I saw this on FB. Not quite sure what is going on with the billets/girths???
They are also selling this one. Band extension belt?
Not seeing much else from them that is horse related. Things that make me go hmmm…
The first one, it looks like someone has put an overgirth on it (in addition to? In place of? a normal girth.)
The second one with “you mean a lot Japan” in the description, just reads as a bad google translation job.
I think they took the billets off and are using an adjustable strap in place of the billets and girth. Just bizarre.
I agree the second one is probably in part bad translation probably compounded by the seller may not know what to call it in Japanese. I don’t get the feeling they sell a lot of horse items.
I just found both funny especially the weird strap thing…
They could easily be scam ads.
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Would not surprise me if they are scams. But I am guessing somebody still modified the saddle for the strap and they stole the images from somewhere.
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Sometimes when people have a junk saddle with a broken tree they cut off the billets so no one can use it and give it away as a decor item. Someone could have found such a saddle to use for their scam ad.
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They are located in Japan. The Amerigo says it comes with an extension belt cover??? Their description was a bit weird, maybe something getting lost in translation.
We don’t know where they are located, really. Those tag lines look to me like artificially generated tags like you get on Chinese drop ship crud. Like Wish or Alibaba.
Japan is not noted for scam ads like some other place but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any, or that a scammer in another country isn’t posing as Japanese with a VPN. In any case it’s a rather trashed older Stubben with the girth straps cut off, no one is going to be buying this internationally. I hope.
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Everything they are selling is extremely overpriced. I would assume it is money laundering. Pretty common to move money through eBay because it easily makes the money ‘clean’ and you just ship like a rock or something in a box to the person, so it all looks good on paper.
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Oh hmmm, what an interesting idea. It being ebay, you could really claim about any amount was bid on your piece of crud. And I expect in that case you could use VPN to mask your real location. Launder money through a Japanese bank and then to wherever.
Yeah, a few years back people would list a VHS tape for like 10k and get a bid. (Which is why everyone thought their old Aladdin movie was worth money). It’s just an easy way to pay someone for something illegal without having a paper trail. Or, to clean your own money, since eBay requires very little in terms of proof of who you are. It’s easy to have multiple eBay accounts.
Another common way to move money is in art sales, but that’s usually used for larger sums, more than 50k.
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Wow, the things I learn on COTH! But this makes sense because every now and then I’ll see something on ebay from a US seller that’s phenomenally overpriced, like truly a piece of crap.
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There’s some other reasons you will see way overpriced items, but usually money transfer is the reason. Lots of payments for drugs, illegal artifacts, exotic animals, etc are made over eBay/PayPal.
Other reasons can be that the item actually sold, but the seller doesn’t want to get penalized by eBay for removing the listing. If you remove a listing and there’s less than a certain amount of days left, you have to pay a %fee. So they raise the price so high no one in their right mind would pay it.
Another reason is transferring money from one country to another. It’s a legal-ish way to move money around to different countries without raising too many red flags.
Lastly is a pure numbers game that some sellers play. they are hoping someone accidentally bids on the item, paying way too much money. They read the details wrong, their kid was on the computer, etc.
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I’ve seen saddles with built in (over) girths before, and Stubben makes a polo saddle (Stubben Courage) with a similar setup
What’s weird is that this exact saddle is listed on eBay twice from two sellers with two different proces…
Definitely scam then. Don’t know what scam, but is scam. Not something super saleable, like counterfeit watches or sneakers. But the copied ads shows it’s a scam. Presumably something that isn’t likely to sell. I like the money laundering idea.
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