Counterfeit coins on ebay

[great_western_coins]

I have noticed for some time now that there are a great deal of ebay sellers from China and some here in the USA selling fake American Silver eagle Coins. The ebay stores have like 0-5 sales. Easy to tell even if they are using photos of the real thing. Firstly, the ASE fake coins sell for $17-$24 each. These coins are made of cppoer and plated to look like silver. A real ASE coin starts at around $35 at a minimum. The ASE coin is 1 troy ounce of .999 pure silver and silver spot price today is about $33.75 per ounce so therefore impossible for these cheap "ASE" coins to be real. Why does ebay continue to allow these sellers to continue selling them. I can't possibly be the only person who sees this as a threat. The ebay market is getting flooded with these and many of the duped buyers are relisting them or flipping them for a profit to sting the next unaware buyer. This is ruining ebay's reputation for coins very quickly. This bother anyone else?

[tobaccocardyahoo]

When they sell enough of them to exceed an super secret number of Not as Described claims, they will cease to have Ebay accounts. Their buyers will have been reimbursed and Ebay will not have wasted valuable human resources on an impossible task.

This site is too large to police all of the active listings with humans. AI is unable to reach the intelligence level required to perform the task reliably in its current low IQ state.

[dbfolks166mt]

     Second post today about counterfeit coins. My second reply. 😊

     There are certain standards by which replica and copy coins can be sold but the coin itself has to be labeled as such. The ones I purchase had no such markings and the price was around market value so my assumption was they were authentic. The first thing I do when I receive a coin is to have it tested with a metal spectrometer for metal content as well as check the coins size with a micrometer and the weight with a very accurate digital scale. Surprisingly many of the counterfeits will pass the size and weight test but fail the metal content test. 

     I don't even bother with working the issue with the ecommerce site, i.e. the MBG for eBay since legally I am prohibited from returning the items through the US mail. I simply file a chargeback with my CC company and turn the counterfeit coins over to the US Secret Service along with the seller information. I have been told there is little the US can do about counterfeit items coming out of China they could care less about US, or any other countries, laws in most cases. 

[theteamsetguy]

@great_western_coins ,

I would say caveat emptor.

Anyone that buys precious metals for less than spot price is asking for it.

Like they say when it looks too good to true it usually is not true.

[12345jamesstamps]

Same in the stamp category but worse...LOL.

What one seller cannot sell another seller can...mission statement of eBay...LOL.

I got hit selling some Russian stamps as it is an embargo country which I didn't know.

One of my competitors I guess 'report the item(s)'...I took the hundred others off eBay for good measure.

Yet, there are literarily thousands of sellers selling Russian stamps and anything Russian...including Russian coins and paper money.

[simba6]

Buyers have to take care when selecting a seller.   No shortage of fake coins , bullion  or anything else out there.   It's not just eBay.

[great_western_coins]

Yes this is true> I would however like to see ebay take real action against these sellers that are selling low grade metal as a silver coin. It's fraud at it's core.

[great_western_coins]

Interesting. Well, best of luck selling elswhere.

[great_western_coins]

Maybe for new coin buyers there should be a warning and advice for buyers on ebay on the coin listings.

[luckythewinner]

The ASE coin is 1 troy ounce of .999 pure silver and silver spot price today is about $33.75 per ounce so therefore impossible for these cheap "ASE" coins to be real. Why does ebay continue to allow these sellers to continue selling them.

So what would be your proposed solution?

Have eBay force the sellers of fakes to list them for at least $35?