Reproduction, counterfiet and illegal sales of videogames.

[videogamenerd13]

Hi there,

As a lifelong collector of video games, comic books and other oddities I am getting severely angered at the amount of illegal counterfeit goods being sold on eBay. We all know where the majority of these are manufactured, good old China, and there are tons of American sellers selling illegal products. It's pretty huge as they're using intellectual properties from Marvel, Nintendo, Sega and Capcom and it goes down the list. 

I see listings for pretty much every rare game that exist and scary part is they're starting to look almost spot on and it seems like fakes are being harder to tell from the real deal, especially when discs are concerned. I think Sega CD are probably the easiest to counterfeit from what I have researched and  I am so scared that I've ended up with a FAKE $800 copy of Snatcher, truly close to "like new" that was purchased many years ago........Recently I came across an ebay listing of a snatcher disc that had the manufacturing etching on it!!!!! I believe it came from sellers on etsy that sell high quality fakes all day!!! This is beyond crazy because typically that's the only way you can tell a fake from a real is the manufacturing etching!

So what's my $800 game worth now? Is there any  way to prove its even real? As a lifelong collector who started working in a video game store I actually have no answer because I couldn't find any information online to distinguish the difference between the two, the high grade fake vs real.... Look the same, almost exactly. I consider myself expert level in identifying authentic video games and I am duped on this. 

I am terrified how much monetary loss I will have within my collection due to counterfeits tanking the market if counterfeiters are allowed to perfect their art.

Quick example (I reported all the fakes of Marvel versus Capcom for Dreamcast that I could find so may have been taken down 1/9/2021) but still look it up as an example to see how many counterfeits are being sold.

I personally believe intellectual property rip off should never be tolerated in the first place (you are ripping off starving artist or the corporation that bought them) and unless a seller can provide proof that they have a contract with Marvel or Sega or Capcom to distribute Marvel versus Capcom for Sega Dreamcast they shouldn't be allowed to put up mass listings (selling 100s of copies) of illegal listings.

eBay should put like a check at the end before listing is finalized specifying is this authentic? And it should be followed with: if it is not, this is illegal and you could fall to US law and intellectual property rights. BAM!!!! problem solved and actually have the FBI follow up with any sales. 

I understand the need of the video game community wanting to archive games for their own personal sake, I truly get it.... the internet's going to disappear and how are you going to have all the information if you don't have it somewhere readily available, well knock it off and stop selling illegal and reproducing, just keep your illegal ROMs on your PC and keep them away from us!!!! Stop selling reproductions pretending to be saviour to the community.

Get lost, it's illegal. 

I am trying to build a coalition of authentic game collectors who don't want to stand for this. I only really look at comic books, video games and statues on eBay and understand they have a large service to monitor and I've been told over and over the only way is to report items. Well I figure between the FBI and if I can get enough people working together we can probably put a stop to this by just reporting them daily. Anyone interested in helping me monitor all of the illegal videogame goods on eBay??? 

I honestly believe that people selling them should be tracked down and the people they sold them to should be tracked down and those should be taken away from those people and removed from the market since they are highly illegal. And furthermore any individual practicing illegal activities that fall under the American law should face the severest penalties possible for doing this.

A very concerned collector, 

Tre 

[maxine*j]

I appreciate your passion for what you collect, but...

The majority of collectibles (not to mention antiques and antiquities) listed on eBay are misidentified or misrepresented, sometimes innocently and sometimes intentionally. 

We can only hope that more buyers educate themselves, learn to buy from reliable sellers, file NAD claims when they receive misrepresented items, and get over the notions that there are free lunches and deals too good to be true.

As for your reporting items, go ahead but remember that with hundreds of millions of listings from millions of sellers, there is not enough staff, expertise, or time in the world to investigate such reports, and eBay cannot merely accept anything they were told by anyone and start pulling listings.   What if the report is from a rival seller trying to kill the competition, or from someone unqualified to make a determination, or from someone with a personal grudge?   The list of spurious reasons for reporting is long.  If you were a seller, how you would react if you had listings pulled by eBay based on nothing more than a report by an anonymous person, whose knowledge or motives remain unknown to eBay and to you?

Finally, read the eBay Terms of Use, which you agreed to when you created an account here:  "... while we may help facilitate the resolution of disputes through various programs, eBay has no control over and does not guarantee the existence, quality, safety or legality of items advertised; the truth or accuracy of users' content or listings; the ability of sellers to sell items; the ability of buyers to pay for items; or that a buyer or seller will actually complete a transaction or return an item."
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html

Truly, as in all marketplaces, caveat emptor.

[1tuna]

I feel your pain.I have to put up with so much blatant counterfeiting in my category.

its all going to fall on deaf ears at ebay.ebay says they do not allow fakes...........there you have it.

the policy is we do not permit fakes..............its all about perception and no action

the same repetitive answer every week with the blues in  regard to fake baseball cards.

the same answers for a few decades of acting like they care about fakes when you just know there will be no action taken.

the approprate teams  have all been notified.if you have a problem you need to report it

how about some action ebay instead of blatant lip service

[alnor2010]

We have our listings pulled in the collectible category from time to time, usually for no reason and we are convinced it is from competitive sellers.

But we are tired of the companies from china constantly flooding the "original" categories with obvious reproductions.  We used to report and report and they do get pulled but will reappear in a day or two.  There is so much of it in the military category that you have to be very knowledgeable and ask plenty of questions before you buy.

When it comes to the point you are at now Videogamenerd13, perhaps you should look elsewhere to add to your collection.  Ebay is not the only place to find good collectibles.

[maxine*j]

Yep. 

And in the antiques and antiquities categories on eBay, there are more fakes and reproductions than there are authentic items.  But that's nothing new.  Faking and copying has been going on for so many centuries in those fields that some of the fakes are now themselves valuable   😃

No one should go into collecting anything unless willing to get on a learning curve that's going to steep initially and then very, very long.

I'm not defending or justifying fakes and fakers.  I'm just stating the reality.  Probably Oog the caveman sold Moog the caveman phony precious rocks for his collection.  It's a reality that I don't believe will change.

[jayjaspersgarage]

As a coin collector and sometimes seller I wonder if you could create a video game authentication standard.  There are numerous coin grading companies that have become the gold standard for authenticating and setting grading standards for coins.  It would be more complicated yet in ten or fifteen years video game authentication TPGs could be SOP.

I knew one of the first employees at one of the first video game manufacturers in 1982.  Was it Imagic?  I'm not sure but while I was buying my first house fifteen minutes from Silicon Valley for under 100K he bought his first Porsche at the ripe old age of 20.  What a country!

[1tuna]

I do not care for the canned answers with ebay...the media made a few inquries in the last 48 hours about Nancy Pelosis stolen lectern..there was a false listing  on ebay for it and it was pulled

the news asked ebay about it and there reply was we do not permit stolen merchandise to be sold on ebay

my favorite lisitings are the promoted fakes

[maxine*j]

Yep. 

It's not just eBay, either, where all those Chinese fakes are for sale.  Go to any "antiques and collectibles" mall to see that much of what on offer is fake:  Tin signs, cast iron still banks and doorstops, rocking horses, vases, posters, paperweights, china, you-name-it.   Even low-value stuff is faked.  

Sometimes the sellers are innocent.  They don't know much and they're passing on as authentic what they were told was authentic at an estate sale or by a family member or another dealer. 

Sometimes they know exactly what they're doing and as soon as they sell off what they have, they'll place another order with the wholesalers.

Sigh.

[maxine*j]

"I wonder if you could create a video game authentication standard." 

You know, that would be a far more productive use of OP's time, energy, enthusiasm, and knowledge than trying to get eBay to change the situation.

[luckythewinner]

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As a lifelong collector of video games, comic books and other oddities I am getting severely angered at the amount of illegal counterfeit goods being sold on eBay.
Unfortunately, this is true in almost every area of eBay. 

eBay should put like a check at the end before listing is finalized specifying is this authentic? And it should be followed with: if it is not, this is illegal and you could fall to US law and intellectual property rights. BAM!!!! problem solved 

I disagree that putting up a message will "BAM" solve the problem. 

and actually have the FBI follow up with any sales. 

I do not believe that eBay has the authority to instruct the FBI to investigate people. 

I see listings for pretty much every rare game that exist and scary part is they're starting to look almost spot on and it seems like fakes are being harder to tell from the real deal

If you as an expert are having trouble distinguishing fakes, how do you expect eBay to correctly authenticate the billions of items on eBay?

Not just video games ... but also records, sports cards, autographs, cameras, watches, handbags, sneakers, dresses, jewelry, glassware, paintings, lithographs, maps, memorabilia, signs, stamps, coins, postmarks, etc. etc. etc. 

This is exactly why Congress passed a law that puts onus on the intellectual property owner to report violations, because they are the best qualified to do this. 

Well I figure between the FBI and if I can get enough people working together we can probably put a stop to this by just reporting them daily.

You will also have to get enough people to check the people reporting items, too, because unscrupulous sellers will be trying to get their competition taken down. And don't forget the potential liability if eBay or your  your "organized coalition" gets it wrong and gets sued for falsely reporting an item.  

I honestly believe that people selling them should be tracked down and the people they sold them to should be tracked down and those should be taken away from those people and removed from the market since they are highly illegal.

And who should be in charge of hiring the qualified investigators and paying the costs of sending around the country? 

I would humbly suggest that Nintendo has the resources and is in the best position to evaluate the authenticity of Nintendo products and report them under VERO. 

the internet's going to disappear

Gotta disagree with this part. 

[mibr-7511]

Yeah...none of that is going to happen, it would take hundreds if not thousands of people babysitting ebay 24-7.

[mibr-7511]

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@maxine*j wrote:

I appreciate your passion for what you collect, but...

The majority of collectibles (not to mention antiques and antiquities) listed on eBay are misidentified or misrepresented, sometimes innocently and sometimes intentionally. 

---

Really? How do people ever buy something that's not NAD?

[maxine*j]

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@mibr-7511 wrote:

---

@maxine*j wrote:

I appreciate your passion for what you collect, but...

The majority of collectibles (not to mention antiques and antiquities) listed on eBay are misidentified or misrepresented, sometimes innocently and sometimes intentionally. 

---

Really? How do people ever buy something that's not NAD?

---

Education.  Thinking for themselves.  Using common sense.  Knowing what they buy.  Buying what they know.  Doing their homework.  Learning the fundamentals of what they collect.  All that basic stuff.

[plymouthsales4165]

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@videogamenerd13 wrote:

Hi there,

As a lifelong collector of video games, comic books and other oddities I am getting severely angered at the amount of illegal counterfeit goods being sold on eBay. We all know where the majority of these are manufactured, good old China, and there are tons of American sellers selling illegal products. It's pretty huge as they're using intellectual properties from Marvel, Nintendo, Sega and Capcom and it goes down the list. 

I see listings for pretty much every rare game that exist and scary part is they're starting to look almost spot on and it seems like fakes are being harder to tell from the real deal, especially when discs are concerned. I think Sega CD are probably the easiest to counterfeit from what I have researched and  I am so scared that I've ended up with a FAKE $800 copy of Snatcher, truly close to "like new" that was purchased many years ago........Recently I came across an ebay listing of a snatcher disc that had the manufacturing etching on it!!!!! I believe it came from sellers on etsy that sell high quality fakes all day!!! This is beyond crazy because typically that's the only way you can tell a fake from a real is the manufacturing etching!

So what's my $800 game worth now? Is there any  way to prove its even real? As a lifelong collector who started working in a video game store I actually have no answer because I couldn't find any information online to distinguish the difference between the two, the high grade fake vs real.... Look the same, almost exactly. I consider myself expert level in identifying authentic video games and I am duped on this. 

I am terrified how much monetary loss I will have within my collection due to counterfeits tanking the market if counterfeiters are allowed to perfect their art.

Quick example (I reported all the fakes of Marvel versus Capcom for Dreamcast that I could find so may have been taken down 1/9/2021) but still look it up as an example to see how many counterfeits are being sold.

I personally believe intellectual property rip off should never be tolerated in the first place (you are ripping off starving artist or the corporation that bought them) and unless a seller can provide proof that they have a contract with Marvel or Sega or Capcom to distribute Marvel versus Capcom for Sega Dreamcast they shouldn't be allowed to put up mass listings (selling 100s of copies) of illegal listings.

eBay should put like a check at the end before listing is finalized specifying is this authentic? And it should be followed with: if it is not, this is illegal and you could fall to US law and intellectual property rights. BAM!!!! problem solved and actually have the FBI follow up with any sales. 

I understand the need of the video game community wanting to archive games for their own personal sake, I truly get it.... the internet's going to disappear and how are you going to have all the information if you don't have it somewhere readily available, well knock it off and stop selling illegal and reproducing, just keep your illegal ROMs on your PC and keep them away from us!!!! Stop selling reproductions pretending to be saviour to the community.

Get lost, it's illegal. 

I am trying to build a coalition of authentic game collectors who don't want to stand for this. I only really look at comic books, video games and statues on eBay and understand they have a large service to monitor and I've been told over and over the only way is to report items. Well I figure between the FBI and if I can get enough people working together we can probably put a stop to this by just reporting them daily. Anyone interested in helping me monitor all of the illegal videogame goods on eBay??? 

I honestly believe that people selling them should be tracked down and the people they sold them to should be tracked down and those should be taken away from those people and removed from the market since they are highly illegal. And furthermore any individual practicing illegal activities that fall under the American law should face the severest penalties possible for doing this.

A very concerned collector, 

Tre 

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eBay needs to be careful about the fakes, it has brought down other sites. In our business there was 1 website that produced about 80% of the dealer to dealer transactions. This site allowed China based brokers to list there "stock" and the site went out do to the amount of fake product coming out of China

[yuzuha]

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@maxine*j wrote:

Sometimes the sellers are innocent.  They don't know much and they're passing on as authentic what they were told was authentic at an estate sale or by a family member or another dealer. 

---

I find this is frequently the case. I've had to tell a lot of friends that stuff they bought was fake back before conventions started strictly policing their dealer's rooms. They thought it was real because they bought it from a vendor at a convention, which they assumed was a legitimate source.