Mikes revelation is pretty much true of all the flippers and retailers, - you want honesty and integrity in your salesman, buy from a collector who cares about his reputation, otherwise you must arm yourself with knowledge or rely on someone who has the knowledge.
Sure, misrepresentation or misleading descriptions are forms of fraud, they are also to be expected in a society where ethics and morality have been distorted to indulge in any behavior, where right and wrong have "evolved" and once noble characteristics or attributes, like thrift, savings or frugality, self-reliance, self-responsibility, self-restraint or self-discipline have become vices or quaint habits deserving of ridicule.
Mike, Bruce and Hambone have provided a place where collectors can come and put a brake on some of this behavior, outing bad rifles, typically with reasons why, or at least why suspicion exists, but ultimately it is the responsibility of the buyer to have some basic awareness of what they are buying.
Larry is better than the vast majority of sellers I have seen on GB, he is safe to buy from if you understand the basics and use common sense. In the cases where something is confusing or seemingly inconsistent with what you have read or learned, a potential buyer can get help from any number of resources (
a simple PM to a specialist for instance). There is only one reason someone gets burned these days, they are impulsive and act without knowledge (
foolish people who will spend $3200 on an $800 rifle and scoff at the notion of buying books or asking for "free" advice deserve everything they get..)
Pzjgr's revelation is not even remotely surprising to me... I simply think that advertising something that it is not is bad, and intentionally misrepresenting something is fraud.