EBAY's blatant disregard of the Law is helping kill numismatics

In order for our hobby to survive we must gain new collectors. When a new collector finds out they have been deceived, stolen from, ripped off, they may chose to not continue collecting.
The hobby protection act:
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-i...rgn=div5&view=text&node=16:1.0.1.3.28&idno=16

"It shall be a violation of the Act and the regulations promulgated thereunder for a person to provide substantial assistance or support to any manufacturer, importer, or seller of imitation numismatic items, or to any manufacturer or importer of imitation political items, if that person knows or should have known that the manufacturer, importer, or seller is engaged in any practice that violates the Act and the regulations promulgated thereunder."

Ebay violates this every single day. I understand that it is impossible to police every single listing. They do not have one single coin expert on their staff. I have used the "report item" then talked to a live rep. from their concierge program about specific counterfeits only to watch them sell days later.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to join a private group that has contacts with ebay that does get counterfeits removed. The penalty to the seller for the first 5-10 violations is the listing gets removed. Eventually, they may have that account blocked. They then open another account, or buy an old one off of the dark web.

This seller has been doing this for a long time.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/qmrpjamie/...!US!-1:rk:5:pf:0&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562

This listing will be removed soon but here it is anyway.

1955 Double Die-Superior Facsimile Of The Lincoln Cent Error ($350 obo)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1955-Doubl...cImcz:sc:USPSFirstClass!16407!US!-1:rk:1:pf:0

I am not an Indian cent expert, but i do believe some of the Indians he has listed are also counterfeits.
All the photos are not high res. and can not be blown up for real diagnostics.

My point is that these coins are not only a violation of ebay policy, but ebay is violating federal law. As soon as I report it, they are "aware" of the problem. It does not take an expert to determine that a "facsimile" means counterfeit.
I believe Ebay needs to change their policy in regards to adhering to the Law.

 

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Once they get their wrist slapped they might do something about the sellers of counterfeits and fakes. To their credit, recently they have removed listings that I have reported.

 

Reported, but that's about the best any of us can do. It's important to use the right catagories from the drop downs.

 

This is why I like coin shows better......

 

There are fakes at coin shows. The dealers get really defensive and blatantly don’t care when their fakes are pointed out.

 

Collectors contribute to this fraud and misrepresentation by putting value on conditions that have no merit. I see many dealer and collectors buying and selling "First Strike" coins. There is absolutely no way to claim that a coin was first strike. It is a fraudulent marketing ploy. If we are going to fight fraud and misrepresentation on eBay we need to go all the way.

 

Coin listed as made in china ...........

 

Guy is probably trying to recoup what he paid for it. Might have been fooled when buying, now thinks someone will pay $350 for a stated fake. I see this as more a case of stupidity than anything else.

 

With the advances in microscopic medical imaging , computer recognition. and AI learning for counting blood cell composition, recognition of fake coins and damage vs.mint process should be less than 5 years away. if you have ever had a complete blood count, it takes only a few minutes now for the medical computer process of recognizing and counting different blood components and statistically analyzing probability with an error of +/- less than 2%. Efforts to make such also available for poor and backward areas of the US and world, is leading to cheaper and more accurate checks. How is this related? Such a machine could be programmed to look for specific markers for DD, RPM,almost any true mint error or variety for a known specimen and then be able to compare a submitted coin for these markers and a level be set ( such as 95% of markers ) to be verified as real ( I wonder what the current human eyeball rate would be). Also with computer resolution increasing with modern upgrades a high resolution photo on a seller site could be read by a program to assign probability of real or fake. Alas , most use low resolution photos and would rather believe a seller with a low deal and regret later, but maybe........ Jim

 

Education is the ultimate answer. It is up to a buyer to know what they are buying, I LOVE buying coins on ebay. The counterfeits are a spectrum of deceit. It is illegal to make or distribute a copy of a legitimate US coin without the word "COPY" on it. I chose this listing as an example of how ebay is breaking the law by allowing this to remain after reporting.
I find an average of about 10 counterfeits a week, I do spend a few hours looking for them. Some sellers think it is OK if they disclose it as a reproduction. It is not. Some sellers try everything to get someone to pay full price and not know it is fake.
The fact that a seller is allowed to continue after 3 violations is unacceptable.
That alone would slow the fraud a lot.
Discussion of counterfeits with pictures would help build a record of fakes.
I want to learn more about how to detect them. I know I am not the only one.
I would be happy to see some questionable coins and an evaluation from someone with more experience than I have.

 

Oh, lordy. When the algorithms start coming back and pointing out that rich-collector-beloved, even famous, coins are "damaged" or "fake", those algorithms will be out the door faster than Compugrade -- and for the same reasons.

 

How else can I get Museum discards

 

Maybe the counterfeit experts better watch out, the ...connection....may do them in (bang bang)

 

I think they (coins and sellers) should be treated a counterfeit, not just "facsimiles" or "copies" they should be confiscated and given to the treasury department. and Ebay should be treated like the bank. if it passes through their hands, they need to intercept it and surrender it to the Treasury. If they fail to do that, they should be fined for aiding and abetting. That would put some teeth in the rule of law and they would start doing something

 

I agree with the OP completely. He’s apparently doing all he can to help cut into the problem. But like all of us, he needs help from eBay. And help is coming neither quickly enough nor with an honest attempt.

 

I stopped reporting fakes to eBay immediately after they disbanded the team of expert consultants who were responsible for the fakes actually getting removed. Waste of time now. The new system is post it on a forum and have enough people report it that ebay doesn't want to hear it anymore and pulls the listing. Unfortunately the same has worked for perfectly genuine coins that one person felt was fake and set the hounds on.

 

When that happens the population of worn, dug large cents will suddenly grow higher than how many were originally minted

 

The second quote here is why I was a fan of the eBay team being disbanded. People with clout seemed to have used it to eliminate the competition. My experience was probably not the norm but I did have more than one PCGS CAC coin removed by that team because the "right" people reported it and they were coins I had submitted to both personally. They were without a doubt real but seemed to have been targeted for being competition for someone else.

That's really the whole issue I have with the eBay reporting and ideas like this. They cannot just remove things because of a report and by no means am I an eBay defender, but if any report takes things down people will use it as a weapon to take out their competition.

 

Very useful thread for a novice like myself. I purchase coins through the Bay several times a year and almost always from established dealers, but also from lesser known sellers on occasion. I've read that thousands of fakes are sold on the Bay each month. Interesting article on Chinese coin dies with pics if you haven't all ready seen it: https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/chinese-coin-counterfeiting-ring-4071202

 

Were your coins removed specifically as counterfeit? I don't doubt it's happened, but as was described by one former member, multiple members had to agree before ebay removed it. So it means either a few people colluded or one had an inside contact and was able to bypass the process. I think this is more ebay's fault for holding the word of one or even a handful of individuals over the verifiable certifications of two widely reputed companies. I could understand with a raw coin, but this seems ridiculous by any measure.