Hi folks,
For those not aware of this, a few years back a person named Brian Todd ran a few scams against the vintage lightweight community. Evil deeds included claiming to be an importer for Alex Singer bikes (which he wasn't) and then running with about 10K in funds from an unsuspecting Japanese dealer.
After that, he formed a Rene Herse oriented newsgroup with make believe people which sucked in folks such as myself, Jan Heine, and our own Dale Brown. Eventually it was discovered that the group was false and just in time - one of Japan's greatest bike dealers was contemplating a trip to the states to visit this no-goodnick - who's shop at the time was constantly being hyped by the make believe people.
Well, Brian Todd dissappeared but has now reappeared in the vintage mountain bike community. Reports of evil deeds include shill bids and junky frames repainted and then passed off as NOS fancy esoteric stuff. He uses several names in order to facilitate shill bids and to keep a clean ebay record. The current account on ebay is vtgmtb. Interestingly, it is spotless, but only because he has built it up most recently after using it for shills.
Some folks have had good transactions from him, but then he does an nasty deed and moves on. He sometimes sells french oriented goodies and other vintage lightweight stuff.
So everyone beware - this guy is as bad as it gets.
Mike Kone in Boulder CO