Fake Coins, Laws, & Lawyers

If he is a crook, he wouldn't have bothered to reply. Sorry but it seemed that not knowing anything about such errors led to your misfortune. Always do research before buying!

Just some thoughts

There are many ebay sellers who are known to sell altered coins.

ebay itself has a difficult time keeping these sellers out. they toss them and they show up under other names.

If you hire a lawyer, you are out additional dollars and proving intent to defraud will be very difficult.

The Federal Prosecutor and the Secret Service (responsible for counterfeiting) unless they can obtain proof that the seller is the one who altered and sold the coin and it was more than one coin, will not do more than the equivalent of sending him to his room for a time out.

Does this mean that we all can alter a coin or two. No but then who has not at some time in their life cleaned a coin written on or torn a banknote, drilled a hole in a coin - all federal violations.

If you are looking for your money back the best option you might have was posted above when it was suggested you contact your credit card company. or you take him up on his $400.00 refund charge.

Best of luck in your efforts to recover some of your money.
And as others have said Welcome to the forum

Welcome, Clueless !!!

I'm afraid I agree with most of the folks who have already responded: The seller is in NO WAY responsible for your bidding actions in this case because you were flat-out TOLD that the coin was altered. If you wanted to spend $2500 for an altered coin, well, that was your decision to make, and the seller owes you nothing. The seller did NOT misrepresent that coin in that auction, and you have absolutely no recourse. You made a mistake, now live with it. I'm stunned that the seller is even giving you the time of day, much less an offer to buy the thing back or "adjust" the price.

Buyers like you who throw "the law" around as a threat like you have should be banned from ebay. Your threats are downright childish, and any competent lawyer will tell you that you have no legal recourse. Go hire one and find out for yourself.

This thread has been locked because it is our opinion that this is turning pretty ugly.

Sorry, but I am going to pull rank as Forum Mom and post my thoughts here. I haven't been able to be on CC all weekend or I would have responded long before now.

First of all, as an ebay seller, I have listed a couple of items that I was unsure of and no amount of research could verify. For example, I listed a worn Buffalo nickel that appeared to be a possible clipped planchet error. Due to the amount of wear on the coin, I did not feel that it could be verified whether it was an error or an altered coin. I stated this fact in the auction. No amount of magnification helped to determine this condition 100%. Does this make me fraudulent? No, it does not. Sometimes, we simply do not know. In my opinion, this coin was represented as truthfully as possible.

Throughout the auction, this seller posted the questions and answers and continued to update with as much information as possible. This also leads me to believe that this seller was doing his/her best to represent this coin as accurately as possible.

Quite frankly, this seller is handling this situation very well and I firmly believe that, not only is this seller not a fraud, I think he/she was attempting to get into coin sales on ebay and would probably have turned out to be one of the "good guys." It is my opinion that the seller closed his own membership (still would show up as NARU'd and can look as if ebay did it). I think this deal has soured the seller on continuing to sell (and possibly purchase) on ebay, which I think is sad.

In spite of the fact that you have no legal recourse at all since this purchase is going to be seen as one that you made with your eyes wide open, this person is attempting to do the honorable thing and try to please you and be fair anyway. Since they are no longer registered on ebay, he/she could keep all of the money and just ignore your emails. The fact that he/she is attempting to be as fair as possible is something that should be recognized.

Clueless, none of us likes to feel that we made a costly mistake, but the fact is that we all do at different points in our lives. Please reconsider your position here. I firmly believe that this individual in no way attempted to con you or anyone else. He/she is trying to correct the situation to the best of his/her ability. Please recognize that there is good in many people and this person deserves to be treated fairly.

Just my opinion as an ebay seller and buyer.