Andy, OK, I believe these wording things are really important to you, and we will never agree on how to dissect someone's words when they describe an auction.

I know eBay to be a "person to person" trading environment, and applying "expert" interpretations of wording to every auction is unfair. Some here think that a person shouldn't even list an item unless they invest a lot of time and money in becoming "expert" on it.

I think that eBay was built on ordinary people selling off the junk in their basement, and as long as they don't make intentionally deceptive statements, ordinary language is good enough. It's up to the bidder to satisfy themselves about an item before bidding, and bidding under the "assumption" that the chips are negotiable is clearly (to me) foolish. The real question is, as far as eBay is concerned, is an assumption based upon an item description "reasonable"?

You read "face value" and equate it to numismatic standards and negotiability, I read it as the total value on the face of the obviously non-negotiable chips.

Impasse, huh?

But thanks for bringing this creepy scam to our attention, it will be fun to get this unusual fellow stopped.