Sellers of counterfeit silver coins--no way to report them... Does eBay even care?

Question

There are multiple sellers of coins that are said to be made of silver that are being sold for less than half the price of silver and it happens constantly. Usually, Silver Eagles are all over eBay (and Facebook) being sold at "70% off wholesale".I just ran across a seller that has a Chinese sounding name but that is said to be located in the US with 1 oz silver Krugerrands for $21.00, which are currently worth $77.00 in silver alone. Here is a link to the sellers listing: https://www.ebay.com/i...

eburtonlab · Answer

@indigohut

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.

gosimus · Answer

@indigohut < eBay doesn't seem to make it easy to report > There's a Report link on every listing, but don't bother with that. The best way to report a seller, when they've sent you a fake item, is to open a Not As Described case to return the item, at the seller's expense, for a full refund. That goes on the seller's record. The NAD should be considered as a last resort, though . . . the first resort is to not get ripped off in the first place.