Ebay removes references to the ANA from coin policy

Ebay has removed all references to the American Numismatic Association (including the ANA logo) from the coin policy pages, including the reference to reporting people who violate ebay rules "to the ANA and/or law enforcement"

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/selling-coins.html

Oddly, they still incorrectly refer to ANACS as the "American Numismatic Association Certification Service" which has not been true since 1990, nearly twenty years ago.

I talked to Alan Herbert (an ANA governor and "Mr Answerman" in Numismatic News) around New Year's, and the ANA board is really furious hearing from members such as Larry Briggs, J.T. Stanton, Dr. James Wiles, and Rick Tomaksa who have been contacted by various people who have attempted to list signature slabs or authenication certificates signed by them only to have ebay end the listing, and threaten the seller with sanctions from the ANA!

At the same time, Ebay has been totally unable to remove in a timely manner many of the blatant Chinese-made counterfeits.

 

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The problem is Ebay had removed ANACS from the list of accepted TPG's and only recently placed them back on the list but I missed the ANA's departure from Ebay's graces. I think the ANA has been too vocal on the amount of fraud on Ebay and considering how Ebay polices its community forums, I guess they don't like anyone bad mouthing them anywhere. :whistle:

Ribbit

 

Thats Ok, I have recently gotten a chinese fraud removed. There was a 1909 S VDB for sale. I could tell by the mintmark, that is was a fake. The bid was up to $540.00, so I thin kI might have help someone out. I have been on the lookout lately fo rthat crap, so eventually E-Bay may have to do something.:hammer:

 

Alan Herbert is a member of my coin club here in Mesa AZ, and he has not very many nice things to say about Ebay at all.

 

thats how u build a business absolute monopoly

 

I did a survey from Ebay yesterday and got 10% completed and had to stop because the question asked was asked in such a way the answer was impossible to give, so I didn't complete the survey. They mixed two situations into one question and on one, I had bad things to say and on the other I didn't and I couldn't answer the question, so I didn't.

But's that's Ebay for you! A bunch of idiots making a lot of money off a bunch of idiots (not all are idiots but many are).

Ribbit

 

I'm breaking my "clembo silence" for this one folks. Really - WHAT does that tell ANYONE about ebay?

I once belonged to the ANA and let my membership lapse because it really did not do much for me other than a claim and a name. Anyone can get in by paying the fees.
HOWEVER, and this is a big HOWEVER, the ANA is a well established organization that DOES have the interests of the hobby in mind. Sure there are politics involved but the King of Hobbies, Coin Collecting, is at heart.

Ebay is increasingly becoming the king of greed and they've been working real hard at it. Sure, as some may point out, for the fees the exposure it great but it is getting so stacked against the legit sellers it makes me sick.

It used to be that a good seller could sell to a knowledgeable buyer with very few hassles. If there was a sticking point it was easily taken care of. A personal case in point. Years ago I bid on, and won, a nice unc 1866 Two Cent Piece.
Well, I got an 1865 in the mail. Granted it was nice but not what I bid on. I contacted the seller in a civil matter. Seems he had already sold the coin indadvertently.
Well, I liked the one I got even though it was the wrong date and asked if he could just send me $20 and I'd keep it. He did and we were both satisfied.

Can anyone do that now? You know, work it out yourselves without ebay or paypal stepping in? I think not.

Key words in my experiece being "good seller" and "knowlegeable buyer". Ebay is more geared toward garbage seller and sucker these days. Countefeits, it would seem, get better fees so let them go without any "real" monitoring.

Darn shame. Ebay was a great concept but things change over the years. Honestly, I'd love to see them go belly up anymore.

 

You put that pretty good Clembo.

I hate to say it, but the Ebay days are waning. I use them in a case of cashflow despration or junk dumping anymore.

 

cashflow desperation makes me go t ebay as wel

 

Yep -- it's happened to me twice in the past 3 months.

On one, I purchased a 1911-D cent, and what I got was not the cent in the picture. I told the seller, he apologized and admitted he screwed up, and I sent it back and got a full refund.

In another instance, with another seller, I bid on five Merc Dimes, but after I paid and before seller shipped, seller told me she messed up and had already sold one of the dimes. She offered me either a refund or a equivalent substitute at the same price. I took the latter option, and things worked out fine.

It's easy to trash large organizations, because it's difficult for those organizations to respond quickly or offer personalized help -- and because there is just so much activity going on, there are bound to be mess-ups, charlatans, and the like. But, gee, where else are you going to find 150,000 coin auctions going on at the same time? Where else are you going to find low-cost items for the entry level collector? (I recently purchased 4 2009 cents for $1.00, which included postage. Yeah, perhaps it was a rip off, but that $1 brought a lot of peace of mind to me -- knowing I at least had those two cents in MS condition. Where else could I do that?)

I'm not trying to defend eBay -- just pointing out that there's a lot of good along with the bad. eBay has, thus far, been very very good to me, and have mostly had very pleasant transactions, both as a buyer and a seller.

 

I have to say that I recently recieved the wrong coins from a ebay seller, he instantly refunded me the cash, sent the correct coins and told me to keep what he had previously sent.
It might not sound like much but he was based in the US and I live in the UK so he ended up significantly out of pocket just to show good will.
There are still good honest sellers on the bay.
Ebay as a company entity on the other hand LOL well the less said the better at times.

 

Why not ?

I had an issue with a seller a while back. Worked it out smooth. Piece o' cake. :thumb:

I've never had a problem with a buyer, but I'm confident we could work it out easily.

 

One vital point to keep in mind :

E-Bay is a technology company.

They are NOT an auction house.

E-bay is selling technology services and space on their servers - nothing more. They have no numismatic expertise, and make no claims in that area.

Heritage, Stack's, Goldbergs... those are auction houses. I call up Heritage and I get a consummate professional. Class, knowledge, experience, top-notch customer service, and professionalism. They know coins in and out. They know their business, and they know it well.

E-bay makes no such claim. It's comparing apples to oranges.

Yes, E-bay has some responsibility. But it's never going to be like dealing with real coin peeps.

Overall, I don't have a problem with e-bay (except final value fees seem a little high). I don't see some major downslide over the years.

 

I sell and buy on ebay often. I don't like the fees but the premium I get for the coins makes up for it most of the time. Anyway, I recently sent a buyer 38 mostly cull Indian Cents, and he bid on 8 non-culled cents. The buyer emailed me and I apologized, sent him the correct coins and told him to keep the others.

I have trouble understanding why it's so difficult for people to work out their problems. Why do people have to be such greedy asses? I want to make as much money as I can. I need it for my family. But NO ONE and I mean NO ONE has the right to rip someone off. And you can bash ebay all day long, but they have about as much power to stop con artist on their website as we have of stopping them ourselves.

We must keep trying, but the prisons are full of people like this and the prison's population is growing. The con artist have a philosophy; "If a person is too ignorant and lazy to learn about what they collect, so they know if it's fake or counterfeit, then their ignorance is not my fault." They just don't care what you think and are very self absorbed.

You can take that to the bank. I have spent the last 16 years employed as a prison guard and I know cons. So you can't blame ebay if someone is a con. The ban people all the time, but a new ip and new contact information and their back in business; better yet, just use a friend's contact info and computer. How many times do you think a con can do this and for how many years?

We knowledgeable and caring collectors must help be the watchdogs and keep up the fight to protect our hobby. I started my website, forum and blog just for this reason.

 

[ I think the ANA has been too vocal on the amount of fraud on Ebay and .............. :whistle:

Ribbit [/QUOTE]

I would think that until the Chinese situation is forbidden on Ebay being vocal is the name of the game.

 

Sholom is right. There is plenty of good with the bad on a place like ebay. I just think that the nature of an open marketplace with not a lot, if any, regulation is not conducive to a hobby like coin collecting. There are just too many sidewinders in that marketplace and coin collecting depends on such precise grading among other things.

Even if you get a good person that makes a mistake as has been described in a couple of posts above you have to go through the process and sometimes the expense of mailing a coin back. And this is what the bad guys are counting on at least with the less expensive coins, that you don't feel it's worth it to mail something back and just move on. With the more expensive items they are just hoping whomever is collecting that coin is not educated or observant enough to notice that they are being duped.

Still I believe having faith in a site like EBAY is justified when you only deal with the good guys you know that are doing business on the site. God help you if you stray from that list though. Consequently I don't buy coins from that site anymore.

 

This is horrible news.. Hopefully ebay figures this out.

 

Just checked out Sellbits.com, not much going on there. Checked their forum and and the only comment was this: In total there is 1 user online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 1 guest (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
Most users ever online was 2 on Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:47 am.
Not going to get much action here.

 

Don't count on ebay doing anything on the account of morrals. As long as they are making money. It's not likely it will matter where the money comes from, or how badly it ruins numismatics in the process. As long as they keep making big bucks without the feds stepping in, business as usual will continue, and they will still somehow sleep at night. Shameful, ain't it?

 

Has anyone bothered to see when this thread was started?

BTW, I have probably had 100+ counterfeits removed - mostly copper 1943 cents. I have never had a problem with them removing any of the ones I knew were counterfeit.