eBay invite 1 1

[Henri Charriere]

As most of the civilized world knows, I have been on the hunt for the highest-graded French 20-franc gold roosters for the past five years. My unending quest (some say, obsession) has had me engaged with numismatic concerns that use search engines which  leave much to be desired, hence the longevity of my hunt.  

Recently, I decided to use my knowledge of my series, Roosters, to confront those who do not wish to embrace the symbiotic approach to selling. Departures from the norm are easy to spot. Two examples are instructive: asking two, three, even four times the FMV of an uncertified, ungraded coin, coupled with a "No Returns Accepted!" policy.  This can spell disaster for the inattentive buyer taken in by apparently highly-rated reviews and glowing descriptions of the merchandise being offered which is very often compounded with an unfamiliarity with terms used and transactions conducted internationally.

I have effectively immobilized five different sellers with a few simple, though critical, questions. Sellers who aren't accustomed to being confronted by my seemingly low-key style characterize my questions as "harassment."  I am considerate enough to tell them why they will fail to make a sale and inevitably withdraw their listing.

Apparently, eBay took notice and invited me to join a discussion group, very likely the same one that resulted to changes in their reporting procedure. They must have liked the line I used on one scam artist who, content to give me guff and then couldn't recall doing so only hours later in an exchange, resulted in my assertion that it was precisely people like him that discouraged eBay from doing business with coin hobbyists. No legitimate platform wants to be an unwitting accomplice or conduit to those whose intent is to deceive the public.

A member elsewhere on the Forum stated, correctly, that sellers can ask whatever price they want, but my feeling is if you are insisting on being paid a fixed, clearly exorbitant price on a common, uncertified coin -- with a No Returns Accepted policy, you ought to be prepared to substantiate your extenuating circumstances with a reasonable explanation to my reasonable questions.  If it were within my power, I would reimburse every member who had ever been taken advantage of by fly-by-nite hucksters.

[powermad5000]

I hope you join that discussion group. I, myself, had run into the issue of eBay's "generic" reporting policy once again without the liberty of properly explaining why I was reporting a seller with a completely incorrect listing for a SBA. I ended up having to try to come "as close as possible" for the reason for reporting the listing and the closest description from the generic dropdown menu was Fraudulent Listing. I felt it could be classed this way based upon all the errors in the listing.

I as well get faced many times by sellers giving me a smart alecky response to my message to them when I point out such obvious errors in the listings and it is typically the ones asking ridiculous amounts for common coins that it gets under my skin finally to go ahead and challenge one of them. Simply stated, there are just too many at this point.

I hope you take some of this information into your discussions. While it doesn't stop me from making purchases for raw coins through eBay because I know what I am looking at/for and I know the hobby decently, it does however cast eBay in a bad light as they are allowing this to go on in such large numbers, and also will eventually hurt the integrity of the platform when someone unwitting purchases one of these said "rare" coins and then goes to resell it at a local coin shop only to find out they have been duped and it cost them hundreds of dollars they will never be able to recover. I am sure there are newbie buyers on eBay who just don't know any better who think they are making some kind of "investment" in a "rare" coin, so it is in the interest of eBay to protect them from these scam artists.

[J P M]

I hope you do well QA. And yes it was I who said they can ask whatever they want. (Because) e-Bay has no power over the price. In reference to the fact that they are over priced or out of the ball park or just wrong. IMO.