EbaY is loaded with fraudulent sellers in every catagory. My expertise is in fraudulent beads traded to North American Indians. First, it is safely said that that 99.999 percent of all beads represented as Native American trade beads on ebaY are frauds. For some examples, there is the seller in Virginia. He sells beads found on the sandy Virginia beachs. His claim is, "they must be shipwreck beads." To check out his claim I purchased a few of his ship wreck seed beads. Each little bead was stuffed with a piece of rock salt. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that when rock salt meets water it's melt down time. The seller very painfully, and nastily refunded my money and left me a an unpleasant feed back, tch, tch. Another example is the seller in the deep South selling Seminole beads, old Dutch beads, etc. When the beads arrived they are nothing more than brand spanking new cataglog beads. This seller too refunded my money and begged for forgiveness, "please don't leave me a negative feed back. He needn't worry, I don't belive in negative feed backs. All they do is invite spitefull replys. There is the seller selling $2 Lewis and Clark imitations. In his descriptive information he starts out by telling you up front that he doesn't have a lot of experience, but someone told me ?????????. This sellers final excuse for selling fraudulent beads was, "I sell a lot of items, how do you expect me to be an expert on all of them?" The problem with this seller is, he was directed to all the places to go to learn about Lewis and Clark beads. He elected to ignore that information and did sell his fraudulent Lewis and Clark beads, but not to me.

The biggest scam of all is the woman selling machine made prosser beads (made in the 1850s and later) as 1700 trade beads brought over by Europeans, Vikings, and Martians. She has a vivid imagination and rolls out this wonderful story about how these beads have metaphysical powers, have been blessed by Shamans, Holy men, Healers, Medicine men, and the man in the moon. All of these beads are carried in soft leather pouches worn around the neck of all native peoples, hippies, yuppies, and all other cross sections of society. The beads are easily recognized as they are very uniform in shape and size. Her favored colors are red, blue, yellow, and white so-called padres. You can't miss them.

Anytime somebody tells you that they have these wonderful beads, that they know nothing about, that were handed down by grandmaw, yes grandmaw, greatgrandmaw, and even Martian cousins.

If the items offered carry no warranty, no Statement of Provenance, no valid proof as to what they are and how they came to be in the sellers hands, and if the seller, when asked, will not provide any of this information, grab your money and run like crazy.