Is It Necessary Or Desirable To Warn Sellers About Posting Illegal Coins?

Informing sellers actually means that you have a very positive attitude, which I like. It implies that those people post such items by mistake. Unfortunately, and the reason why I never buy via ebay: a lot of sellers actually don't have good intentions and ebay isn't acting against this business.

I think a more proper 'punishment' would be to just ignore ebay until they become more reliable. If a lot of people do this and notify them, that should be more than enough incentive to do something with the problem: no buyers means loss of turnover.

I'm for warning. First off, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt--unless it's such an obvious fake that it screams, maybe they don't know, and you're doing them a favor, getting an item off their page that could hurt their reputation. Second, if they KNOW they're selling a fake, they need to hear that people KNOW it, and they are about to get busted. I would also report to ebay. They might not care now, but if they get enough complaints, it MIGHT encourage them to do a better job policing.

It may do no good at all, but if savvy shoppers call them on it, it may help a little to protect those who don't know as much.

Then I'm for telling them anyway, just to be a PITA, because they SHOULD be policing it.

january1may Your comment may have been in jest - however, I suspect that legally such a post would violate the letter of the rules if it was placed in the coin section.

twslisa and anyone else who thinks ebay should police sales - please read the following carefully.

I think in the case of old ebay (ca 2008), the original intent was that the coin section would contain only genuine coins and all "imitation" items would be placed elsewhere (copy, replica etc.). That was the way the agreement between ebay and the ANA et ali of about 7 years ago was explained to me, when I started at ebay. As the various owners and upper level managers (especially the lawyers) changed, they altered things making the original agreement lose impact.

The newest owner/management team has reverted to the even earlier ebay concept from over 20 years ago of "Let the Buyer Beware". That was the concept that ebay was specifically not an auctioneer - they were a vendor (an out of the loop middleman) providing a venue for buyer and seller to meet. Under this definition the venue is presumed to be unaware of specifics of what is being sold and more importantly is not capable of determining a case about counterfeit goods. This original concept shielded ebay from any liability for the sale of counterfeits by pleading ignorance about the subject.

The ability for ebay to plead ignorance was that they had no one on staff (paid or unpaid staff) that had expertise in the field. That is why all 38 staff experts were let go on the same day. The company was eliminating the old agreement of seven years ago to staff a panel of experts to review cases of rules violations and fraud.

However, under the new and "improved" version of the Hobby Protection Act 2016 - ebay may find itself liable as a middleman for aiding counterfeiters in the distribution and importation of counterfeit goods (specifically coins) into the USA.

january1may The rule violation I was referring to was an ebay rule not a rule of the CCF.

Unlike most well-established auction firms, ebay should be considered a big open market with plenty of authentic and plenty of fake coins. Nothing we do or don't do will change that. In my case, ebay has helped me become more knowledgeable by forcing me to dig deeper into numismatic matters of my interest. Within my (admittedly rather narrow) niche I've become pretty confident that I'm able to spot nine out of ten fakes with relative ease. Whenever I'm in doubt I check with my facebook group. The same group has become a very effective tool policing ebay (and other platforms). We discuss suspicious listings, post alerts and uncover notorious or accidental fake sellers on a daily basis. Within my niche it has become near impossible for a fake item to pass unnoticed.

I didn't vote as I would have liked to see the option of: Warn them AND report to ebay at the same time.
This gives them a warning if they are clueless while still removing the item(s). If they already know, it tells them that some one besides ebay is watching them.

Use official "channels"--report to ebay or some other authority, or let Bobby handle it (*thank* you!).

Sending a notice to the seller gives the seller your email address or ebay userid (do you *really* want that?) and could potentially open up the notice sender to liability. What if the item really *isn't* fake? What if the seller loses sales because of the "notice" or bad publicity? What if there is some other kind of tortious interference with the seller or the seller's contracts that the seller's lawyers can dredge up? Maybe that wouldn't hold up in court, but the notice sender could still have to pay a lawyer to resolve it.

Ain't none of this none legal advice, so do not rely on anything I say. This is just some warped ramblings from a once-burned twice-shy kinda guy.