Fake sports card sale scams out of control on EBay
Seeing all kinds of high end cards sold for half price. Many certs that were just recently bought from eBay/Fanatics/ALT/Goldin. This obviously affects comps and the buyer will never get the card. My question is why is eBay allowing such foolishness to happen? You can report to eBay and even send a screen shot of the previous sale and they do nothing about it.
Most of the selles are in the Uk or China. Have no feedback or sales. Or poor feedback. It’s happening more and more daily. Ruins eBay’s integrity and makes me not even want to use the site when a good portion of listing are fake/scams. Anyway to combat this??
Attached an example a Doncic downtown cert that just sold via PSA auction was just sold again by a an account in China who clearly doesn’t have the card.
ebay step it up. You’re going to lose a lot of good customers. Get it together
 
 
mjgjr13
OP5 months agoThe scams continue! eBay does nothing about it allowing people to have thousands of dollars tied up in these scams. Not cool. All of these cards sold recently and legitimately and now they’re all being sold from HONG KONG by the same zero feedback seller haha. I own several of the cards they do this with and I report it to eBay with screenshots of my purchase and they still find nothing wrong. Fantastic way to protect buyers eBay!! 👎
ryry-jj
·8 months agoI know its massive....and that is why so many fakes are apart of it. Estimated as much as 80% is fake. And guess what, in order for it to be massive, it needs plenty of fakes to drive it. Secondary market drives the primary, without a secondary market the primary goes nowhere
mjgjr13
OP8 months agoYou understand that not every valuable card is an autograph right? We don’t have to keep going back and forth but basically sure there are some fakes out there. eBay does an “authenticity guarantee†where they make sure your card is real before you even receive it. So there are mesures in place to try to prevent things like that
This post was about something completely different. Basically people selling cards they do not even have to run scams or some sort
grann-4629
·8 months agoJust out of curiosity and no disrespect intended, why would anyone spend thousands of dollars on an old sports card? Is the intent to buy something for your kid that will increase in value? My first home was half the price of some of these cards!
What makes a $200.00 guitar signed by Jimi Worth $200,000.00 - it still looks like and sounds like a cheap guitar?
Maybe some people just have too much money!
😎
mjgjr13
OP8 months agoBecause they can increase exponentially in value. If you had bought a good condition 1955 Topps Mickey Mantle in 1988 for 35k you would have called me crazy. But that’s a 4m dollar card now. You only need a handful of rich people to want it. It’s not for everyone
In a digital world people still love collectibles from a part of history they can hold and call their own
ryry-jj
·8 months agoUnderstand how that works...it is no longer a mickey mantel card, it is now a "item" owned by a famous someone else who puts their personal value on it. Remember the Ty Cobb card owned by Gretzky? The fact that Gretzky owned it added most of the present day value, and he counted on that in order to increase it's value as an investment. Same with art work
The entire sports memorabilia market is fake and a major flaw. All cards, coins, autographs and sports memorabilia on eBay (and elsewhere) are fake...that's the starting point. For anything real, prove it! On line you cant. I bet many of the items in the vault aren't real. When Tm Brady cant tell the difference between his real signature and the auto pen sig, that tells us a lot
mjgjr13
OP8 months agoSounds like you have no clue what you’re talking about. The memorabilia market is MASSIVE. Sorry you got left out
mjgjr13
OP8 months agoCase in point. This 1/1 (meaning there’s literally only 1) card sold for 2 days ago on eBay for 90k. Today it pops up from what looks like reputable account (probably hacked) for 10k. This is an issue eBay needs to clean up.
 
 
mudshark61369
·8 months ago@mjgjr13 ,
The Josh Allen, card that sold on 1/28/26 has a Best Offer Accepted price, which is hidden
So no one knows how much the original buyer paid. The seller of that card though new to selling in that category has a 100% rating and has sold a few other 1/1 Green Kaboom cards.
Now the image of the card with the CI. value in your top screen shot did not come from ebay. So I doubt the value has any relation to the actual sold price, since it is not disclosed.
The new listing is from a U.K. based seller whose account may have been hijacked, They have not received any feedback in over a year, and all of their previous feedback is for Art Supplies. Reporting the listing may not work by going through the usual ebay report process. However if you try contacting ebay through one of their social media platforms, which are manned by real ebay employees to point out the scam, the $9,999.00 listing may get pulled. Below are links to the S.M. sites.
You should point out that the first sale was completed on 1/28/26 That it is a 1 / 1 issue card and the new listing is using the same photos. Then have the rep check the new seller's feedback profile, and tell them they have not received any feedback in over a year, and all of their sales were for art supplies as their username suggests. You can point out that though the seller is registered in the U.K. they are giving an item location in the U.S. sign off giving your real and ebay username.
https://www.facebook.com/eBay/
https://www.instagram.com/ebayforsellers/
https://x.com/askebay
I'm still not sure about the cards in your original post.
mjgjr13
OP8 months agoOn the Josh Allen they paid 90k. That was the best offer as it shows in one of the screenshots I posted. You can find out what cards are sold for after the fact through multiple sites. They’re like stocks in a lot of ways. That’s why fake sales can throw off comps
mjgjr13
OP8 months agoScreenshot to show you what they paid.
 
bonanza125
·8 months agoEbay relies on you to be the expert. If you feel a card is fake then do not buy it. Ebay is not an expert. If you report and there is no evidence that the item is fake they will not remove it. It is recommended not to buy items from China cause of items being fake. Ebay does give a guarantee so if the item is fake you can return it for a full refund.
mudshark61369
·8 months ago@mjgjr13 ,
Why do you think ebay has their Authenticity Guarantee? Any listing for a card selling for over $250 that does not have the Authenticity check mark should be a warning. The Chinese seller being new may have bought the card in Jan 13, which was in the vault, and left it there. Then they tried to resell it themselves hoping for more but maybe didn't know how to add Authenticity or how the Vault works and did not add the info to the listing.
While I do not trust China based sellers this one may be legit but whose inexperience makes them look like a scammer, which happens quite often with new sellers. Save that auction and Keep an eye on the seller's feedback. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see a negative because the card was never shipped. Which would happen because many new sellers do not know about another ebay policy the 30 day payment hold all new sellers experience.
mjgjr13
OP8 months agoThese are certs for cards that have just recently sold elsewhere. They’re just screenshot being auctioned or sold at half the price. The market depends on comps so when you get a bunch of bad comps it’s hard to for buyers and sellers to figure out the value when screenshots are being “soldâ€
msha3839
·8 months agoYou can report to eBay but why they have to believe you over seller? As well you can be a competitor interested to eliminate your competition…that’s why money bay guarantee exists…and some buyers should try to engage their limited intellectual capacity when buying on line..getting antique/ vintage collectibles from China is 99% guaranteed to be counterfeit…
grann-4629
·8 months agoI thought that Terracotta soldier (2nd row, 1st one on the right) I bought did look a little suspicious! Let's all pick on the Chinese again, at least until we start seeing some of their awesome electric vehicles coming into North America (but not USA, sorry...).
😎
soh.maryl
·8 months agoDon't know much about sports cards and their values, so forgive me if this is a dumb question, but doesn't every eBay buyer have the Money Back Guarantee on the item they are buying, minus a few categories?
And, as has been noted on these Boards multiple times, as a buyer, shouldn't a buyer know what they are buying?
As you know, no one from eBay actually sees and evaluates any item before it's listed or before it's shipped to the buyer. That's why the Money Back Guarantee exists to protect buyers.
Is there something else you can suggest that eBay could do more to protect buyers?
selsa84
·8 months agoThat's not the point. Point is buyers getting burned may not return to purchase from eBay again. Also doubtful the buyer knows the same one sold already. Wont get it graded since it already is and he'll be screwed when he tries to sell again.