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His banning from the GPK board, and his request to be deleted from LRG stem from an incident involving a duplicate eBay account called "mat-teo."
(1) The original box being sold by mat-teo had the following two "rares" posted with it and unadvertised. (I had originally thought the second rare was a Neon Red-Orange, but after closer examination, it appears to be an Orange Petey.) See for yourselves:
http://cgi.ebay.com/...em=290229454753
Item number: 290229454753
Clearly, the seller mat-teo wanted collectors to see these two rare figures and bid high. As you can see, Redfan won the auction for $42, but unfortunately he never received the box or the two rare figures pictured in the auction. But there's more. This auction ended on May 16th.
(2) A few days later, CTM listed an Orange Petey (Look closely at the bag in the picture... does it look familiar!?. ):
He had it at BIN for $99. There were no takers and it ended on May 26th. (Item number: 230255528545)
When I first saw that picture Galaxy was using for the Orange Petey auction, I was like "why the bright yellow background?" Galaxy never uses fake, photoshopped backgrounds in auctions. Then I realized they're two different pictures of the same pack. My guess is that CTM was trying to get a pic that would show the orange figure clearly through the green bag (something he is really good at doing). He probably took a couple shots of the bag trying to get it just right. The mat-teo auction came first, and you can see that the orange figure is a little more visible in the first pic. The second pic doesn't show the orange figure quite as nicely, but looks like he decided to use it anyway in a new auction under his CHEAPTOYMAN account, but first he had to photoshop out the blue background and replace it with the yellow.
Left-to-right: mat-teo auction pic and CTM auction pic
(3) Now, today, we see the following auction listed: http://cgi.ebay.com/...em=230258478443 (Item number: 230258478443)
The same exact box is used as the one in the mat-teo auction, and, tada, included are 2 rare figures -- a Neon Red-Orange and an Orange, just like the original mat-teo auction. :-/
Conclusion: CTM used a dupe account, mat-teo, to try and sell a box of Cheap Toys. (Not sure why he used a dup account, but my guess is that there weren't going to be any rares included when it was shipped.) When the box only went for $42, he decided to back out of the deal.
Or, when Redfan won the box for $42 from mat-teo, CTM contacted mat-teo behind Redfan's back, after the auction was over, and offered more $$$ for the box and figures and then attempted to sell them on eBay.
Either way, it's just too much of a coincidence that -- even though he used different pictures -- the same box and figure showed up in auctions by mat-teo and CHEAPTOYMAN.
Left-to-right: mat-teo auction pic and CTM auction pic. Same item, new picture.
Left-to-right: mat-teo auction pic and CTM auction pic. Same item, new picture.
Other things to note:
(1) On June 3rd or 4th, all CHEAPTOYMAN's feedback for eBay member Mat-Teo was removed from eBay.
(2) CTM, posting as Agent 77, wrote the following at GPKUG:
Furthermore, Leeroy, a member of GPKUG (and recently at the LRG forums) has come to the realization that he too has been scammed by CHEAPTOYMAN/mat-teo. He goes by Sessions79 on eBay.
Many people were perhaps watching the following auction listed by CTM that was won by eBay member mat-teo (a duplicate account used by CTM).
Leeroy had been watching and bidding on that auction as well, so he was very surprised when CTM offered the piece to him in a trade sometime after the auction had ended:
Clearly what had happened was that CTM, using the mat-teo account, had shilled the auction too high. Since the CTM and mat-teo accounts belong to the same person (Galaxy/David) the art piece never changed hands. That's why CTM was able to offer it to Leeroy for trade.
There's more... Again, many of you were perhaps following this next CTM auction. Again, the auction was won by mat-teo, CTM's duplicate account.
This figure Leeroy had actually bid on and was trying to win, only to be out-bid/shilled by mat-teo.
But, interestingly enough, CTM gives Leeroy a 2nd chance offer after the end of the auction:
Here again, we see CTM shill his auctions with his mat-teo account, and then offer the items for sale or trade afterward. In the above post, we saw how he took items that had first appeared in mat-teo auctions and listed them on eBay using his CHEAPTOYMAN account.
LRG members, deal with CHEAPTOYMAN at your own risk.
