How does someone get away with selling these as genuine ?

[jman425]

Saw these on ebay when they were open for bidding.

 

http://coins.search-completed.ebay.com/_Early-Dollars-1794-1804_W0QQcatrefZC5QQfbdZ1QQfclZ3QQfisZ2QQflocZ1QQfposZ98052QQfromZR14QQfrppZ50QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1QQfssZ1QQftrtZ1QQftrvZ1QQnojsprZyQQpfidZ0QQsaaffZafdefaultQQsabfmtsZ0QQsacatZ11976QQsacqyopZgeQQsacurZ0QQsadisZ200QQsaobfmtsZexsifQQsargnZQ2d1QQsaslZ1060jonathanQQsaslcZ0QQsaslopZ1QQsofocusZbsQQsorefinesearchZ1

[MarkFeld]

Please report it to Ebay. If enough of us do so, they will probably void the transactions.

 

Report here: thanks

[James_OldeTowne]

Read this seller's feedback. All of it is (seemingly) obviously written by the seller himself.

[jman425]

Read this seller's feedback. All of it is (seemingly) obviously written by the seller himself.

James - Speaking of bidding, I got sniped at the last second for that 1806 draped .50 of yours last week...

[bsshog40]

I reported!!

[jman425]

Btw, I already flagged his auctions with ebay while they were still open but it seems like they didn't care enough to shut it down.

[moovyz]

Did anyone notice that above every one of the items sold was this note:

 

 

"The seller ended this listing early to sell to the high bidder(s) at current bid price."

 

 

Ebay really needs to do something about these. I wrote a very long letter to the ANA and sent a copy to Ebay that something needs to be done about protecting the integrity of the hobby on this site.

 

 

There are soooo many people out there getting swindled. And in most cases, when they find out, they in turn re-sell it on Ebay and componud the mistake. I see this as a fast moving snowball rolling downhill!

[ant]

when i get my site up and running for an auction site, and it picks up it will be nice to have such eyes out there watching for others. good work all.

[rons]

I did some checking on his feedback. There is a group of "ebay ID''s that are bidding on each others sales and leaving positive feedbacks. I noticed a crossover of at least 8 different ids between the first 4 I checked. How likely is that only a small group of people would be the winners of each others auctions. My guess is they are building up their feedback so they can unload bogus, counterfeit or otherwise inferior materials off on unsuspecting buyers.If I had more time tonight I would construct a framework that would show the spider web effect they have constructed. I suspect ebay could do the same in half the time. That is really scary.

[jesbroken]

I reported all six of his auctions. Now we can only wait and see. As the auctions are all private and all his previous sales were with newbies(probably themselves) again they are probably bogus bids. If any of his sales were real, it is somewhat odd that every sale was made to a newbie, of course that could also mean buyers are getting smarter-NOT!

 

[rons]

I reported on the suspicious bidding activities of this "group" of winners. There are about 14 ID's involved and none of them have any feedback from anyone else outside the group. They are all from California with most stating Oakland soooo.... Now the bids are private and the coins are way more costly than the pennies and dollar bills they were selling previously. I expressed my concerns and this was part of the reply from ebay.

 

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to your concern about the bidding

and selling activity of a number of users.

 

We thoroughly investigated your report, but at this time there isn't

enough evidence to show that a violation has taken place. We can reopen

the investigation if we receive additional information.

 

Anyone else want to report suspicious activity?

[CHABSENTIA]

At least they responded to you. I have complained twice about various things and have not received an answer although they say they will reply within 48 hours.

 

If you can figure out what appears to be rigged bidding then rest assured that EBay can see it.The fact that E Bay said " that they investigated and found nothing" as opposed to " we are still investigating as this is suspicious activity and warrants investigation" is a red flag that EBAY could care less.

 

Ebay wants the Volume and the Sales and consequently their fees based on the various activity.

[jman425]

I doubt the highest bidder of those coins were fake. Seller ended the auction early once an "outsider" put in a legit high bid.

Think $300 is a good price for a 1795 dollar in AU condition ?

[MarkFeld]

At least they responded to you. I have complained twice about various things and have not received an answer although they say they will reply within 48 hours.

 

If you can figure out what appears to be rigged bidding then rest assured that EBay can see it.The fact that E Bay said " that they investigated and found nothing" as opposed to " we are still investigating as this is suspicious activity and warrants investigation" is a red flag that EBAY could care less.

 

Ebay wants the Volume and the Sales and consequently their fees based on the various activity.

I checked the feedback and possible connections among that group of Ebay users. And, while I don't doubt that there is a connection, to be fair to Ebay, I don't think there is enough proof for them to act on it at this point.

[rons]

I agree, but my point is that they are now selling using private bids so noone can follow the trail of bread crumbs and the coins are much more expensive than any of the items they have sold previously. They are/were just laying the groundwork for their scam. Hopefully ebay will keep a close eye on them now that they have been alerted.

[MarkFeld]

I agree, but my point is that they are now selling using private bids so noone can follow the trail of bread crumbs and the coins are much more expensive than any of the items they have sold previously. They are/were just laying the groundwork for their scam. Hopefully ebay will keep a close eye on them now that they have been alerted.

If/when you see listings of expensive and/or counterfeit coins for sale by any of those individuals, please post links and/or email me. I checked about 6 of them and found nothing currently for sale. Thanks.

[CHABSENTIA]

Don't know whether the highest bidder was fake or not. These coins are not my area.I am on the Morgans now and while I have not looked into it as I stopp bidding and leave if my Price is exceeded.

 

The Prices do seem to be bid up higher than before. Some prices are even bid higher than the BIN for the same date and coin etc by another seller.Why would anybody bid higher for something that they can buy cheaper without bidding?

 

I have also seen the same Seller offer a BIN at an artificially high price that is more than the actual Numismedia value while the same date and type etc is up for auction. It has been suggested by others that this is deliberate in order to try and make make people think they are getting a good deal and to bid higher.

 

If the high bidder is legit and 14 others are bidding on it that are just there to get the price up then there is a problem.

 

I also notice that people do not bid on Morgans where there is a starting point that is close to the real value and many with a "reserve" price are never sold because the price is never met. The only other solution would be to keep listing the coin and paying the fees. so there are probably many that are using friends to artificially bid up the price.

 

Also this practice of having Private buyers can only aid in disguising the true bidders.

 

It still remains that if a person with a minimum search can detect 14 people all from the same area etc bidding on a coin then EBAY could detect it. If they can't detect it but it is brought to their attention and see no suspicious activity then the only conclusion is that they support it either through action or non action.

 

As long as there are Buyers that are willing to pay inflated prices for the coin for whatever reason then the practice/s will continue because EBAY won;t do anyhting about it.

 

If the Seller ended the auction early once an "outsider" put in a bid then I would be even more suspicious .If you have 14 people bidding on a coin and you know that they are all connected and bidding the coin up and then a legit buyer comes in and makes a bid of $300.00 and then you sell it to them early then this would tell me that the Seller is aware that this is the highest bid.If the seller had no friends bidding on it and no reserve or starting price then it could have gone cheaper than $300.00 As I pointed out earlier since the situation exists where a Buyer is turned off by a high starting price or reserve then this is the only way to insure what he and the Buyer consider a "fair" price wihout paying fees over and over again.

 

[CHABSENTIA]

If I understood the Poster correctly EBay responded that there was no suspicious activity and it did not warrant an investigation.Apparently EBAY responded quickly to the Poster.

 

Why not agree that the activity was suspicious or that they would be keeping an eye on the situation? To just close it almost instantly means that they do not want to do anything and don't want to be held to it.

 

Just my opinion

[bsshog40]

Well this is the response I got from reporting the seller.

 

Dear eBay Member,

 

Thank you for writing eBay in regard to suspicious coin listings.

 

Because eBay does not employ or train its Trust & Safety Customer

Support Representatives to be experts in the area of coins and currency,

we rely on expert opinions from knowledgeable people as well as reliable

third party organizations, such as the American Numismatic Association

(ANA).

 

Your report will be reviewed by a group of members that comprise a

community watch group for coin auctions. They then confer amongst

themselves and either agree or disagree that the listings are

problematic. They then forward that information to the ANA for review.

The ANA can then agree or disagree after careful consideration. If they

agree, they then contact the seller directly. Sellers are then afforded

24 hours in which to revise or cancel the auctions. If they fail to do

so, eBay must cancel the auction.

[jesbroken]

I got the same exact response, Bobby. How does Ebay expect anything to be done if the "slow boat to china" routine is used to check the sellers activities. Reminds me of a Don Knotts being in charge of their security or a "Who's on first"

scenario. Bunch of insufficiently_thoughtful_persons in charge of a multimillion dollar business!

[CHABSENTIA]

Who decides if the person reporting is knowledgeable?Assuming that the report is accepted and it goes to these members that decide if it should be reported to ANA then what is the itme frame here? Suppose this only takes 24 hours .Then it has to be forwarded to ANA .Suppose this only takes 24 hours.Then EBAY takes 24 hours to cancel the aucion etc.

 

4 or 5 days have passed and this is only if it was reported right at the commencement of the auction . In reality the auction might have been underway for 12 hours or more.

 

These means that any auction that has a length of 5 or 6 days or less will have ended.

 

There are people on this Forum that have detected Fake/Conterfeit coins. They would not have to employ a large team of experts in many cases.

 

They would not have to employ a large number of experts that could see and/or track suspicious activity. .If there are groups of people such as in the original post that are artificially bidding up prices then they are most likely doing it more than once.

 

State Lotteries use a system where they have different sets of balls and numbers

that are chosen at random before each drawing.This is done because it is a well known fact that over a period of time there are patterns and that the system could not be rigged if there was only one set.

 

The SEC has computers that are capable of tracking unusual patterns of Stock trading and the IRS has Computers that track certain deductions against certain norms that have been compiled over time so that it is "red flagged" for further checking.

 

 

There is no reason that Ebay can't track less complex activity such as patterns of artificial price manipulation.

[bsshog40]

Fakes of modern and ancient coins sold on eBay as authentic coins are a frequent problem, though if you follow the online coin discussion groups, these coin forgeries are frequently exposed. One common scam is for a seller to create an auction of a counterfeit coin, or many counterfeit coins, while preventing people from contacting bidders, which is the most common way that this kind of fraud is stopped (despite the fact that doing this is against official eBay policy). Never buy from a seller who does this unless you know who the seller is.

 

One scam involving ancient coins has been running on eBay for about two years. The seller puts up for auction every couple of weeks the same several dozen cast counterfeits using a new eBay I.D. each time. All are private auctions. The scam artist always changes the categories of his auctions about a day before they close, meaning people following coin auctions don't see them until then. This gives inexperienced buyers enough time to bid on them but doesn't give eBay enough time to act on complaints from those more experienced who know about this scam. With each new I.D., the scammer sometimes creates feedback for himself by buying about a dozen inexpensive non-coin items, while other times he keeps his own feedback private as well. eBay typically cancels each new I.D. this scammer creates (though not always), and each time it sends out warning emails to winning bidders, but often this is after they have already paid. Many hundreds of people have been scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars.

 

You shouldn't count on eBay to prevent or stop the auction of even the most blatant modern or ancient counterfeits or prevent sellers with a history of selling large numbers of counterfeits from engaging in online fraud. eBay has a policy of noninterference, stating that it's just a venue bringing buyers and sellers together. You're largely on your own.

 

Despite the problem of fakes, you shouldn't indiscriminately, and irresponsibly, condemn coins you see online -- online pictures often provide only a fraction of the information you need to properly evaluate a coin's authenticity. But there's nothing wrong with questioning a coin online. If others feel the coin is not suspicious, the seller of the coin will undoubtedly wind up with favorable publicity, and this can lead to more bids and a higher selling price.

 

The coin industry prefers not to discuss too loudly the issue of counterfeits for fear of scaring off collectors. But knowledge is power. As a collector, the more you know, the greater the chance you'll avoid getting taken. Don't overreact and run away. But don't put your head in the sand either.

[CHABSENTIA]

Exactly. I don't count on EBAY to stop it.They cna use all the excuses at their disposal such as only to bring buyers and sellers together or not being able to hire enough people etc.

 

My Point was that in this age of Computers it would be a simple inexpensive matter to at least track certain patterns.

 

They just don't care.

 

The Majority of the Coins that seem to be forgeries etc are Ancient Coins etc. I suspect that it is easy to counterfiet them especially since it seems to be an area where people are not well informed.

 

I restrict my comments to the non action of EBAY as the area which it seems most prevalent is not my area..The rest is mis representing real coins..While these Sellers are most likely a small Minority they seem to be increasing in size.Doubtless because of the inaction of EBAY so you are correct in that Buyers need to be well informed. Sadly this is not always the case even with the valid coins.

[Conder101]

They just don't care.

But the reason they try and maintain the "We are just a venue" stance is because the more they do intrude and track and try to police etc, the greater their exposure becomes for being liable if someone is cheated.

 

When they were completely hands off, we are just a venue. If someone was defrauded they could honestly say that they had no knowledge, do not interfere, and it is buyer beware. But when they are investigating people, pulling auctions, tracing patterns and using those patterns to pull auctions or ban bidders, if someone gets scammed they could now claim that eBay was negligent in not catching the scammers before he was ripped off and eBay may be liable for the damages. Why would eBay want to become more proactive if it INCREASES their liability. It may not be that they don't care as much as it is that it is fiscally risky to care.

[CHABSENTIA]

No doubt that is part of it.Whether they don't care because it is fiscally unfeasable to care or because it fiscally results in a poor bottom line then it is still fiscal.I just don't know the percentage alloted to each.

 

I can only speak to the results for myself as others can only speak fro their results.

 

One thing they could do as suggested earlier would be to track suspicious patterns of bidding which a Computer generated program which could readily detect.

 

I really don't see how any bias could be alleged with a Computer doing this when it is done in all walks of life.

[MarkFeld]

It appears as if the group effort scam is continuing, now by this seller: excellentman6568

 

If you look at his feedback see here in addition to it having been accomplished by a number of very low priced items, some of it came from the same Ebay identities that helped build up the feedback of 1060jonathan, the original subject of this thread

 

[CHABSENTIA]

Exactly.Notice that over half of the feedback score occurs over the 24th of November.None of the bidders has a feedback score of over 15 and most under under 8.Many of the same bidders are repeats.

 

This is excatly what I was talking about earlier. It would be a simple task for a Computer program to scan for these patterns on all sellers..

 

The IRS does it to flag some deductions. The SEC does it to detect Insider trading in Stocks etc.There would be no assumed Liabilty by EBay .

 

EBay is creating an appearance of being averse to policing even the basic actions of Sellers.

 

 

 

 

[MarkFeld]

Exactly.Notice that over half of the feedback score occurs over the 24th of November.None of the bidders has a feedback score of over 15 and most under under 8.Many of the same bidders are repeats.

 

This is excatly what I was talking about earlier. It would be a simple task for a Computer program to scan for these patterns on all sellers..

 

The IRS does it to flag some deductions. The SEC does it to detect Insider trading in Stocks etc.There would be no assumed Liabilty by EBay .

 

EBay is creating an appearance of being averse to policing even the basic actions of Sellers.

 

 

 

Please, folks, report them. The more reports, I believe the greater the chance that Ebay will act.

[MarkFeld]

Below is where the 1807 Draped Bust Half sold previously - I thought it looked familiar and it turns out I had bid on it when Heritage sold it for $4600 in January:

 

see here