I filed the morning of 5/6 and have not received a response from the seller.  On 5/11 I can escalate the claim with Ebay.  We shall see.

Here is the excerpt from Ebay policy concerning returning suspected counterfeit merchandise:

Counterfeit items

If a buyer suspects that an item is counterfeit, and there are strong indicators that the item is counterfeit, we don't require the buyer to return the item to the seller. The buyer agrees to cooperate with us to ensure the proper disposal of the item. In such instances, we refund the buyer for the full cost of the item and original shipping, and the seller reimburses us for the refund. The buyer may not sell the item on eBay or elsewhere.


This may eliminate any potential scam the seller is trying to pull (such as "they returned an empty box")

Great work!

I filed my complaint with Ebay requesting a refund because I believe the buckles to be counterfeit.  

misterspock wrote in Interesting eBay alert! TSR belt buckles:
Seller's address on shipping label different than ... - The eBay Community

From this link kindly provided by misterspock it appears that Ebay wants counterfeit items destroyed rather than returned.  As this progresses, I'll update my adventures.

Money is the root of all evil...

These are the important outtakes of my fb messenger conversation with Michael Pearson (MP) in regards to the TSR buckle.  I left his spelling errors intact.

Me - Yeah.  They look super cool.  Where does he get all that stuff from?
MP - person makes them he sells them

MP - how many do you want
Me - Well, how many does he have.  I'd like to get them all.  
MP - sir we can get you as many as you want
MP - giveme a number
MP - ill sell you 100 of them an dif you wantmore we will get more
MP - 50 dollars each thats a 25 dollar discount per buckle
MP - 100 for 5000 dollars
Me - How long would the production take?  Or do you have those numbers on hand now?
MP - have on hand now take a about a week to get the payment from paypal and to ship to you

We had talked earlier about the buckles being authentic buckles from Bergamot Brass and Pearson assured me they were originals.  Then.....

MP - just talked to my friend
MP - he said he can get you all you want but i was wrong
MP - they are reproductions sorry
MP - he said if you buy 100 of them you will get free shipping
MP - 100 of them would be 5,000 dollars and free shipping

Then this next one made my heart sink.......  :(

MP - hey my friend just called he said he actually has 3 different buckles dun and dragons  

And Pearson confirmed it is Joe Pendleton with the cell number with the 903 area code.  

So, I'll be reporting the seller to eBay.  I'm also thinking of contacting the Orange County Sheriff and/or Santa Ana Police in CA.  

Sorry for the bad news.  But at least the question is actually answered now.

muaddib5 wrote in Interesting eBay alert! TSR belt buckles:And Pearson confirmed it is Joe Pendleton with the cell number with the 903 area code.  

So, I'll be reporting the seller to eBay.  I'm also thinking of contacting the Orange County Sheriff and/or Santa Ana Police in CA.  

Sorry for the bad news.  But at least the question is actually answered now.

thanks for the footwork on this... that does suck but at least we all know the truth

btw, I did check into Gregg County Tx's court records (searchable online). Both a "Michael A. Pearson" and a "Joe Pendleton" come up for some stuff, but nothing that amounted to the fraud-related ones.

Also, a woman named Leticia came up associated with the Joe Pendleton's name in Santa Ana

Mars wrote in Interesting eBay alert! TSR belt buckles:I just bought 2, I'm curious to compare but don't have any doubts that they are fakes.

I made an offer to buy 2 at $10 each, he countered with $50 each, I countered with $12 and left a note: "I'm not going to pay a vintage price for a reproduction".  He then accepted my $12 per buckle offer.

I just checked and the current auction is ended early.

dragonsbreath wrote in Interesting eBay alert! TSR belt buckles:Just got this:

pearsonmichael sent you a message about your request:

"Hello Sir, This is the wife responding. My apologies to you for not responding sooner to this issue. My husband is in the hospital and I am trying to help. First off, I would like to thank you for the purchase. I have checked with him and to our knowledge these are originals. What can we do so that you can close this case as this is a way of helping support our family, especially in these critical times. I would appreciate this help tremendously."
To reply now, see your request details.

So this is the route they wanted to go- the sympathy route since they have been found out.............I'm debating even responding to this.......

What a scumbag  :?

misterspock wrote in Interesting eBay alert! TSR belt buckles:

dragonsbreath wrote in Interesting eBay alert! TSR belt buckles:Just got this:

pearsonmichael sent you a message about your request:

"Hello Sir, This is the wife responding. My apologies to you for not responding sooner to this issue. My husband is in the hospital and I am trying to help. First off, I would like to thank you for the purchase. I have checked with him and to our knowledge these are originals. What can we do so that you can close this case as this is a way of helping support our family, especially in these critical times. I would appreciate this help tremendously."
To reply now, see your request details.

So this is the route they wanted to go- the sympathy route since they have been found out.............I'm debating even responding to this.......

"close this case" would mean the ebay or paypal account is frozen?
you should say your brother is a medical surgeon in LA and can help her husband pro-bono. What hospital can he visit him in? :!:

ROFL!  Maybe I should give Joe Pendleton a call and ask how he's doing?!?!

I called eBay and reported the pearsonmichael account.  The guy at eBay really didn't want to hear what I had to say and I think just opened the case on selling reproduction items as originals.

cdenham wrote in Interesting eBay alert! TSR belt buckles:This is the message I received -

pearsonmichael sent you a message about your request:

"Thank you for your purchase. This is the wife responding. I would appreciate if you could close this case as my husband is in the hospital and I am having to learn this process. this is our way of making money. What can I do so you can keep them and help us in closing this case."

I guess she means his common-law wife..
"Joe severed his left forearm in a metal stamping machine earlier this week and then tripped and fell into an acid bath where he was cleaning up some vintage collector's items. Please use ebay's checkout system early and often to help out our family in this time of need"

Good work guys, and in getting that auction stopped, thank you.

Was hoping I'd have a chance to check back before today, but that's been a bad week in the (new) office.

muaddib5 wrote in Interesting eBay alert! TSR belt buckles:Money is the root of all evil...
....
We had talked earlier about the buckles being authentic buckles from Bergamot Brass and Pearson assured me they were originals.  Then.....

MP - just talked to my friend
MP - he said he can get you all you want but i was wrong
MP - they are reproductions sorry
MP - he said if you buy 100 of them you will get free shipping
MP - 100 of them would be 5,000 dollars and free shipping

Well, they stuck to the "genuine" line for over two years... Was still getting the same from him just last weekend.

May 2, 2015
New message from: pearsonmichael (114)
I can tell you that I do believe these are originals as I got them from someone that worked for the manufacturer.

Then this next one made my heart sink.......  :(

MP - hey my friend just called he said he actually has 3 different buckles dun and dragons

And Pearson confirmed it is Joe Pendleton with the cell number with the 903 area code.  

So, I'll be reporting the seller to eBay.  I'm also thinking of contacting the Orange County Sheriff and/or Santa Ana Police in CA.  

Sorry for the bad news.  But at least the question is actually answered now.

His "friend" could do with a visit from the police and he does, too, if he can't answer what he's going to do to address all the money that's not covered by PayPal. There are a large number of older transactions starting with my $876 right back at the beginning when his feedback rating was ~2 from those presumed-fakes of other buckles.

In TSR buckles alone that's going to be $5,000+, heading up towards $10,000. I'd hate to guess the total sales in fakes, but his feedback requires a considerable multiplier due to multiple sales, etc.