinney, who is legally blind after having suffered a couple of strokes, closed his Record Rama store near Pittsburgh yesterday after 40 years. He says he wants to spend time with his wife, three children and five grandchildren.

-- Edited by budnonymous at 05:29, 2008-02-23

budnonymous · Top Poster

Finally, at somewhere around 4:00 PM, PTD, the AP publishes a corrected update. Now how would ebay stock have fared had this been common knowledge yesterday?

$3M Bid for Record Collection Is a Fraud

38 minutes ago

PITTSBURGH (AP) A winning bid of $3 million for a huge record collection offered on eBay was apparently a fraud.

A bidder had claimed he would shell out $3,002,150 for the collection of nearly 3 million vinyl albums, singles and CDs being sold by Paul Mawhinney, 68, of Ross Township.

An agent for the sale, J. Paul Henderson, said an eBay executive notified him Friday night that the bid was not legitimate and that the bidder's account had been suspended, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Mawhinney said he began collecting the records when he opened his record shop, Record Rama, in 1968. He closed it Thursday, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family.

"I am legally blind," he said. "I had a couple of strokes a few years ago ... and it's time at my age to think about doing something else with my life."

Mawhinney said Saturday that he had already contacted six other bidders who had pledged more than $3 million on eBay and three others who approached him independently.

"It's still going to happen," he told The Associated Press.

edit to add screencap. Note the file properties show this created /on February 23, 2008, 4:29:12 PM PTD

Of course note the time.

click to enlarge

Look here too.

Looks Like A 3 Million Dollar eBay Deadbeat Bidder!

-- Edited by budnonymous at 00:52, 2008-02-25

budnonymous · Top Poster

eBay Takes It on the Chin

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz February 26, 2008

Some people just can't get enough of kicking an aging bully when it's down.

My email was buzzing over the weekend, after news reports indicated that the winning bid of just more than $3 million for a massive music collection on eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY) was bogus. According to the unsuspecting buyer, someone apparently hacked into his account and made the fraudulent bid.

"The initial press eBay skated on was sure sweet," one reader wrote after the deal fell apart. "I sure do hope the press will give eBay the bitter pill they deserve."

She's not the only person getting a kick out of eBay's face-egging. eBay may be the world's largest online landlord, but tenants and ex-tenants alike seem to enjoy bashing the auction marketplace.

On Feb. 18, several incensed eBay sellers -- upset over recent feedback changes, fee adjustments, and transaction requirements -- went on strike. The boycott has been extended until next week, but does it really matter?

Sellers aren't quitting e-commerce cold turkey. If they have found acceptable substitutes -- anything from rival auction sites like Overstock.com (Nasdaq: OSTK) to low-hurdle marketplaces like Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) to free classifieds on Craigslist to generating direct leads through paid-search ad campaigns with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) -- why come back at all?

If there is a more effective creator of commerce than eBay for many of these disgruntled sellers, it's not much of a stretch for an embargo to become a permanent migration.

How effective the strike has been remains to be seen. Third-party eBay-listing trackers like Medved show a dip since late February, but the same site shows how traffic has dropped substantially after Valentine's Day for several years in a row now.

eBay was also on the ropes before the strike, with year-over-year domestic declines in two of the last three quarters. In other words, it's hard to tell if the strike is having a tangible impact on eBay or if this is part of the grander seasonal trend combined with eBay's gradual slide into e-commerce irrelevance.

Obviously, the frustrated power sellers will fill my inbox with anecdotes of how they are the ones taking down eBay with their virtual battering rams, but the company's struggles lately indicate that this may very well be an insider job, too.

Bid on more about eBay:

budnonymous · Top Poster

Record Rama collection headed back to eBay

Friday, March 14, 2008

By Scott Mervis, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Record Rama owner Paul Mawhinney is ready to go back to the auction block. He plans to put his archive of nearly 3 million records and CDs -- billed as the "World's Largest Music Collection" -- on eBay again, this time with a starting bid of $100.

That's substantially lower than the $3 million it took to get into the bidding when it was on eBay last month. That auction ended on Feb. 21 with a fraudulent bid.

Since then, Mr. Mawhinney and agent J. Paul Henderson have entertained seven or eight prospective buyers at the Ross store/warehouse, which is currently closed.

"We didn't get an offer that was acceptable to us," Henderson said. "Some did not meet our minimum, some wanted payment terms we couldn't accept."

There will be a reserve on the eBay auction -- which means the bidder will have to meet an undeclared minimum set by the buyer -- and this time, anyone bidding more than $1 million must be pre-approved. Those high-rollers also will have access to the database.

The auction will start Wednesday and end March 29. Mawhinney is still hoping the buyer will preserve essential elements of the collection as an archive and will detail on the eBay site an outline for how it could be the centerpiece of a museum.

Scott Mervis can be reached at smervis@post-gazette.com or 412-263-2576.

First published on March 14, 2008 at 12:00 am