On 2014-02-05, Gunner Asch wrote:
On Wed, 05 Feb 2014 06:01:31 -0600, Ignoramus10135
wrote:
On 2014-02-05, Howard Beal wrote:
Seems even shill bidding could not save them.
http://business-bankruptcies.com/cas...iable-tool-inc
Scary... Anyone has any idea what killed them? They always seemed to
get such high prices for their stuff (shill bidding noted astutely,
however)
i
Actually, by all reports..their prices were lower than what they paid
for a lot of the stuff.
Knowledgeable people have told me they have bid against them at shop
closeouts etc etc..and they paid sky high to simply get most of the
contents of the shop..far more than a lot of the gear was worth.
Then they wound up selling it for lower than they paid for it. Hence
a lot of the shill bidding, trying to get it up close to what they
paid for it.
The story is..allegedly..from people in the know..they were a money
laundering operation for a crime family and this was somewhat normal
for people with dirty money to run through the washer.
Shrug...who knows?
I guess it is possible, to buy machinery for dirty cash and sell it
online and launder the money this way. But that would show as an
exceptionally profitable business (because cash expense is not
shown). It would be not so easy to end up in bankruptcy.
I thought about this a while ago and realized that scrapping business
is a great way to launder money, except that work is involved and
taxes need to be paid.
About 8 or so years ago, they shut down their storefront, at which
point I stopped going in there except to pick up the occasional
clients purchase and Ive not been in there in at least 4 yrs as best
as I can recall.
Ive bid on a number of items..was shill bid the last couple days..and
on several occasions..at the last minute (???) by nameless
buyers..remember the good old days you could look up what the buyer
bought in their history?...and went in 6 months later..and the item
was still tucked away in some corner. I carried a list of every ebay
Item # I bid on with them..and could compare the number on my list
with the sticker on the item..and they invariably matched.
Exactly!
So the shill bidder was bidding against me..and when I stopped
bidding..they "won" the auction..and couldn't sell it again for 7-12
months..else it would be trackable. They were very..very clumsy at
their shill bidding and many many many people had back checked as I
did..and it was very common knowledge here in So Cal what they were
doing. Not just a guess..or a suspicion.
Even I was aware of their shill bidding. It was public knowledge on
forums.
Ten or so years ago...they used to have a Saturday Parking lot
Sale..where they would bring pallet loads of Stuff into the parking
lot and take offers. I managed to score some very very good stuff for
a couple bucks...some of which I resold to my clients and made
money..and some of which I still use in my home shop. A Yausa
multi-angle 3" milling vise and a Dunlop 6" multi-angle are two of my
better scores. I got the Yausa for $10 and the Dunlop for $5. NOS
Snap ring pliers...Bluepoint/Snap-on sets for $2...and a half ton of
things like complete industrial sets of snap rings, H&G threading dies
for $5, with 50 NOS chasers....it was quite a blast showing at 7am on
Saturday morning and plundering the entire parking lot filled with
stuff. As the day got later..prices went down..and down. I bought a
Delta 3/4" drill press with a bad 1hp motor for $25. And I bought a
NOS Delta 1hp motor for $10 the same day. All of it US or
Japanese/German/British stuff...nothing Chicom...simply Good ****!
The chortling and laughing by the guys who showed up was like being at
at a childrens birthday party. (Grin)
I was a regular there and was given "better" pricing than newbies..Id
purchased about $20k worth of stuff for my clients...so they did me
some marvelous deals.
Then they shut it down, closed the store front shortly after..and
strictly went to Ebay.
After fighting the shills for about a year..I stopped even looking at
their auctions. Shrug And that was at least 3 yrs ago.
They will probably have a nice sale soon, of whatever they could not
steal and carry away pre-bankruptcy. Keep an eye on them.
i