Companies Sue eBay over Coin-Grading Policy

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m01/i23/s02

http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/florida/flmdce/6:2008cv00042/209017/1/

NNC, Accugrade (?), PCI, SEGS and others suing eBay, the ANA and PNG for referring to coins graded by those companies as "counterfeit."

*****
Five companies sued eBay, the American Numismatic Association (ANA) and the Professional Numismatists Guild Inc. in January for defamation and unfair and deceptive trade practices. The complaint states that in September 2007, eBay put into place a policy in which only coins that have been graded by four grading services (NGC, PCGS, ICG and ANACS) may be listed for sale on eBay as "certified" coins, referring to all other coins as "counterfeit."

The plaintiffs claim that the ANA announced the new eBay "Counterfeit Currency and Stamps policy" in a September 18, 2007, press release, and say eBay has publicly accused plaintiffs of grading and/or dealing in counterfeit items. As a result, plaintiffs say, they "have been injured in their respective abilities to carry out their professions, trades, and occupations and have been exposed to distrust, hatred, contempt and ridicule."

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

What I find interesting about this is what the plaintiffs are not saying. They are not saying that the allegations are false. They are only saying that the allegations are basically ruining their business. These people make a living from taking advantage of other people and have been exposed for their fraudulence.

I don't think they have a case.

 

I can understand this, but hey, it's ebay's darn policy...and it's not being racist or cruel or doing any illegal to say that they only accept certified coins from NGC, PCGS, ICG and ANACS. But on the other hand, eBay does have tons and tons and tons of money on hand...cash actually...from all them damn fees...starting fee, total sale fee, paypal fee, image fee, fee fee FEE!!! omg, selling anything BELOW $10 won't make jack diddly squat! joking jerks they be, popinjay practice I say.
But still, this was probably bound to happen seeing there are tons of more certification companies than just the four ebay prefers.

 

Playing devil's advocate, the only thing that I can think of as an argument is the following:

The plaintiffs (SEGS, PCI, etc.) grade crappy, but don't allow counterfeits in their slabs.

eBay/ANA/PNG is aware of this and still is pushing a policy that states "everything slabbed by companies other than PCGS/NGC/ICG/ANACS is counterfeit," knowing that this statement is inaccurate.

Therefore, eBay's policy that states that the plaintiff's coins are counterfeit is libelous - they may be highly inferrior to PCGS/NGC graded coins, but they ain't fakes.

MAYBE that has some legitimacy to it. I don't know if there's a stat that the defendants can point to and say "20% of the junk slabbed by the plaintiffs is fake, vs. 0% (or .000000001%) of PCGS/NGC/ICG/ANACS."

 

Maybe the words their looking for is "Deceptive" seeing that all the threads here have pointed to the "Shoddy" grading of the slabbers. Of course, unless their referring to the slabs themselves as "Counterfeit." I mean, who exactly holds the patent to Slabbing Coins? Does PCGS hold it, and sublicenses the patent to NGC, ANACS, and ICG??

 

Actually I'm not sure if they actually say the coins are counterfiet. I believe the buyer/bidder just gets a note stating that the auction has ben pulled bcause it is in violation of their countrfeit coin and stamp policy. They aren't saying that the coins are countrfeit, but the policy has a poorly worded name that causes people to infer that the coins are counterfeit. The word counterfeit in the title causes a case of "guilt by association".

If anyone held a US patent on coin slabbing it would probably be Accugrade. They were the first US company to start slabbing coins. PCGS was about th fourth or fifth. Several of th services hold patents on various shell designs. OK I check a listing of slab patents that I have and the earliest one was issued to Design Pak Inc of Marboro MA in 1983. These were the NNCS slabs. The next earliest I have is for Accugrade's small size holder filed in 1987. (ACG was using the larger photoslabs bginning in 1984)

For non US patents it would probably go to South African Gold and Silver Exchange. They were producing slabbed coins as early as 1975.

 

The lawsuit alleges that the eBay policy calls all slabs not graded by ICG, PCGS, NGC and ANACS as "counterfeit." See http://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/florida/flmdce/6:2008cv00042/209017/1/ at page 7.

 

i want to see ebay go down

 

Now why in the world would you want that BQ? Only a few truly rotten apples can be waded thru. Ebay's own statistics say that 90% of the neg feedback is from 3% of sellers.

 

When Ebay started ending auctions and sending out emails using the word counterfeit, it really ticked off some folks. Centsles for sure.
I don't feel Ebay will have any problem dealing with this but they could have handled things a bit differently.

 

Er except Ebay's policy states nothing of the sort. They don't even ban them from sale, just don't allow them to be sold as "certified." Uncertified does not equal counterfeit, and Ebay never claims that. If that's the main cause for complaint in the lawsuit, I can't see how they can possibly win, if the case is even heard and not dismissed outright.

 

If E-Bay needs any witnesses they will need a stadium to hold them all. People should be suing for over graded coins

 

Good point lol... if these companies want to try to sue Ebay for libel for claiming their coins are overgraded, well, in libel and slander cases, truth is a defense. I'm sure Ebay could produce as many experts as they feel they need who will testify that they're consistently overgraded.

If the companies assert there is no correct grade and admit that a given grade is only opinion, well that sort of shoots themselves in the foot lol because you can't sue someone for stating adifferent opinion than you (1st amendment rights apply). Of course no TPG would ever try to claim that because if everyone started to believe that they'd all be out of business.

 

Ebay deserves to get sued! Not to get off topic but I sold a clock on ebay and the buyer claimed it wasn't as described and filed a case against me, so when he sent the clock back to me it was in pieces from the buyer taking it apart, the buyer even had the nerve to tape some of the parts to the clock and jammed other parts into the movement to the point where the clock no longer worked. I then looked at ebays return policy stating that "all items must be returned in the same condition as when the buyer received it" and when I reported this eBay still had the nerve to side with the buyer and gave him a full refund and I was left with a pile of junk that I could no longer sell! So screw ebay and they deserve to get sued!

 

Not a lawyer, but it is implied in a defamation suit and does not have to be stated explicitly. Proving a statement was true is generally a complete defense against defamation/libel.

 

I read a lot of negative things on this forum about Ebay. Ironically, a company that is more than likely responsible for 90% of the people here being able to get into this hobby to begin with, and supplying at least that many here with the very coins in their collections, which I'm sure, to a great extent, is the primary buying and selling source. Be careful what you wish for.

 

You last three do reaiize that this thread is 7 years old and the suit is long since ended don't you?

 

Who won? I am assuming eBay; since the policy still stands unless I am mistaken. And I also thought it was only NGC, PCGS, and ANACS.

 

I don't think it detracts from my response in any way.