Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Postby Gecko109 » Fri Oct 19, 2012 3:02 pm
While ebay has its flaws, it still presents a tremendous buying opportunity for those who do not wish to pay excessive prices. I could post 4 or 5 opals right now that I snagged off ebay for prices that would make your head spin. And dont forget Pink, with paypal buyer protection, EVERY SINGLE PURCHASE is a no risk guaranteed deal. If you get something you arent happy with, you WILL be refunded, period.
OA is a very well organized auction venue, but it also has its share of overpriced junk as well. The biggest difference is that when you bid on OA, you are bidding against nothing but opal enthusiasts for a much more limited amount of product. On ebay, there are thousands of stones sold each day, and many of them slip under the radar of opal sharks. Most of the OA higher quality stuff gets "all the money", and rarely are there exceptional bargains to be had.
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Postby HKKurt » Fri Oct 19, 2012 5:22 pm
Gecko109: I agree in general with your last statement, but need to remind you that PayPal is largely owned by ebay.
You would change your mind about PayPal if they would screw you over like they did to me 7 years ago. While I belief that things have gotten much better at PayPal as such, they still have the occasional case where people loose everything on all their credit-cards, like I did then.
As a regular complaining to Ebay: Ebay will send you a notice that they will deal with your complaint, but regardless how obvious the case and how much evidence you collected, nothing is ever done. I followed one cheater in colored diamonds for nearly a year and collected screenshots and all sorts of other things along the way just to prove that the seller was bidding against customers, winning at times and re-listing a few weeks later and submitted everything to Ebay, yet the seller never stopped the practice. Unfortunately, I managed to buy two small stones, and the GIA report here in HK certified them natural untreated and I could not add additional complaints.
In general: I'm one of those people who has benefited from Ebay and I must say that I got only a handful of "Lessons" in over ten years of buying from the system. But then again, before I buy anything, I usually research and follow diverse sellers for a while and I set a limit of spending on any seller for the first few deals. Impulse buying was never my thing, and this has certainly benefited me over the long run.
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Postby Kane826 » Sat Oct 20, 2012 3:50 pm
Gecko- somehow that great protection policy didn't help me, plus unethical practices like using boosted images damage the market, since most people are too ignorant to research before buying and if someone buys a stone for lets say 150 and then after recieving it discovers that it's not so vivid but it would cost him 35 to send it back he probably won't be bothered, just stay away from opals next time...
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Postby mick » Fri Nov 09, 2012 3:51 pm
I have spent a month of looking for fake Aussie black Opal on Ebay. On and off, maybe 4 hours in all.
I conclude there is no such thing. Not hundreds and hundreds, not one that I could find. There are very few posts for anything from Lightning Ridge compared to all other areas.
Perhaps your experience was a once off from one seller now closed down?
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Postby EDGEgems » Fri Nov 09, 2012 4:37 pm
I just checked targetgems on ebay, they have 27 treated welo opals advertised as Lightning Ridge Black
*link removed per site rules of no links to outside sales. Sorry.
When I last checked there were 7 similar sellers from thiland selling the stuff,and I think that if you looked carefully you would find more than 100 of the fake Lightning Ridge stones on ebay right now
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Postby gingerkid » Fri Nov 09, 2012 11:50 pm
Hey, Ed!
Thanks for posting the link. Problem is that I don't think I would be able to differentiate the smoked welos from the Black Opals from OZ. Is there any indications of how to tell them apart by just looking at them?
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Postby PinkDiamond » Sat Nov 10, 2012 6:41 am
Sorry I had to remove the link folks, but them's the rules. Ed gave the name of the seller so anyone wanting to see them all can find him on fleabay and look at his supposedly black LR opals. Good find Ed. Of course, it's par for the course for fleabay.
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Postby Gecko109 » Sat Nov 10, 2012 7:59 am
All anyone has to do is type in an ebay search : "black opal" and then click the "auctions" tab and voila! Hundreds of smoked welos being advertised as lightning ridge blacks.
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Postby OpalSupreme » Sat Nov 10, 2012 7:32 pm
gingerkid wrote:
Hey, Ed!
Thanks for posting the link. Problem is that I don't think I would be able to differentiate the smoked welos from the Black Opals from OZ. Is there any indications of how to tell them apart by just looking at them?
This is quite easy - I don't have to many black opals from LR and they are low grade opals but you can check some videos with black LR on web - note there is a big difference between smocked welo and black LR >
- most OZ black are not N1 Black ! natural color is dark gray/blueish tone
- most OZ have color bar on surface and solid black bottom - like natural doublet ---> NO 360/3D color (most time when you see high dome round cab with 360 fire -- this was treated Welo)
- when smocked Welo opal have inclusion on the bottom/back with the clay you will see that clay is also treated and have odd look (also you will not see similar clay in OZ black)
- and if you know some Welo patterns you should be able to see the difference ( I've seen 'black LR' which was smocked honey comb
)
Check the videos from the TOP OZ sellers and compare this with Welo and 'Smocked Welo/LR'
and you will see what I mean
Hope this will help (sorry for my eng.)
Greets
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Postby altezza26 » Sat Nov 10, 2012 10:56 pm
Before the new "black smoked welo" wave hit the market, i noticed that those ebay sellers did the same big mistake about calling "LR opal" some classic welo ones.
Anyway, to reply to Gingerkid, even if OpalSupreme said enough, i just want to say that one of the most well-know and easy to remember fact about black LR opals is that the N1/N2 with bright red colors are extremly rare and expensive! So if you have any doubt now...
The most scandalous thing was about the fact that many sellers, at the begining, didn't mention about the treatment. And prices for those "natural black opals" were often very very high (i mean, wining auctions). So people paid hundreds of $ for a stone that will certainly craze or loose colors quite soon. Shame!
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Unread postby mick » Wed Nov 14, 2012 2:34 pm
I gots me a LR N1, its in my cutters gallery, it was from a 10 buck rough deal kinda thing, wasnt meant to be there I guess, I had it valued at a grand!
I must be doing something wrong with my searching, I will look again and complain if I have to.
Speaking of Ebay, I sold my first proper Opal last night $200. Now the buyer says he made a mistake, he pushed the wrong button. More like a pisstake than a mistake. Anyway the buyer is from ITALY, god alarm bells ringing like crazy, but the buyer has an excellent record and buys lots of Opal.
I guess best to forget the deal and just sting him for the relisting fees?
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Unread postby Artfldgr » Mon Nov 19, 2012 9:44 pm
free market is always caveat emptor anyway.
and the desire to have it any other way is the desire to have a statist snooty up your booty every day in every way
and who will play every whine to a new power over the situation.
the public just doesnt want to accept that ignorance is not bliss its expensive....
and that as long as a few people decide to use a few terms and signposts to replace thinking and knowing
then this will continue to happen. the savvier the buyer the fewer the con artists
if anyone wants to see the prefect scientific experiment in this just look at Swarovsky, the diamond industry, and the past glass cheats... technically, Swarovsky is selling the same thing as really good cheats sell. but whats the difference? his company is worth 100s of millions and the liars companies are worth? (combined?)
people do this all the time as a way to fake knowing. ie. they cue off a few words and they fake knowing more.
its even wackier when they due this over history where their judge is usually the volume of others with the same points.
(ergo the "big lie" works rather than falls apart)
in fact you can even tell which do it a whole lot and for image purposes...
an often these are the same people who want jewelry and exotica, for image purposes...
these are the people who cheat and who complain the most about being cheated for not knowing and indignant that they really should know. and it comes with the idea that free market somehow converted to some consumer market where there is a price tag and validity everywhere you look within the land... no... the consumer market price tags keep you from haggling which is expensive to them on two fronts (and requires more knowledgeable sales people rather than minimum wage college kids looking for dorm money).
so you can look to the cheats and say. if you didn't exist, then we would live in utopia
or you can look to Darwin and say, cheats survive as long as...
in essence people are wishing that people give up and not survive doing what they fell into doing
my opinion? it isnt going to happen... ever.. even if you put lots of police and money there...
so the best you can do is make good sources of information for those who dont live this way.
and accept that to have the freedom of exchange, a bit of sour light has to shine once in a while
in reality they buy the cheat because they like the object, then get upset it wasn't worth what "they thought it was worth"
but what they thought it was worth is what the price tag says, not any actual sense of worth...
ie. worth is can i afford to pay whats on the price tag.
if they wanted real worth, they would have gone for more expensive real material from a reputable dealer
not thought they were getting vastly more expensive material for cheap they can then claim was 'worth more'
i can just see the solution... every stone needs a gia cert... or some such.
and with the certs costing more than the stones in most cases for a heck of a lot of cabbed material
there goes that issue... and the state saves money on investigations too.
given that fraud is already illegal, be careful as to what one may wish for - you may get it...
(even if one doesnt realize thats what they are wishing for)
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Unread postby mastersculptor » Thu Feb 14, 2013 2:59 pm
Gecko was right about typing in "Black Opal" in the search bar at fleabay......The very first "Lightning Ridge" I looked at was the second listing which was an obvious honeycomb oriented in the bumble bee pattern! 23hrs to go and bid is just a touch over $10.00 per ct and added it to watch list just to see what happens to selling price
The second being the first listing was just about all "RED" Flash with little green and just barely a hint of any blue".
The third did tell the truth regarding origin and treatment way down in the listing I had to scroll down a ways to find an obviously Lightning ridge looking one and thats where I quit. Took a grand total of 5 minutes including the copy paste of photo
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Unread postby mastersculptor » Fri Feb 15, 2013 12:34 pm
EDGEgems wrote:
Go have a look at the ebay seller royal gems
Thats is one of the 2 sellers I found in under 10 minutes.....Seems we are all in agreement with fraudulant listing on as pink calls it, "Fleabay"! Facebook is just as bad!!!!!! Especially from the abundance from India! I found one seller on Youtube some of you may know that came across to me personaly the first time I watched it as hinting without saying so directly that all ethiopians are fakes as though he was trying counter the Ethiopian market to help austrailian opal sales. Upon watching it a second and third time realized it was most likely a poor choice in expressing the same disgust we have for this type of behavior.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... J4Qly4VM3IPerhaps those with time migh consider as someone else on this thread suggested.....try starting a thread to get suggestions to create an article to post on "Fleabay" creating a "lightning ridge black opal warning about the smoke/dye treatment currently being listed on ebay. It's federal law being violated and it really upsets me too!
User avatar
mastersculptor
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Unread postby Artfldgr » Sat Feb 16, 2013 1:14 am
The above is also very clearly photoshoped. Notice how the "patterns" are identical? They simply used a cloning tool and stamped the pattern over and over.
it may not be photoshopped...
i have a few wellos that if you use a light other than a point, repeat the images over and over..
quite a few do this...
what i think is that they are using a heater as a source of red a distance from the stone.
the regular light lights the stone. but the stone takes in and repeats the red design over and over that is in its view
in this way the fore is balanced, and the large red heat element is repeated over and over...
at least, thats my guess... though one can take the image and play in photoshop and figure it out...
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Unread postby PinkDiamond » Sat Feb 16, 2013 3:05 am
mastersculptor wrote:
Seems we are all in agreement with fraudulant listing on as pink calls it, "Fleabay"!
Hey, I'm not the only one, since I picked it up from others, but I use it to call it what it is, and to avoid having to put their name on the board where it can show up in a search.
mastersculptor wrote:
I found one seller on Youtube some of you may know that came across to me personaly the first time I watched it as hinting without saying so directly that all ethiopians are fakes as though he was trying counter the Ethiopian market to help austrailian opal sales. Upon watching it a second and third time realized it was most likely a poor choice in expressing the same disgust we have for this type of behavior.
I didn't get the impression that he was calling all Ethiopian opals fake, although I can see how someone unfamiliar with the problem with disclosure could interpret it that way, but I thought it was pretty obvious that he was only talking about the smoked/dyed Welos being passed off as LR blacks.
mastersculptor wrote:
Perhaps those with time migh consider as someone else on this thread suggested.....try starting a thread to get suggestions to create an article to post on "Fleabay" creating a "lightning ridge black opal warning about the smoke/dye treatment currently being listed on ebay. It's federal law being violated and it really upsets me too!
That's a great idea, but how would one go about posting an article on fleabay, and do you really think they would leave it up?
Re: Smoked / treated Welos sold as Aussie blacks on ebay
Unread postby Artfldgr » Sat Feb 16, 2013 7:20 am
here is how it works since i was the person that made the original suggestion..
replace www with reviews when you go to ebay...
that will take you to reviews and guides - we are interested in guides...
if you click on the link (wherever you find it) that says "Write a guide!!", it will make you log in, and put you on an edit screen
you just give it a heading, and follow the directions and paste your text into that...
I was thinking of writing an overview guide for jade as i dont care for the one that is there...
you cant really use it as advertising as its forbidden, but nothing stops one from writing something
for the purpose of informing people. after all, if the free market is under "caveat emptor", let the buyer beware,
then this is a wonderful way to get the message out on things that can muck up everyone.
you will find that the issue between the fakes and the real is one of short term vs long term. the fakers are for short term profits. if they muck the water up, they move to something else. the more honest people are usually in it for long term profits, and so want the water kept clean as a continuous resource.
its not more complicated than that... lots of variations, but they add up to the same
this is why i suggested it above, as its relatively easy...
doesnt involve the state and people who work for them that tend to break things, or really anything more complicated than honesty well put.
keep the eye of sauron turned in another direction...
Image
plus not only pictures of opals are upgraded 
