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

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.