Ebay Seller Fraud?

Here's my Two Cents. On ebay, I wouldn't touch a coin if the seller is in one of several countries - with China, India, Greece, and several eastern European countries right at the top of the list. The amount of fraud associated with those countries is simply too high to risk. Sure, purchasing a coin at ebay only from U.S. sellers has its risks as well. But, the risks are far less.

Now, I also know several people in many of those countries - many of them members here. I would have no problems buying anything from them.

Bacchus2: Not at all. Buying from Europe is fine but there are sometimes hassles with customs and long shipping delays.

ebay sellers from eastern Asia are the ones to avoid when buying coins. There are too many risks involved, even with PayPal protection.

Now inexpensive consumer goods?; I'll buy from anywhere. I bought 10 very nice wrist lanyards from an ebay seller in Hong Kong for $4 delivered! Sweet assortment of colors too!

I actually lost more mail to and from Germany compared to China. Out of 5 mails, I lost 2 from Germany, lost 1 sent to Germany and I received all 10 from China. Tell me more about that.

Honestly, what I believe is important is you need to be competent and knowledgeable of what you are going to get. Agreed, the source of where you are buying from can lead to form your own bias but that's no longer numismatics. It's not going to help anyone other than the counterfeiters if you just generalize a simple line of how to deal with counterfeits.

Bear in mind, counterfeiters can just access this forum like any one of us and laugh their heads off when you say "you can trust coins bought in the US, UK, Canada etc". Next thing they do is to set up centers in those countries to redistribute counterfeits. Counterfeiting is a global problem. What is more important is to educate yourself against such counterfeits because the day you buy coins from sources that you think is safe will sting you big time. It's the same when you travel around the world - crimes are bound to happen and you need to protect yourself. There are countries that are more unsafe and it's up to you to avoid it completely or come up with solutions. Needless to say, I had my share of counterfeit coins coming from the so called safe countries as well.

Good point made about avoiding stereotypes. I think people generalize simply to help other collectors avoid trouble. The counterfeiting problem is indeed global, but there's ample documentation that a lot of forgery is coming out of Asia. It's not just coins, but everything--particularly luxury goods.

However, I'm not suggesting we judge the seller's integrity by their shipping location. While forgeries might be made where machining/labor costs are cheapest, they can be sold anywhere. Like luxury goods, it's only a matter of time before the resellers set up domestic operations to better suit the attitudes of their market. What was done with the forged Swiss watch market will certainly happen to coins.