Hey guys, posted this on RS-

Ok I hope everyone is sitting comfortably!

This is a long one but what has started out as a weird guy looking for some hobby recognition has turned now into a full blown scam attempt on ebay..

Bobablarcfett (AKA John) emails me a few weeks back and informs me that he wants to submit some pictures to my site for the miscard feature page, a Yak Face on Warok card that he recently bought. He mentions that he is also working on acquiring an ERG/Vader miscard from a collector called Jose Rivearez.
Naturally when I hear ERG/Vader I knew I hadn't seen or heard of such a combination and although I didn't ask for pictures of it I was certainly interested to hear more.

He sent on some pictures of the Yak Face and then without any prompting he forwarded a link to a photobucket album with the user name JoseRivearez.
This is the picture in JoseRivearez's album



At first I have to admit even though the chances of this miscard being real were slim (given who was involved) I still got pretty excited. I told John to get some better pictures if he were to buy it because it's not a known miscard combination and I wouldn't want anyone scammed..

He mentioned in his email that "Jose" wanted to remain anonymous if I used the picture on my site. The next day I got thinking to myself, is it fake? is it real?
One thing that was weird is that the pictures John sent me of the Yak/Warok miscard on his real photobucket album had not been renamed and still had their image titles straight from the camera, the two pictures on his account were titled DSC010612 and DSC010614. Strangely Jose's ERG/Vader card was titled DSC010615..
I hadn't heard anything from John since that email but I did a bit of snooping..here is a reminder of the ERG Trilogo card:



Now, if it was fake, where did John get his hands on an ERG cardback to fake it? Well I remember a little while ago there was a cracked bubble ERG for sale and I am pretty sure that John bought it. In fact after checking his TIG profile I realised why I thought something was fishy..


This is John's Avatar on TIG, it's the ERG cardback he bought which clearly shows the figure can be removed and exchanged for another.
John's TIG profile

In the email I got from John he even points out that he thinks Jose is "showing off his Jawa collection" in the photo, surprise surprise in John's ebay bid history you can see he has bought two himself.
Here is his feedback (I edited the images of the "Adult material" so it's safe for RS )



I wanted to find out if John’s intention was to try to scam me or someone else with this figure or he had just created it for some hobby fame. I asked if the figure was for sale and for more pictures.
John said that Jose was out of town for two weeks on holiday and would ask him if he would sell it to him, if the price was too high he would let me know in case I wanted it.
Five days later John replies and said that not only does Jose have this miscard but he also has a Lobot figure on a Madine card and many others. Now he also has prices, the ERG/Vader is $2600 and the Lobot/Madine is $7000.
As my aim was to see if John was intent on selling this figure to someone even though it was fake I said I was still interested even at that price.

Since then I have not heard a peep out of John but today I get forwarded a link from a friend to a miscard on ebay, yes you guessed it guys-

Darth Vader on Emperors Royal Guard Miscard

Description-

Quote:

Here I have for You Darth Vader on Emperors Royal Guard Card Trilogo Miscard There are 2 cracks in the bubble I have done my best to show them There is a Crack on each side Left and Right On Top Of Bubble As you can see the middle of the bubble is still sealed The Right Side crack extends more than the Left I have never heard of a Miscard of this magnitude I was going to send it to AFA , but WHY? So they can score it a 50 or 40 I figured I would probably get the same amount no matter if it was graded or not. The card has no damage as I can see. Enjoy and Good Luck.

Please report this item as fake so no-one gets stung guys, the more the better! I was hoping I wasn't going to have to put this all on the forum and Blarc was going to go away but it seems that it's clear he is very capable of scamming the community now and this has gone way beyond trying to get his name out here as some super collector!

Joe, some good detective work. Thanks for the warning. The guy left quite a trail behind him!

I opened the Ebay link you posted but got this page up instead:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/180718400969

Never seen that message before so not sure if it means his sale is being investigated already? Or just weird Ebayspeak?

I think he ended it due to "concerns" but has stated he is going to get it graded to prove everyone wrong.

AFA will not grade that trust me.

ha ha yes like he proved everyone wrong with the dt vader when he sent that to afa and it come back with a big fat !!no!!

Yes but that stormy came back good

Good work Joe

The plot thickens....

I just cant believe the depth this guy is going through. Guess he hasnt learned nothing yet from his time on RS that scamming wont get you no where. Then to try to pass it on to you yet. Just dont know, mate just dont know.

[quote=calevans83]Looks like some red fuzz residue on the plastic cracks and inner bubble as well-that makes this comical. Must have some from the rare red velvet caped vader. His scams have almost become a monthly featurette.

Cal [/quote]


[image]http://trilogo.info/wp-content/gallery/misc-star-wars/bubble1.png [/image]

[image]http://trilogo.info/wp-content/gallery/misc-star-wars/bubble2.png [/image]

[image]http://trilogo.info/wp-content/gallery/misc-star-wars/bubble3.png [/image]

EDIT: Cleaned up those links AJ

It's great you guys can spot and expose scams like this.

It makes you wonder why people would do it. Even if you did get away with it and make a little bit of coin, it wouldn't take long before you are exposed and your kudos is < 0 like this guy.

I'm going to call you guys the TIG Police! gj guys.

Good work Det Joe!
Never trusted this guy.

Thanks for keeping an eye on this guy Joe! His scams involve both vintage and modern items, as he's tried to screw guys over on POTF2.com as well. Wherever he goes, the stink of lies follows him.

Thanks for the warning, Is there some place on ebay where we can list all the sellers we do not want to buy from ?