Question about a dishonest dealer?

[RedBaran11]

Got the cap with no problems actually.
Even sent the payment cash by mail, and to an address in Germany. So maybe it is not the same person?

[Rev462]

I would say that your seller definitely was NOT Torsten Kabel.

Even before he screwed me, it always took an unusually long time for his items to arrive.

[redjames2004]

Kabel eBay auction

I made some bids on the 1965-dated dark collar Grenz officer tunic with bullion insignias both collar tabs and cuff bars on Torsten Kabel's eBay auction in December 2002. Shortly I won that eBay auction, I asked him to furnish me with his address. He promptly did. Then I mailed cash payment by registered airmail to him. One month later,I emailed to Kabel asking him about the tunic. It didnt arrive to me one month after I paid him. My repeat emails to him made Kabel to make me the tunic in April,3 months after I first email to him. It actually turned to be a 1967-dated dark collar Grenz officer tunic with METAL collar tabs and cuff bars not bullion as I previously thought. I am very disappointed with Torsten Kabel. This is a classic bait and switch scheme. I paid more than 200 Euros to Torsten Kabel. I would not do business with him anymore. Here is two pictures of this tunic this guy gave me.

[redjames2004]

Close up picture of this tunic

[redjames2004]

As direct result of this Kabel incident, I wont buy any thing from him or any person based in Suhl,Germany. I considered a valuable lesson hard way. Yes I remembered seeing a 1951-dated Grenz Polizei jacket on eBay that George(Schupo guy) won from same Kabel guy. He never got this tunic and never recovered his money from that seller. I know some of fellow DDR collectors's bad experiences with this Kabel guy. I dont trust this Torsten Kabel guy...... A good learning lesson for me and fellow DDR collectors. James

[Mike G.]

We have to be careful here folks. We don't want to slam an ebay seller that is not deserving of being slammed.

The seller to whom Justin is making reference is definitely not Thorsten Kabel.

As Rick mentioned, some of us did business with him many years back and he, and his home of record are quite well known to us.

Rick,

On another note, I recall he was selling items through his girlfriend also. In fact, I think there were actually a group of sellers, all from Suhl, that were uniquely involved with the selling of very old and rare NVA and DDR memorabilia, and they all knew one another.

I think that little "Click" has dried up or they splintered and no longer work in concert.

But it would be good to sort this out and identity any of them that are still operating.

As they dealt only in very high-end merchandise, when they screwed somone on a sale, it was always for a very large sum of money.

[Rev462]

Mike,

Now that you mention it, I do recall that Torsten Kabel was in collaboration with a woman who was apparently his girlfriend. Unfortunately I don't remember her Ebay name - perhaps other Forum members who dealt with her might remember.

Fortunately, Herr Kabel has a very distinctive style of photography and I can usually recognize his shots. But of course it's nearly impossible to describe to someone who has never dealt with him.

As I mentioned earlier, he seems to have been quiet for several months now. Maybe his source of material ran dry, or maybe he got thrown in jail for mail fraud! I certainly hope it's the latter.

[RedBaran11]

We have to be careful here folks. We don't want to slam an ebay seller that is not deserving of being slammed.

The seller to whom Justin is making reference is definitely not Thorsten Kabel.

Okay, I'm glad we got that cleared up. I was just worried at first because their names seemed similar, but it appears this is just an odd coincidence.

The seller I purchased form was very polite and accomidating (even notified me when payment was received and the item sent out) so I doubted it was him but just wanted to make sure.

Justin

[torstenbel]

well Justin....there are still some good Torsten's out there selling stuff ... ;-). Cheers, Torsten.