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Esprit 120 for 1200€... Is this a fraud?

Space Oddities

By Space Oddities
in The Astro Lounge

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Space Oddities

Space Oddities

Posted
Posted (edited)

Hello Stargazers,

I hope it is OK to post this here, otherwise I apologize :) 

I was browsing the french website Leboncoin, which is the #1 buy & sell website in France for virtually anything, when I stumbled upon this advertisement that caught my eye: https://www.leboncoin.fr/sports_hobbies/1846071753.htm

Basically, the seller is proposing a Sky-Watcher Esprit 120 for 1200€, "like new with no sign of use" according to the description. It also includes eyepieces, a diagonal, a finder and Bahtinov mask. 

The text, in French, seems to be translated automatically from English. As a native speaker, I can say that the translation is very sloppy... For instance, it says "Je prendrai bientôt ma retraite, donc son temps de vente", which means "I'll be retired soon, so its time to sell". Not it's, but its. I suppose the original text contained this typical mistake, but if you translate it to french including this mistake, you get a sentence that makes no sense whatsoever. No french person would ever say that.

A bit further in the description, he wrote: "I didn't use it with anger". Again, that's not something you would write in French! He also calls the "field flattener" an "applatisseur de champ". That's what Google Translate gives as a translation, but the correct word is actually "applanisseur", with an N. It could be a typo, but...

Funny enough, the seller calls himself Julien... That's a french name, and I know a lot of people named Julien, but none of them is even close to 65 and ready to be retired!

Last but not least... the pictures on the advertisement remind me more about UK than southern France... I mean, brick walls, white windows... Definitely not the type of house you find near Nice, where this is located! This, the fact that the diagonal is an Altair one (UK based), the poor translation from English... And I'm not even talking about the rainy weather... Everything points to UK!

Anyway, I'm not sure if I should report it to Leboncoin, but I thought I could at least ask on SGL. What would you guys do? Maybe this was stolen in the UK and ended up in France? Or perhaps it's not even in France, the person simply copy pasted this from an English website, and is just waiting for someone to pay upfront?

I made some screenshots just in case...

1020388246_Screenshot362.thumb.jpg.9f9391ace5e5aed7b4f75167afc8d3dd.jpg

 

1511702213_Screenshot363.thumb.jpg.3f9380dcfe08e72ab5dc3a908d9d434a.jpg

 

488991965_Screenshot364.thumb.jpg.f27a70c8aa9e591460ee68412fcbd8c3.jpg

Edited by Space Oddities
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John

John

Posted
Posted (edited)

The scope was in the UK in 2015:

The seller does not mention the Quark solar eyepiece which is worth £700 or so on it's own.

I think the whole thing is very suspect.

Edited by John
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gilesco

gilesco

Posted
Posted

I tend to enter into a conversation and get further details, further photos before trying to buy one of these online, I would also travel to collect rather than trust delivery, but don't necessarily see anything bad here.

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gilesco

gilesco

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Just now, Space Oddities said:

Intriguing! I also found the sale post, it's definitely the same scope and accessories:

 

Just found that myself, hmm, to claim to know its provenance after being third hand... now starting to look a bit dodgy...

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Space Oddities

Space Oddities

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Ah, I noticed the Quark as well, but couldn't remember how it was called... Thanks John!

I'll contact the website and report the ad, the more I think about it and the more obvious it is.

Hopefully this is just a fraud, and it wasn't stolen from anyone. I contacted the original owner, maybe he can get in touch with the buyer?

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fozzybear

fozzybear

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34 minutes ago, Space Oddities said:

A bit further in the description, he wrote: "I didn't use it with anger". Again, that's not something you would write in French! He also calls the "field flattener" an "applatisseur de champ". That's what Google Translate gives as a translation, but the correct word is actually "applanisseur", with an N. It could be a typo, but...

this guys French does have a few spelling/description errors

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gilesco

gilesco

Posted
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7 minutes ago, Space Oddities said:

Coincidence? I just received a mail telling me I won 1 million euros... :D 

No, if you had just won anything more than 10k they would not send you an email, they would send you a taxi or limousine, and try and lap up as much publicity as they could for their ongoing cause.

 

Edited by gilesco
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Highburymark

Highburymark

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Space Oddities said:

The text, in French, seems to be translated automatically from English. As a native speaker, I can say that the translation is very sloppy... For instance, it says "Je prendrai bientôt ma retraite, donc son temps de vente", which means "I'll be retired soon, so its time to sell". Not it's, but its. I suppose the original text contained this typical mistake, but if you translate it to french including this mistake, you get a sentence that makes no sense whatsoever. No french person would ever say that.....

 

 

Deal sounds very dodgy. 
 

But onto the translation.

We often get it’s and its wrong ourselves in English. 
Even twice in this thread. 

Pedants’ corner I know. 

But it’s = only used as a shortened version of it is. Never as a possessive.
Otherwise, use singular possessive = its.

Even the spell checker wants to change it to the wrong version, so I know it’s a tough battle.

 

 

 

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Space Oddities

Space Oddities

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8 hours ago, Highburymark said:

Deal sounds very dodgy. 
 

But onto the translation.

We often get it’s and its wrong ourselves in English. 
Even twice in this thread. 

Pedants’ corner I know. 

But it’s = only used as a shortened version of it is. Never as a possessive.
Otherwise, use singular possessive = its.

Even the spell checker wants to change it to the wrong version, so I know it’s a tough battle.

Oh we have the same problem in French, and I believe it's even worse... So many words sound the same, but are written differently. Like the "ces", "ses", "c'est", "sais" or "sait". More and more people use the wrong ones, especially young folks... 

I always pity foreigners learning French, it looks very difficult. I'm so happy I never had to learn it as a 2nd language...

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Highburymark

Highburymark

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3 hours ago, Space Oddities said:

Oh we have the same problem in French, and I believe it's even worse... So many words sound the same, but are written differently. Like the "ces", "ses", "c'est", "sais" or "sait". More and more people use the wrong ones, especially young folks... 

I always pity foreigners learning French, it looks very difficult. I'm so happy I never had to learn it as a 2nd language...

I always found German much harder than French for some reason. Never got used to sticking the verb at the end of the sentence.
Guess we all share the same language problems though. 

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johninderby

johninderby

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I too always found French easier than German. 🙂

English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands.

Edited by johninderby
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