1831 Half Dollar

That's pretty sad. You'd think a collector would at least look at the coin somewhat. One doesn't even have to look very hard to see the word COPY. I don't know whether to feel sorry for the buyer or not.

I reported seller
nearlyfamousdogs and item number 220906731533 [eBayItem]220906731533[/eBayItem] in this manner. I feel sorry for the buyers, even though they do not have knowledge, it could be some little old lady paying good money to give the coin to someone as a Christmas present, or a good wife wanting to surprise her hubby with a type coin he has been wanting for the longest time. It is very sad, and it is a sad world we live in. I pray that good overcomes evil in this world someday. It seems it just keeps getting uglier.

I wrote to ebay ...

What is the matter with you people? Fraud and dishonesty has never been as rampant as it is these days on ebay with coin sales. You simply allow sellers to rip off customers who may never even figure out they have been had, yet you continue to take the final value fees with no conscience at all. I don't know who is the more evil, ebay or sellers like this. The coin in this listing is marked COPY and sold as genuine. The seller has deplorable feedback and you continue to allow this because you are making money. ebay has ruined ebay, I do not sell there and have not for years.

The 1831 Half Dollar so obviously has "COPY" stamped on the reverse. Although, it is extremely dishonest of the seller to market this copy as an authentic half dollar, I can't help but to place the blame partly on the buyer, who was simply careless in purchasing this coin.

If it wasn't simply the carelessness and the buyer was just unknowledgeable, he or she should not have been searching ebay for coins. Although it provides easy access to these coins, its too easy too fall into a trap when it comes to ebay if you're not sure of what you're doing. Despite the large amount of highly reputable and excellent coin dealers on ebay, there is also, unfortunately, a wealth of sellers looking to cheat their buyers. It's a sad fact, but as NickelGuy said, ebay has ruined ebay.

I still sell on ebay because you simply can't beat the amount of exposure you can get, but doing so can be difficult at times because, even despite having 100% positive feedback and a plethora of returning customers, the establishment of trust between a seller and a new customer can still be complicated at times, not to mention the strict limitations now placed on sellers because of all of ebay's past issues with illegitimate sellers and their poor practices.

, NicO!

Yes it was a nasty message I sent but they need to get messages like that to let them know how disgusting some of the counterfeit and deceptive coin and currency auctions are. My complaint is that they let these sellers continue to sell. They should be kicked off and for good and they need to ban the IP address as well. That is mainly my point and purpose for being so tough in my message.

I got a reply. It was effective.


Thanks for reporting this listing to us.

I reviewed this listing and confirmed that it violated our Selling
Currency policy. As a result, I removed the listing.

I would venture a guess that there are probably close to a million or
more currency listings on ebay at any time. I cannot imagine the man
power needed to be able to view every single currency listing at the
time it is listed to determine if the listing is fraudulent.

Besides our own internal efforts, we often rely on our members to report
violating listings. Additionally, we work with two groups of coin
experts, the Coin Community Watch group and the Coin Forgery ebay group.
When we are made aware of a potential counterfeit coin whether found
internally or reported to us we send the listing to them for review. If
they agree that the coin is a counterfeit, they notify us and we remove
it.

Please understand that we do not "allow" sellers to defraud buyers. We
remove all counterfeit coins or misleading listings when we are made
aware of them.

Again, thank you for your report. We appreciate your help in
keeping ebay a safe and reputable forum to conduct business.

Sincerely,

Judith
ebay Customer Support

Glad to see he got caught. I did find out that the 1854 dollar that got pulled was a different one from that he had sold previously and received the negative feedback on.

On that one (shown below), I was told by the buyer that his photo was altered to not show the "copy" stamped on it. When the buyer contacted him when it was received, the seller told him that he sent a real one and that it was the buyer trying to return a fake copy!

Here are the pics of that first 1854 dollar he had...with no "copy" noted on it, which he stated he also got at an estate auction. Pretty blurry but a buyer wouldn't suspect it was a fake copy.

As usual, when ebay comes up with a new way to "protect" users, look beyond the official explanation for the real reason. It's usually one of two:

More profit for ebay.

Less overhead for ebay.