Should Ebay offer rewards for detecting coin frauds?

majorbigtime

I think so.

It appears that Ebay is unable to effectively police the site, and fraud is evident. Many on these boards have identified bogus auctions and notified Ebay.

We have the expertise to spot the rips, and I beleive the folks at Ebay should offer rewards to those who do their job for them.

Whadda' ya' think?


PS: Sometimes, we too are fooled ("It's a legitimate estate auction").

ldhair

Not a bad idea but it would be tough to come up with a system that will work.

On top of that Ebay can't figure out what is fraud and what is not.
They would need a team of in house experts to make the final decision.

RYK

I think that there is no way in Helisnski that ebay would go for that. First of all, they have no financial incentive to do so, as they probably make a significant amount of money on rip-offs. Second, imagine the cost and manpower associated with such an endeavor. Third, it would be a fiasco with lots of finger pointing and, no doubt, lots of innocent people getting caught up in the process.

Should they offer rewards for detecting coin frauds? Of course. Will they do it? No way.

A more realistic solution would be to hire a numismatist to monitor the auctions and perhaps be an ombudsman for coin-related disputes.

segoja

Like the thought, but not sure I or E-Bay would go for something like that. Too much finger pointing, is it real is it not, etc.

Take for example a counterfeit coin or added mintmark. May look obvious to an expert for the date/series, but how do you prove that to e-bay? Have the seller send the coin to PCGS for authentication? Then what if it happens to grade, or the guy sends a real one off. Who pays for those fees?

neat idea, difficult if not impossible to implement.

segoja

Majorbigtime, turn on your PM, or send me an e-mail segoja2000@yahoo.com

markglicker

I don't believe that they really care. I, and many others, have jumped through hoops, to get them to respond.

pharmer

Should they? Sure. And I should be more handsome. When your pm is on, I also have a secret missive for you, about ebay, fraud, and all that, but beware: you don't know who you can trust around here

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Barry

Ebay has as much incentive to do that as PCGS has to grade accurately the first time.

I'm sure it will come some day, but EBay needs a big class action suit to reign it in. Now, it's a monoply with no controls. Whatever happened to the lawsuit by Tiffany(?) and/or some of the other businesses about selling counterfeit products?

clw54

An auction for a 1955 DDO with the coinfacts.com photo is still there after being reported yesterday. The sellers claim it came out of a cookie jar.

MRK

Let's say I list a bogus coin at 1 cent with no reserve. I know it's bogus and I tell my next door neighbor to contact ebay about a fraudulent listing. Let's say hypothetically that the award for my neighbor's good deed is a check for $100. I tell him I'll split it with him at $50 each. Ebay contacts me about the bogus listing and I play dumb and say I had no idea the coin was bogus.
The only thing that might ring a bell is if I were to try this repeatedly and ebay notices that more than one of my listings are fraudulent and have been reported.

ebaytrader

Ebay should stay the heck out of monitoring auctions on their own - outside of what little they do know. It is a very slippery slope for them as they would put themselves into the position of being responsible for all of the content of 3 million auctions currently running around the world. Their responibility would translate into much higher fees to a point where they would no longer be competitive in the marketplace.

What would be better is for interested groups in cooperation with eBay to monitor different catagories and report to eBay for prompt action. I believe this could be extremely effective.

lloydmincy

What kills me is all of you actually look at coins on e-Bay!!! I DO hope you do it for entertainment only. The owners and officers of e-Bay are billionaires. THEY COULD CARE LESS.

Stuart

MBT: I think that you have a great idea, and would hope that E-Bay would encourage experts in specific fields to help them police their auctions. It would make a great PR campaign for them.


Lloyd: Every now and then, you can find some buried treasure on E-Bay if you are persistent enough and enjoy the hunt. Here's an 1891-CC PCGS MS-63 PL Morgan Dollar that I received last Saturday, that I purchased on E-Bay.

I really like her with the strong cameo contrast and nearly DMPL Mirrored Fields, especially with huge 3x price jump to 63 DMPL.

My New Photos:

High Resolution Image Link




Original Seller's Auction Photos - For Comparison:

High Resolution Image Link

zeus135

I don't think we're ready for eBay bounty hunters.

Weiss

<< <i>Ebay should stay the heck out of monitoring auctions on their own >>

ms70

It's a good concept but if someone reports an auction to eBay they would still have to verify it. I doubt they'd yank an auction on a stranger's say-so.

Maybe they could contract people to do it. That would be a nice job for a coin enthusiast who's retired!

291fifth

They are "only a venue." It's not going to happen.

markglicker

What would be better is for interested groups in cooperation with eBay to monitor different catagories and report to eBay for prompt action. I believe this could be extremely effective.

My understanding was that the ANA had a group, to review questionable coin sales, on Ebay.

I make my living on Ebay, and am troubled by the immense amount of fraud. I alway recommend that any Ebay purchase, be paid with credit card, through Paypal.

BBN

I could see it as a slippery slope also. You'd have competing sellers getting other auctions of similar interest shut down.

LindeDad

Lets think of it from there (eBay Management) side of the street.
Coins are 1 of about a 100 catagories.
About 1 in about 1000 coin auctions are bogus.
Do we really have a problem.

BlindedByEgo

<< <i>They are "only a venue." It's not going to happen. >>




That is their legal mantra. They have repeated it in court so many times even I am beginning to believe it

In theory having Ebay perform better due diligence is a wonderful idea; in practice it is impossible, for many of the reasons previously stated.

In the end, Ebay cannot take a more active role because of the venue issue. This, I believe, was the original underlying concept of the "Ebay community"

majorbigtime

<< <i>
About 1 in about 1000 coin auctions are bogus.


I believe you are off by a factor of 20 or more--more like one in 50 IMO

michael

Should Ebay offer rewards for detecting coin frauds?


yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

a kick in the a$$

sleezebay you gotta love it

nwcs

Would be great if they did but they won't.

Conder101

No, there is no reason to. If the ebay/ana coin fraud unit was just made more effective ie: when an auction is reported the coin fraud looks at it decides it is fraudulent and HAS THE POWER TO PULL IT, and therefor does so in a timely manner, there will be no NEED to. The collectors here and on other forums would fall all over themselves reporting the fraudulent auctions. Just getting the fraud auctions pulled would be reward enough for most of us.

I mean really, if you found a fraud auction and you knew that you culd get it pulled simply by reporting it, would you refuse to unless eBay gave you something?