This article first appeared on the original site I started in 2001, I have reposted it here but edited it slightly at the end and removed some of the info that no longer applied. I hope you enjoy this and other articles and most of all the new site!

What to do about the man made nuggets on ebay?
I have been humming and hawing about this page for some time now. Lately
however there have been more sellers contacting me and asking me for opinions.
There have been buyers asking me (us) what to do? And there have been blatant
lies by some of the deceptive sellers out there. I would like to state right now
that if you are selling man-made gold nuggets, and listing them as
"natural" gold nuggets, you are committing fraud. If you are selling
man-made gold nuggets as such, then no problem. The content on this page is
mostly in the form of E-mail communication between parties unknown, known, and
Ebay's "Safe Harbor". All of the content of all of the E-mail's in
both directions, have been forwarded and recorded by Law Enforcement, for
evidence and for opinion before I posted this page. The following E-mails have
had names removed for protective reasons. The 1st Email was sent anonymously, as
was the 3rd.

THE EMAIL THAT STARTED IT ALL.......

This person created an account at Aol with the username
"Just2youmotherlode"

Dear Dave,I am writing this to encourage you to close the big Pandora's box you are
opening with the web site about fake gold nuggets. I am not
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX,the enterprising folks who push through about $600.00 worth of fake nuggets
everyday and take home a tax free profit of 30% making a daily take of $200
or $73,000.00 per year. I wanted to begin by answering your question
"why would anyone go to all the trouble?" Human nature is such that fully
50% of American men would quit their jobs to stay home with their family and tinker
in the garage making fake nuggets for profit if they thought they could make a good living at it.
I make fake nuggets and have been doing it for some time. Your web site
seems so sure of itself that you probably won't believe me when I tell you
one of my customers is listed in your "good gold sellers screen names"
section. I was suprised and yet very pleased when I saw that. I don't use
"black gravel", or 87.5% gold, and I dont drop molten through ice chips
either. If you want to determine the authenticity of my nuggets you are
going to need a gas spectrometer, and a very smart geologist, to operate it.
Even then the authenticity or fakeness could not be absolutely determined.

"Heft", "color variations", and other visual clues you describe are good for
most fake nuggets, but not for the real dangerous jewelers like myself who
are parient and skilled enough to create perfect fakes.

I understand your frustration. You have genuine nuggets for sale and the
market is being flooded with fakes that are severely depressing prices. I
am angry too. You want to stop the leakage. It's very understandable.
The problem is that if you teach people that fake gold nuggets can be made and
sold for profit and you are creating an atmosphere that will exacerbate the
problem tenfold. In a perfect world the sellers would become knowledgable
and the fakes would be difficult to sell, but this is not a perfect world.

This is a world full of con men looking for an easy buck. There are lots
of people selling fake nuggets, but if you keep your web site up teaching about
the problem I promise there will be more fakes made and the prices for
nuggets, real or fake, will keep going down. Ask yourself what is your motive
for this fake nugget web site? Is it to punish the fake nugget makers and
increase the value of your own nuggets? If this is the reason you are not
only punishing the fake nugget makers, but you are also contributing to the
creation of a whole army of fake nugget makers. With practice and
experimentation many of these fake makers will soon be creating nuggets as
good as mine. It's scary. I'm not too greedy, I dont make too many.
Thats why I have never even been questioned about my nuggets authenticy.

Your fake nugget teaching site reminds me of an article I saw in USA today
about two years ago. It seems a terrorist had derailed a train in Arizona,
lots of people were killed. The article had a detailed diagram showing how
the terrorists had first connected a jumper wire between the tracks on either
side of the removed sections before removing the track sections. This
allowed the conductivity test between stations to show no problems. What a
stupid article. Why teach people how to commit a crime? Who did it
help?...Nobody. Who did it hurt....Everybody.

Think about it.

Name withheld

MY REPLY.......

the thing is im pretty sure i know which nugget seller of which you talk as
being on my good sellers list and yes they are very good i must admit and thats why with out 100% proof i
have not taken that name off my list but... i tell you what, what you did do is inform me for sure that
"these" nuggets are fake the one give away on your nuggets that was the real deciding factor is that
they "sound" tinny when clunked together and....... they are too hard
also with a lot of handling they tarnish grey slightly so..... what im going to do is this
everyone on my good sellers list is history but....... the page will continue to run, and i will feel
good about what i am informing people about

I DONT UNDERSTAND how you can say you are angry? (your one of the causes)
I appreciate your skill and craftsman ship (because Im sure I have a few
right now!!) but..... they aint gonna see the light of Ebay from me.
If I make 1.00 profit on a 2000.00 nugget i feel better than if i made 5.00
profit on a 10.00 fake the reason im keeping the page up and running at this point is because if
you read my home page its about the "passion"
it aint necesarily about the money. for me its a hobby (although a little
serious) i dont need to make a living at it and as long as i can keep
breaking at least even i will continue supply and sell good nuggets on ebay
and the net. you will have to do more convincing to bring down my page...........
the comparisons page will always stay the fake page? it depends?????????????????

i know there are crooks, scam artists, pricks, whatever you want to call
them and they will continue....... you think if i take my page down that they will stop???????

NOPE

so.... i can do what i can to hopefully dent these guys a little
sorry that it may butt into your enterprise???? but by me taking it down
aint gonna stop whats been started but leaving it up may inform the buyers a little more
and my gold still gets fair prices and...... i dont personally feel that my article is going to start
an army of fake nuggets (esp as good as yours)

dave

ps pretty funny that you started a brand new account @ aol just for me!! i feel honored!!

HIS REPLY BACK.........

Dear Dave,
Thanks for the quick response. Im going to close this account very soon,
but I will wait for you to have the final word, I owe you that at least.
Listen, you just can't tell my nuggets from genuine. I know it must be
terrible to learn, but thats how it is. Sorry. Look at the bright side.
All the other jewelers and the collectors can have their fun, the nuggets they buy pass
every test and they can resell them easy with no questions, They just look
real. Everybody is happy. Both buyer and seller. I will probably quit soon anyway, I
'm much older than you might guess and it all gets rather tiresome some days.
I wish you luck though. Men of honor and integrity are needed in all fields.
Years ago I needed some money so I
began this side business and was too desperate to really consider the
"moral implications" . I am not really a scam artist or a crook. My
customers are happy and their customers are happy too. Anyway....If I was in your shoes
I would be proud to be doing what you are doing...blowing the whistle. Take care.


Name withheld

MY EMAIL TO "SAFE HARBOR"......
what if i know for a fact that certain ebay sellers are selling
misrepresented items? that are known to not be genuine?
there are some sellers selling "man-made" gold nuggets and
representing them as genuine and novice buyers are being misled and (in my mind? )
ripped off they are raking in big bux on fake items
do you have an evaluator that can evaluate gold nuggets?
is it something you are aware of? or concerned about?
i have independant lab reports and also the personal expertise to know.
im a gold nugget seller myself on ebay and i feel very sorry for a lot
of novice buyers right now.

dave

THEIR REPLY BACK TO ME........

Hello Dave,

Thank you for writing eBay regarding novice buyers being taken when it
comes to the buying of 'gold nuggets'. I appreciate your concern in
this situation and I'll be more than happy to help you the best I can.
Unfortunately, eBay doesn't actually handle the merchandise that is
offered for auction. Without firsthand knowledge of the item, we are
unable to guarantee the accuracy of the listing information. We
encourage members who are interested in bidding on an item to email the
seller for additional information. Be sure to ask the seller specific
questions regarding age, authenticity and condition of the item before
bidding. In the unlikely event that the seller doesn't respond, you
may want to reconsider your bidding decision.

Part of this information is contained in our User Agreement, under
article 3. I have included a portion of that Article below for your
review:
"3.1 Overview. Our site acts as the venue for sellers to list items (or,
as appropriate, solicit
offers to buy) and buyers to bid on items. We are not
involved in the actual transaction
between buyers and sellers. As a result, we have no
control over the quality, safety or legality
of the items advertised, the truth or accuracy of the
listings, the ability of sellers to sell items
or the ability of buyers to buy items. We cannot ensure
that a buyer or seller will actually complete a transaction."
If you would like to review the rest of our User Agreement, please visit
the URL below:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-user.html

Dave, it should also be noted that right on the eBay's site, we have
listed the motto that the 'buyer beware'. Again, I appreciate your
concern in this matter, all buyers need to be careful when doing their
business on eBay. I do hope that this information helps. Please let
me know if you have any further questions.

Good Luck and Happy Trading!
Regards,
XXXXX X. X.

eBay Customer Support

For our latest announcements, please check:
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/announce.shtml
To learn more on how you can trade with
confidence, visit our Rules & Safety page:
http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/index.html
In order to better serve you, we'd like to occasionally
request feedback on our service. If you would rather
not participate, please click on the link below and send
us an email with the word "REMOVE" in the subject line.
If that does not work, please send an email to the
email address below. Your request will be processed
within 5 days.

mailto:cssremove@ebay.com

MY LAST EMAIL TO THEM.......

ok a question then?
would i run into problems if i specifically pointed out on my website?
who was selling fakes? as far as Ebay is concerned?
(I'm not worried about the liablity privately, because i can prove it in
court if i had to)
let me know? thanx

dave

THEIR LAST REPLY TO ME.......

Hello Dave,
Thanks for your reply.
If you wish to post such information on your website you are certainly
welcomed to.
We do have circumstances where sellers will post such information on
their auctions. That activity is not allowed and those auctions are
cancelled when reported.
I hope this has helped address your questions, but if you require any
clarification or have any follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to
write again.

Regards,


XXXX

eBay Community Watch Team

AND FINALLY MY ADVICE
I decided rather than point out directly who is selling fakes, I would team
up with a bunch of the other sellers on Ebay, and this is what we have come up
with. We have decided to list our auctions as 100% genuine unaltered gold
nuggets (or wording as such)..... If an auction you are interested in does not
have wording to clarify 100% genuine nuggets then you should email the seller
and ask, when you do that you should then keep the emails to and from as
evidence of question? and reply!! And if you find you have been wrongly informed
you have cause for Leaving Negative Feedback, small claims court,
mail fraud (if it was sent USPS), and you can report it to credit card companies
and get your money back (usually) if you can show you were taken
Being informed is your best weapon, you work hard for your money, so make sure
you are getting what you pay for!!

Ansd so in reviewing this article as I repost it I see that the army of fake nugget sellers didnt arrive and that most of them now know better as the members here jump all over them. Goldbay.com is still here and thriving, im proud of what I did and Im proud of all of you!!

Mlgdave, Sept 9/08
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