For a few days now, a lot of lampworkers and etsy people have been up in arms over a seller/buyer of lampwork beads and rightly so. This woman is allegedly buying lampwork beads from ebay and etsy, then has the gall to sell them at a much higher price, but that’s not the worst of it by far. She’s passing these beautiful beads off as HER OWN CREATIONS!!!!!
The first I heard of it was a post in SJA. If I had checked my email, I would have seen it a few minutes sooner. There is a HUGE discussion thread about this on Lampworketc..You do have to sign up to read the thread, but here is a link to it. http://www.lampworketc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92814This is by far the bigest discussion thread I have ever seen. It goes for 120+ pages and continues to grow.
She supposedly uses several user names to buy the beads-among them Ulja,and Gerbera28 . Her shop name at etsy is ulljasbeads. I would like to give you a link to her shop, but I won’t. The beads shown there are probably not hers and I won’t promote her in any way. You can go to etsy and find her if you are curious. She has allegedly also sold glass beads and passed them off as gemstones.
Several glass artists have closed their etsy shops in protest over the fact that she is still being allowed to operate her deceptive shop. I don’t blame them. She is in clear violation of etsy’s TOS and general principals. The general consensus of people I know who sell on etsy seem to be 1 of 2 things:etsy really doesn’t care, or 2) etsy is doing a very careful, in-depth investigation of this before slamming shut her shop door. It’s possible that she has been reported to so many places and organizations that the postal service and law enforcement agencies are looking into it, too. If she did send fradulent items through the mail, so that would make it mail fraud.
If you have purchased any beads from this woman, you should check the links I have given you. Some people may not want to register at Lampworketc. to view the thread, but you should. It’s very informative and sometimes humorous, in spite of the subject matter. It’s also in the etsy forums for now. They seem to be shutting down the threads that are dealing with this, pretty quick.
I am really outraged over this whole thing and will continue to follow the story through the LE forum. It’s one thing to copy something, but a whole ‘nother ballgame to outright rip people off by claiming that somebody else’s work is yours. I was thinking about starting a shop on etsy in a few months. Not now-no way no how. They could have suspended her shop while they checked things out, but they didn’t. If you want to buy lampwork beads, try to buy from an artist who is an SRA (Self Representing Artist) member.
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