How Chinese fake coin sellers manage to fool people

Certainly not by selling with their location listed in Asia.

But, by selling the same exact fake coins from a US location, they manage to fool plenty of people. Take a look at this guy's feedback, only one person realized the coins were replicas. The rest paid up into the hundreds of dollars for the same modern, laser-etched die struck coins that barely sell for $10 when they are offered from Asian locations.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/chen8882010/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=200&_trksid=p3692

This seller is a "triple threat" - selling only three types of prohibited items: Counterfeit coins, over-graded Morgan dollars in unreputable TGP slabs, and liquor (which is also prohibited on eBay.
Makes you wonder how they manage to not get NARU'd.

 

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Well, the liguor is not violating eBay policy directly, as seller's always skirt the issue by stating that the value of the item is the bottle, not the contents. Been this way since at least 1998, and I don't see eBay trying to enforce it any differently. The slabbed U.S. coins are genuine, but as you state, bottom dwelling "TPG's", so buyer beware. I have no idea about the raw coins, but I assume some may be fake. Again, buyer beware.

 

Basically there are three ways I can tell the raw Asian coins this seller has are fake:

1. He will let a coin go for $40 which normally would sell for 10 to 20 times that.
2. All of the coins have a similar appearance and surface features, such as the color and placement of toning spots. This is very rarely the case for any particular group of genuine coins, but is a tell-tale sign of counterfeits.
3. The more "high end" coins are too perfect for the minting methods that were used in the early 1900's. They are just righ for a laser-etched die and very high pressure strike.


I double checked, and you are right about the "collectible" alcohol thing.

 

The same seller is actually selling more fake Chinese coins under another id with the same location: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SILVER-COIN...277?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c5ffd3345

 

Nice catch. He's also selling the booze and bottom tier slabbed coins. Hey, it's nice to have a few "backup" ID's just in case eBay decides to NARU your "not 100% legit" business!

 

is anyone complaining to ebay and the fbi about this??

 

Well, you can report any auction directly to eBay if you think it violates any of their "rules and regulations"... but don't expect any results, especially on this particular seller. And listen, it's the Secret Service, not the FBI that handles complaints about counterfeit coins... but U.S. coins, not foreign. Believe me, they're after big game, not these "little fish". Trust me, your complaints will be ignored.

 

How sad........ These are the people who mess up the hobby. Although, like Jim said, he is a small fish and as far as we keep learning, we keep them on our sites and away from other new collectors.

 

So who's in charge of enforcing the Hobby Protection Act? Anyone?

 

I believe the Federal Trade Commission is responsible for enforcing the HPA. Of course, this has been discussed frequently here on CT, here's one of the threads:

http://www.cointalk.com/t106810/

 

Why do you say that?
Lance.

 

From past experience. This seller is not violating any eBay policies, so they must be sure 100% sure the coin is fake... a difficult task. All his U.S. coins appear genuine (though bottom tier graded), and although the foreign coins have an appearance that is similar to some replicas we've all seen, is this enough proof proof for eBay? The one neutral feedback where the buyer declared them "replicas", the seller gave a full refund. If you feel confident that a particular coin is fake, by all means report it. CT member rlm's cent's has reported thousands of auctions, but I'm not sure what his is average is for those that were shut down. This link shows how to report (the method I use), there may be a better way (rlm would know):

http://www.sedwickcoins.com/fake_article.htm

 

Ebay doesn't have people who are knowledgeable in fakes looking at these things. Their big claim when they were sued by Tiffany & Co. was that they could not afford to hire specialists to police each category. Some categories are policed by collector groups whose authority is recognized by eBay. I thought they had a similar arrangement with the ANA, but apparently ANA is not looking at the "small fish" either.

 

Well, they did at one time:

"... eBay at one point announced it was teaming with the American Numismatic Association (ANA) to make eBay safer, but after several years the ANA quit this partnership because eBay largely ignored its warnings as well."

Read more here (I think most have us have read this):

http://rg.ancients.info/guide/counterfeits.html

 

I found this hilarious, sure poor little ebay, rakes in about a million dollars an hour, and they are crying poor.

 

Looks like many of his auctions have been shut down suddenly. On both of his accounts.

I wonder how many product types on ebay are commonly counterfeited. You know, exotic handbags, designer apparel, many kinds of sporting goods, antiques, stamps, perfumes, watches, pens, jewelry, shoes. Maybe a hundred? More? And how many within each type are offered for sale at any time? What do you figure...must be much more than a thousand listed every day among the hundreds of thousands of auctions.

What would it take for ebay to have trained experts in every field, checking every potential problem auction, 24x7?

I'm not saying they should or shouldn't. But I'd guess it would solve our nation's unemployment problem.
Lance.

 

Ebay will take action if
1. You use this link http://ocs.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...actUs=&rcode=c7d8e9c4b298eff616b2159d03a4ea35 and
2. You provide proof/documentation/references that the coin is not on the up and up. You can not simply say the coin is counterfeit and expect them to believe you.

 

Except, of course, for those privileged few who are members of the eBay Community Watch program (now called Enhanced Member Reporting). These established experts' assertions are not questioned.
Lance.

 

Man, how do I sign up? =)

 

I asked the ANA about it once and they said the reason they dropped out was because ebay wasn't bothering to forward the complaints in a timely manner. What's the sense in trying to determine if a coin is fake when the auction ended over a week ago.