Order for Service to the Homeland + Red Star Group

[Art]

Originally Posted by andrew6767

Maybe. Maybe not.

Really? Well if you weren't satisified by something he sold you here, then by all means try to resolve it with him. If he ripped you off here, this is the first I'm hearing about it. In this case feel free to email me the specifics of the transaction. If he wants you as a customer he will refund your money. If he wants to continue selling here he will make sure you were 100% satisfied.

Originally Posted by andrew6767

He has sold several items here recently , whether they are genuine or not I dont know. Maybe I did a few members a favor by sending them a PM and recommending that they dont do business with him.

I hope you present these people with some good facts.

Originally Posted by andrew6767

Incorrect. He has been a member here since 2002. I filed a Paypal complaint against him in February 2005 for " item/s not as described ".
Whether you find that insulting or not is entirely your perogative , I am simply stating the facts.

For items sold here or somewhere else? I don't care what is done outside this forum. Not my problem. If you don't feel comfortable dealing with this person here, don't deal with him. If you were ripped off by this guy here, let's talk via PM and you can provide specifics.

Originally Posted by andrew6767

Well some guidelines would then need to be established wouldnt they ? Are private transactions via the PM system considered to be a business transaction conducted on this forum ? Thats just one scenario , what you have stated doesnt show a clear policy. You would simply have one persons word against another , who's side do you take in that circumstance ?

How can I be involved with private conversation dealings? Isn't that somewhat impossible? How can I tell what some person bought and what was shipped?

Here's my policy...The forsale section on this site is for buying and selling. If you sell here, make sure the person buying gets what he bought, or give him his money back.

Nice and clear as crystal. Back on topic.

[andrew6767]

Nice and clear as crystal. Back on topic.

Clear as mud in my opinion. I dont agree with the policy " you can be a member here , deliberately rip others off on ebay and still be a good guy here ".

But its your forum , do what you wish. Its the last you will hear from me on the topic.

[Art]

Originally Posted by andrew6767

Clear as mud in my opinion. I dont agree with the policy " you can be a member here , deliberately rip others off on ebay and still be a good guy here ".

I guess you should take that up with Ebay then. I'm not a shareholder to their profits, I don't deserve their problems.

Originally Posted by andrew6767

But its your forum , do what you wish. Its the last you will hear from me on the topic.

Thanks for the permission :)

[Dave]

Originally Posted by jefflgarrison

Mark, nothing said "WAIT A MINUTE" before you bought the thing from the guy in Minnisota? No red flags went up?

I am kind of curious about that point... Mark says that he sold the order he bought from me to a "chicagoland" dealer, and then bought it from a dealer in Minnesota - but this time with the Red Star and photocopied document added.

First, I don't want to question your buying practices, but why would you buy a group back that had obviously been tampered with?

Second, why would you sell this tampered group to Alex without telling him that it had been tampered?

Hmmm...something doesn't add up here.

I would really like to get the info about this "dealer from Minnesota" who added the Red Star to the group. You can PM it to me if you need to and I'll post it in the moderator section so we can discuss whether or not to post it publicly as he sounds like a very unsavory fellow who we should protect our fellow forum-mates from.

Thanks

Dave

[medals73]

Yes, Dave. Even though this (unlike the other issue) is an off-forum transaction, it raises larger questions and questions of such magnitude that the threads need to be disentangled, and as publically as possible. It is almost enough to put one off the "hobby".

:(

[Dave]

Originally Posted by Mark Signa

Second: First time, in August last year, I had this qroup in my possession for couple month and then, trade it with local Chicagoland dealer. Then, in one of the militaria shows,in February-March, I bought this group back with long service medals and Order of Red Star added . Seller, dealer from Minnesota ( I even have his card somewhere ) requested additional research and receive more copies of documents and Order of Red Star. I added couple medals and badges to this group, but I don’t see anything wrong with THAT!

I'm kind of sickened by the fact that I sold this single order with research, and within two sales (less than a year's time) it had the following items added to it:

1. By the chicago dealer/Minnesota dealer: Red Star and Long Service Medals

2. By Mark: "couple medals and badges"

So within a year, it went from a single award to a very fake group.

Impressive. :dissapoint

Dave

P.S. In 16 years of collecting and buying/selling awards and groups, I never once added an award to a group. I never thought it was the right thing to do.

[Bob]

Mark, I am looking forward to your further response as varioust posts in this thread following your initial reply raise further concerns.

1) Having read this thread, do you also agree that the group is "fake"?

2) Selling an item and buying it back with additions to it including a fabricated orders book... then reselling it with yet more additions to it
- I've never heard of xeroxes of order books being able to be obtained from the archives... I always thought the order books were handed out along with the order.
- Equally, considering that the odds of re-unifyng a group is very, very small, do you know if the red star was also obtained through research or was the in between dealer just lucky enough to have this red star lying around?

2) This seller from Minnesota from whom you re-purchased the item and who "requested additional research and receive more copies of documents and Order of Red Star"
- what document(s) in addition to the xerox were added?
- where (and why?) would these subsequently have been split from the "group"?
- if you still have this additional documentation, could you post it?

3) What actually is the story behind this red star on which you asked about the serial number range?

http://www.soviet-awards.com/forum/s...ers-range.html

Quite a concidence that you happen to have a red star with same digits and only difference being that 2 digits are flipped. I'd appreciate seeing the group to which it belongs posted here as it might give a clue as to what could be expected from the red star that was added to the "group". Would you mind sharing this small researched group with close to identical serial number here on the forum?

-----

I realize this is an annoying situation for all involved and probably the best is to provide full disclosure so there's no doubts on the facts. If not, unfortunately speculation will continue and too many people's reputations may be damaged as an atmosphere of distrust is created. It seems that this history is also a good learning experience on groups, documents and research from which we can all benefit by sharing it in public here.

Thanks for your clarification Mark.

[Dave]

I now know how the fake document was made. I thought the writing looked really familiar and that scan...that scan just looked too familiar... So, digging through 15,000+ .jpgs on my computer, loooooky what I found!

Here's the original scan, that was lifted off my website, compared with the photocopy. You can see where the blemishes from the scan line up PERFECTLY. The number is coincidentally similar...easily done with photoshop. Likewise for changing the year on the date...

And here's how the award was written into the book. Once again, i thought it was very familiar looking, and sure enough, the book with this writing also came off my website...

Just noticed (looking at it again) the dots for the lines don't even match up with the new book, and instead only match the old one.

I had originally thought that this faked up book had been pulled off by a Russian. After all, only they could have the good handwriting to make this look convincing. Nope...it was someone who was good with a photo editing program. In fact, I'd even go as far as say that it was NOT a Russian since I think most Russians would simply write (or stamp) the award into the document...

Originally Posted by Bob

3) What actually is the story behind this red star on which you asked about the serial number range?

http://www.soviet-awards.com/forum/s...ers-range.html

Quite a concidence that you happen to have a red star with same digits and only difference being that 2 digits are flipped. I'd appreciate seeing the group to which it belongs posted here as it might give a clue as to what could be expected from the red star that was added to the "group". Would you mind sharing this small researched group with close to identical serial number here on the forum?

I too am curious about this group you have as you say in your post:

I have small researched group with Red Star awarded in 1970, serial number 3595741. Then, I found Red Star in same serial number range ( 36XX XXX) in Dave's "for valor" web. - same year 1970. According to AVERS No. 6, the lowest Red star for 1968-1991 period is # 3754168. I don't have the award book with my Red Star ( only Xerox copy ), but Dave posted image of his award book with 1970 Red Star. Looks like it was couple left over Red Stars with low serial numbers in 1970...

(Italics added by me)

So I think to myself...what's the coincidence of having a Red Star group with one digit flipped AND a Xerox of the order book in November 2006 (after buying my Homeland in July 2006) and then claiming to have rebought it shortly thereafter? Something isn't making sense here...

I'm not saying "you did it", but if you can provide us a chronology of the events, and a photograph of the Red Star you mention with the one digit off with it's Xeroxed order book, it would certainly clear up a lot of questions...

Dave

[alnigi]

Hi guys,
Could I contribute to this topic. We all know about people selling fakes here and on eBay. But we are all interested in who is selling them on the forum. Can andrew 6767 let us know who he is talking about as I think it should be comunicated to evey member not just in PM.:confused:

[Lapa]

Alnigi, Andrew6767,

I, for one, would like to know who we are talking about.

Marc