Counterfeit Sports Cards and EBAYs negligent behavior, allowing criminals to print and sell on EBAY

[radioguy71]

Has anyone received any good response from EBAY regarding the illegal activity of COUNTERFEIT sports cards being sold on their site day after day?  I see ads now where people are saying they will print as many "REPRINT" cards as you want.  This is clearly counterfeit activity and not an authorized reprint.  I even messaged one guy and he said the card company was out of business so there is nothing anyone can do to stop him printing and selling cards on Ebay.  It seems to me that still means its not authorized to reprint.  I have heard the arguments too, "oh, Ebay cant follow up on every post".  OK, then why do they have a "report" function?  Just to soak up our time?  I have reported over a hundred items and they continue to post and the users are still active, even if they have complaints against them.  Its a total joke.  It is upsetting because I have collected my entire life and now cards are being devalued due to the flood of fakes hitting the market.  I used to buy Garvey Rookies, then I noticed instead of 10 or 20 posted, there were over a hundred at any given time.  Then I saw people complaining that they were fakes etc...  The other upsetting fact is that these are criminals printing sports cards in their own home, selling them online as "reprints" and breaking the law with Ebay helping them right along with their criminal enterprise.  Why is it that when we report an item, we get zero notification or confirmation that we have done so?  It is so that Ebay does not have to answer to anyone ever regarding the matter.  If they were ever investigated, they could simply say, we never checked that listing and never heard of  any issue regarding this person using our site to sell counterfeits.  Law enforcement doesnt even know of the matter and Ebay just lets the illegal sales of counterfeit sports cards continue on.  They still make their money with the sale of every counterfeit card.  I am shocked that a good class action lawyer hasnt gone after this one.  It would be an easy "settle out of court" case I would imagine.  I know that people will try and print and sell fakes out there, but Ebay is by far the #1 place to generate sales on most everything and it would be nice if they actually gave a **bleep** and cracked down on this problem instead of continuing to allow criminals to hijack their website and sell counterfeit sports cards.

[emerald40]

Ebay does not seem to take serious reports from 3rd parties.

Also, when you report they will never tell you what action they took on another seller citing privacy issues.

The best way to combat that - if you see "reprint" in description, back away quickly.

If you buy one and realize it is, report and leave negative feedback.

Enough reports from those that were actually in a transaction with them, and then ebay will finally consider them a headache and ban them.

[rolenboy01]

One thing is clear eBay ignores the rules for people who make them a lot of money.

[retrose1]

OP, get in line behind the designer handbag sellers, coin dealers, gramaphone collectors, art pottery sellers, cell phone accessories and on and on.  There have been reports of counterfeiters operating on ebay with what appears to be ebay's blessing for years now and the problem has only gotten worse.

[jonathankirkland]

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@retrose1 wrote:

OP, get in line behind the designer handbag sellers, coin dealers, gramaphone collectors, art pottery sellers, cell phone accessories and on and on.  There have been reports of counterfeiters operating on ebay with what appears to be ebay's blessing for years now and the problem has only gotten worse.

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Yep, another big one that I personally collect and take interest in is Magic the Gathering. Some of the original cards from the first set are worth thousands upon thousands of dollars.

Now with Magic cards at least, the Chinese counterfeits are very easy to spot, even if they have gotten very good nowadays. And at least these "proxies" do serve some good, people who can't afford the thousand dollar cards now have an alternative of actual cards to "play" casually with, (of course they are still not tournament legal).

However, all that being said, does it make it right or fair? Nope, absolutely not. But if you are dealer selling your personal cards you may want to consider having them professionally ceritifed and graded, that will make you stand apart from these scum as a result.

I do understand however how frustrated you must be.

[chrysylys]

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@radioguy71 wrote:

I even messaged one guy and he said the card company was out of business so there is nothing anyone can do to stop him printing and selling cards on

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There is a possibility he could be right.  If they fell into the Public Domain because no one pursued the rights after the company failed for example.

[kathieskorner]

Amazon is having the same problem with counterfeit items.    It is difficult to monitor third party sellers.

"Let the buyer beware."

[emerald40]

Now with Magic cards at least, the Chinese counterfeits are very easy to spot, even if they have gotten very good nowadays. And at least these "proxies" do serve some good, people who can't afford the thousand dollar cards now have an alternative of actual cards to "play" casually with, (of course they are still not tournament legal).

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Yes, I can understand that some might want to use them as place holders, but the downside is that they now get mixed into the legitimate card population.  And as the technique gets better in copying them, some sellers could inadvertently sell them as real to unsuspecting buyers.  

I remember when CZ first came out.  A nice alternative to diamond.  But then the scammers came and tried to pass them off as real diamonds.  Some buyers bought them and did not realize it until years later when they got them appraised.  Others passed them off to the next unsuspecting buyer.

[ed8108]

 A distinction should be made between a copy or replica and a counterfeit manufactured that is good enough and intended to pass as an original.

[ag47silver-us]

eBay's lack of response in all the fraudulent listings i've ever reported makes it clear to see, counterfeiting and fraud is welcome here

go search for some 99 cent 1 oz gold bars

[gulfcoasttrends]

Its rampant everywhere and I see a lot of it, almost all from china. However, I don't think companies or ebay seem to care unless it is a NoNo! They catch that **bleep** rather quickly. However, Betsey Johnson jewelry is rampant on here with fakes, tons of them, these sellers are power sellers from china and have been reported numerous times. However, the people buying don't seem to care cause they are leaving nothing but positive feedbacks on pure junk. I reported some of the sellers to betsey johnson the company and they said they would look into but didn't seem too concerned. 

[pjcdn2005]

When an ebay member reports an item ebay has no way of knowing if that item actually is counterfeit. They don't know if the member is correct that the item isn't genuine or if that person is reporting it just because they are upset or a competitor of the seller. That's one of the reasons why ebay generally takes items down only when reported by the company. There are some exceptions.

With that being said, I do think that some things are just so obvious that ebay should err on the side of caution and take down the listing...the .99 gold bar for example.  

[radioguy71]

I see your point.  Like the ads that say "I will print as many as you want".  I guess that's not clearly an admission of counterfeiting either and very difficult when that listing is reported for someone at EBAY to recognize it as suchh and take down the listing.  But yes they did make another complaint form for the company that is actually being directly affected to fill out too.  Because who can trust regular EBAY users in reporting obvious these obvious counterfeits.  Lol