In the face of eBay's heavily buyer-weighted protection policy, how in the world do you manage to be out any money from mistaken/dishonest sellers?
Because if I had received the coins I was supposed to get at the prices I paid, my profit would have easily passed $25k.
Ah. Then, from my perspective, you're not out money because of seller errors or dishonesty. If the sellers had described their coins accurately, you wouldn't have bought their stuff at all, and you would still have made no profit. In my mind, the people who are really out money are, for example, all the folks who bought counterfeits from this clown on eBay and, judging from the feedback they left, never realized they'd been had. (He finally got three negs for selling counterfeits, and took his feedback private, which means he can't sell any more. I guess that solves the problem, at least in the short term. I was surprised at the "setting your feedback to private blocks you from selling" condition, but I'm certainly glad to see it.)