What I Think Ebay Should Do To Help Our Hobby And Others.

numismaniac,

Yes, it really is that simple.

My point earlier was that a counterfeit coin in a counterfeit slab is actually more dangerous to the hobby than a raw coin, because the owner will, obviously, place too much trust in the slab.

According to ebay, the fact tht people are basically honest. Yep.



After speculators buy a few fakes, they will teach people that you need to learn what you're doing in whatever field it is where you expect to make money.

Ok Bryan, so at least I would be able to look at the coin in the phony slab and hopefully be able to determine it is a counterfeit when I get it. That is if it is sold on ebay by a seller who either knows it is fake or sells it unwittingly. Obviously I would never buy a coin from an auction in China. This whole subject is quite disheartening. I have known about fake coins and even slabs for some time but had no idea how widespread it was.

Do you think some of the larger companies, Heritage, for example, check all their slabs before putting a coin up for sale or auction?. I know they guarantee authenticity but have to wonder how closely they look over , say, a generic MS65 Walker

If we can find them ebay can find them, and they are the ones profiting from all the fakes being sold, making them co-conspirators, at the very minimum. Even newspapers, once notified of an advertiser using advertising for criminal purposes, will pull their ads.

Hmmm. That makes this a RICO case, doesn't it? Now all we need is someone with the testicular fortitude to bring charges.

There's another angle I haven't seen mentioned. If a seller copies someone else's ad copy or images, ebay is real fast about cancelling their ads or accounts. Copyright holders could at least prevent other ebay listings that way.

There's another ebay program I can't recall the name of, where Coach, Tiffany, etc, can tell ebay to pull a listing from a seller of fakes of their product. This is almost instantaneous. No reason NGC, PCGS and ANACS can't do the same thing.

I don't know how the lawsuit is going with PCGS suing the dealers knowingly selling counterfeit coins in the US but I did read in CoinWorld they have dropped their lawsuit against the coin doctors. I think the same may happen with the other even though I hope not

It doesn't matter how many security measures you apply, as long as there are some people willing to purchase what seems to be something for nothing or next to nothing we will continue to have fakes and frauds. The problem is not with the seller but with the buyer.