Putting a Name on the Jazz Vinyl Fraud
As Rudolf pointed out in a comment yesterday, Nautiluso, perpetrator of the Jazz Vinyl Fraud of 2009, is no longer a registered user on eBay, so the public information about him is slowly starting to disappear. There was a point at which he had a My World page, but that is gone. You can still see on eBay that he had been a member since June 8, 2003 — in Germany. Personally, I’m not sure he was ever based in Brazil: It’s likely he had an accomplice mail from a Brazil mailing address because he believed it would provide a safe haven. The thing about this guy is, for several years he was probably a legitimate seller and probably used his real name in communicating with customers. I will tell you the name he used: Thomas Lamprecht. If you had any dealings with him, please let us know. What’s also starting to disappear from eBay are
the original listings of the records that were part of the fraud. I clicked on to several of them and what comes up is a message that tells you that the listing has been removed. Normally eBay keeps listings up for 90 days after the auction closes. In the case of these records, at least the ones I was watching, they have all been taken down. You can try clicking this one as an example: Jackie McLean, The New Tradition, Ad Lib 6601. Fortunately at Jazz Collector we were watching a large number of the auctions and kept them on the record. One of our readers who suspected a fraud early on actually added up all of the Nautiluso records and the prices for which they sold. It came to a total of $132,000 — but he didn’t save the document, so there’s no full record of everything. Based on what we saw, I’m comfortable that the $132,000 figure is an accurate assessment. Perhaps if eBay ever calls back and acknowledges what happened we’ll find out for sure. But we shouldn’t hold our breath, right?
Personally, I appreciate you staying on this story and contacting eBay. I know the jazz LP collector portion of their world is relatively small, but it is certainly vibrant and active. I am sure eBay collects a nice amount of fees from the selling and buying activities of people who visit jazzcollector.com and who are active in the jazz record collecting community. This is the third sizeable fraud/scam in the past three years that I am aware of. eBay should be responsive to our concerns and questions.
Thank you Brian. I was thinking about that myself this morning — what if we weren’t watching this? What if we weren’t calling eBay and asking for comments? Would they be so responsive in paying off the buyers who were scammed? A lot of it was coincidence in that I happened to be watching eBay that day in October and noticed the avalanche of rare high-priced records.
So,the question is:how long before one of this sites European readers is able to ferret out more information-and a precise location-for this Thomas Lamprecht that you mention? I’m sure someone scammed out of thousands of Euros would love to pay him a visit-up close and personal…
As many others did, I also followed the Nautiluso auction and made a print on paper with all the end results. I was tempted to do some bidding but now I am glad I didn’t. I think I still have the printed list. So if you need any specific information I can probably provide it.
Ceedee — we are jazz fans, lovers not fighters. 🙂
Henrik, I’d love to have the list so that as I talk to eBay I have more accurate numbers. You can send me a separate email at al@jazzcollector.com and we can discuss it. — al
Al,I’m sure you’re right about that,HOWEVER…think about some crook stealing more than 100K from trusting bidders using the ‘safety’ of being in a distant part of the world as his cover. Now rip away that shield to discover that(let’s say)the person who robbed YOU lives only a few hours away by car. What would you do? I’ve never experienced “road rage”,but if it feels anything like this major scam does(and I wasn’t even personally affected)all I can say is “OFF WITh THEIR HEADS!” (Ahh-I feel so much better now)