A few hours ago I started a thread (www.cointalk.com/forum/t47224/) about a 1796 dollar on eBay that I thought was a fake. The thread got lots of response in a very short time. Well, it appears the seller is no longer selling any items on eBay (a few hours ago he had about five auctions for early coins). Immediately after the auction of the fake 1796 dollar, I telephoned eBay and alerted them that it was a possible fake. They said they would turn it over to their new fraud division, and thanked me. I asked them if they would let me know what happened, and they said they couldn't due to privacy policies. They said I should check the seller's page from time to time. That was at about 4:00 p.m. PST. It's now about 8:30 PST, and he's no longer selling anything. It seems they shut him down. I don't know exactly what this means, and it's probably only a temporary victory until he opens a new account or they let him start selling again. But it's a start. Thanks to all of you who responded to my original thread, letting me know I wasn't crazy to suspect that this was a fake. I encourage any of you who have information about this seller (windy-cove-antiques) to report it to eBay. The responses to the thread disclosed some interesting information about where the seller got that fake and the others he was selling and had sold. The more information eBay has, the more difficult it will be for this guy to continue to do this, especially if eBay will pass on information to appropriate law enforcement or prosecution authorities.
The reason they aren't selling anything is because everything sold and they haven't listed anything new since. They are still an active member of Ebay: http://myworld.ebay.com/windy-cove-antiques/ Until that says they are No Longer A Registered User, they are capable of still scamming others so like you said, we need to be vigilant and take them down, so report all of their fraudulent auctions of counterfeit coins: http://cgi.ebay.com/1803-Old-Bust-Dollar_W0QQitemZ230322918219 http://cgi.ebay.com/1894-Old-Morgan-Dollar_W0QQitemZ230322924415 Ribbit
The reason I concluded that eBay took some action is because the auction for the 1796 dollar is no longer in the searchable eBay database. The item number was 230322916454. I can't find it anymore. It's not in the database of completed auctions, either. Even if all they did was pull that one auction, that's more than they seemed to have done in the past, if the comments on this forum are an accurate guage of eBay's past inaction.
Well, I tried to use eBay's online system for reporting a violation of their policies, but I couldn't. When I tried to pass on the information provided by Handsome Toad about the 1803 dollar (item 230322918219) as another possible fake, I got an error message saying I couldn't do it because the auction had been pulled or was ended. I don't think it was pulled. I guess they want us to call about ended auctions, instead of writing. I think I've done my part on the fake 1796 dollar. I found evidence from another website that the item being offered was a fake. I haven't done that for the item that was offered as the 1803 dollar. I would just be passing on information provided by someone else. I'm not sure I'm comfortable doing that. Besides, I think it would be more persuasive if someone other than me phoned eBay to report other suspected fakes by this same seller.
Update: windy-cove-antiques has now made their feedback private, where we cannot view it, to find out who bought the counterfeits they sold. This is a complete travesty and everyone should complain to Ebay for allowing this to occur! Several peeps were ripped off by this con-artist and it was intentional, considering they knowingly bought replicas from China then turned around and sold them with a vague authenticity disclaimer and they made hundreds of dollars off their scheme and Ebay is letting them get away with it! :goof: This situation disgusts me! Ribbit
If their fb is private, they can't sell under that ID unless they make it public. A small victory of sorts.
