Counterfeit Silver Coins / US currency

Question

I recently searched for "Morgan Silver Dollars Lot" - curious what the market is currently bearing for those... i was quite disappointed to see the number of sellers who are clearly selling counterfeit coins ( lots of 5 selling for $90 fixed price.. market is at least $30 per coin).. There were multiple listings and they were the first to show up when queried.. many of the sellers had feedback in the 80-90% and had been accused of selling counterfeits...

Why is ebay not monitoring, stopping and turning over to authorities these sellers? Let alone continuing to allow such listings?

eburtonlab · Answer

@tigersandlions

Counterfeit items are not allowed to be listed on eBay at all. No one is authorized to sell counterfeit items. That fact alone does not stop some people from trying to sell them, however.

The problem is that unscrupulous or uninformed sellers can list genuine items and then deliver counterfeit items.

It is not always possible to look at a listing and know in advance exactly what, if anything, the seller intends to deliver. For one thing, a scammer can simply copy a listing from a genuine seller, using a genuine photo of a genuine item.

Except for a few specific categories of items that go through authentication, eBay never sees what the seller ships or the what the buyer receives, so there is nothing for eBay to check unless someone complains about what was received by invoking eBay's money back guarantee.

Sellers are responsible for the descriptions they provide, and buyers should not assume that eBay screens the listings in advance.

As long as counterfeits exist and there are folks trying to sell them, buyers will still have to be on the lookout for them, and avoid deals that are obviously too-good-to-be-true, whether they are being sold by accounts registered overseas or by domestic sellers wittingly or unwittingly buying counterfeits from overseas to sell here.

Buyers that doubt their ability to distinguish a genuine article from a counterfeit one should only consider purchasing from trustworthy sellers that have an established reputation for delivering exactly what was described, and should avoid deals that are too-good-to-be-true, or deals that are offered by inexperienced sellers that might disappear soon after the transaction is made, or else be prepared to get items authenticated by trusted sources within thirty days to be able to take advantage of eBay's money back guarantee.