What did you all do before eBay? Maybe you need to go back to that. Never have, never will do eBay. Or Facebook for that matter. "There once was an atomic bomb that wanted to be a bullet. Why, asked his a-bomb brothers, do you want to be a bullet? Because, he said, I miss the personal touch."
Sometimes it is easy. Just look at the pic. ignore the fact they admit it is a copy. https://www.ebay.com/itm/1916-US-Do...=item3fb560c1e0:g:ddIAAOSwwqVcIlRn:rk:98:pf:0
I recently got scammed with Counterfeit Morgans out of China. The first coin's location was supposed to be Libertyville Ill. and the next two were supposed to come from Sebring Florida. As soon as I got the tracking information showing they were shipping from China, I knew these were going to be fakes. I complained immediately to Ebay only to be told I had to wait until I got the fakes. I then contacted Ebay again only to be told I had to try to work it out with the Sellers. After that I was told that if they gave me a valid US address, I would have to ship these counterfeits back to them. They only ever offered to do a partial refund of the base price without the shipping charges. I did contact the local Secret Service office here in Tallahassee and they said they did not handle coins any more. They suggested I contact Florida Dept of Law Enforcement and they suggested I contact the local police. During this time the clown out of Sebring Florida managed to make his Ebay feedback private. Can you imagine that? Private feed back so no one can see the scam that you are running? I told Ebay by letting him do that they were complicit in the felony he was committing with counterfeit US Currency. They did not seem to care. Anyone want to start a class action suit against Ebay? BTW... When I got the coins they all had the exact same return address in China. That I believe confirms that this is a criminal conspiracy. No one seems to care.
You may not agree, but I am of the opinion that trying to police poor quality fakes like these is a worthless endeavor. There are so many more convincing and dangerous fakes out there. The low quality ones just lull us to sleep so the others can get past.
I am sure there has to be a numismatist that is also an attorney that does care. I would think it would be a fairly obvious winning case. I would love to help any way possible.
I see these as an obvious violation that can not be argued. They show that ebay has no respect for the law. I completely agree with your point. The volume of these poor copies hinders those that really do care and do police ebay by taking up their time and attention.
Saw, bought and sold a LOT fewer coins. And came out a lot further behind on the few transactions I did manage.
Actually saw and bought a LOT more coins...And came out a lot further ahead since I saw what I was buying instead of depending on pictures.
The Secret Service isn't going to put pressure on EBay. No matter how many counterfeits get mailed to them. The problem is Ebay and yes a class action suit might be a nuisance to them until they have to pay a multi million dollar settlement. The problem with that on the customer end, the lawyers end up with most of the money, you have to fill out paperwork for years to be a participant in the suit, and then when the day comes, you end up getting a check for $5.
I would be willing to put a lot of effort in and get a check for .01$ For that matter, I would donate to a lawyer that would take the case. I don't think the cost is what would cause ebay to change, but the negative publicity that would come from it. What bothers me more than anything is how ebay just lets repeat offenders continue to steal money from our hobby without recourse.
I bought a number of things a few years ago and I didn't really have any bad experiences. One time I bought an old Philippines silver peso note (not much money) the seller used deceptive photography and when the note came it was creased all over. It was not worth it to go back and forth with the mail, and e mail etc. I messaged him that it was deceptive photography and he stole from me, as I never would have bid on it if I had seen the true condition. I never heard back, I left negative feedback. (Like that does anything.) I gave away the note to a nephew with a world currency collection and he was glad to get it. But I never bought anything on Ebay again. It must be at least 3 years now.
Regarding the title of the thread and some of the discussion, widespread selling of fake coins on eBay won't kill the hobby. It might kill the coin trade (at least, raw US coins) on eBay though. Personally I've never bought a raw US coin on eBay. Cal
rip offs like this silver bar for 50% off.. its a Chinese fake but the item specifics say .999 fineness. at least the item description says silver plated but still lots of people only look at the item specifics for things like this. If it is too good to be true...it is... https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-oz-North...h=item2f27e3732b:g:YywAAOSwJ6Vb6c3Q:rk:1:pf:0
So how is eBay preventing you from seeing and buying those coins? Has it destroyed the venues you were using before?
Opening a case for an item that's Significantly Not As Described is actually really easy, so easy that it's probably discouraging a lot of people from selling. If you'd done so, you almost certainly could've gotten your money back. Wow. If you got a bag of chips from your grocery store, and found they were stale, would you boycott the store from then on? Or would you take it back for a refund, and give them a chance to make it right? I've had quite a few bad experiences on eBay, but whenever I pursued them, eBay and/or the seller made them right. The good experiences vastly outnumber the bad, in my experience.