Counterfeit John Adams coins, NOT!

Kaelasdad

Just got home and found out that Ebay shut down all my current auctions for my John Adams PCGS First day Issue MS66 and MS65 coins. Seems they either made a decision that the John Adams were counterfeit, or some little birdy told them they were counterfeit. All my completed auctions were deleted, and everyone was informed of my naughty little counterfeit operation.

If I was actually selling counterfeit John Adams coins, boy would I feel like i was caught redhanded. I did inform Ebay that they had an idiot on staff, and that there was such a thing as John Adams coins.

Ebay never ceases to amaze me. It never occurred to them that maybe someone didnt want me selling MS66s this weekend, so they simply made me go away. Luckily, most had used Paypal, so i was able to contact everyone and ease their concerns.

Now the funny part, Ebay credited back all the fees I had in listing the coins, to the cent, including the Final Value Fees. So all of my Adams auctions this weekend, ended up being free, and all the guys who bought my items, i didnt even get charged for.

Im so confused--should i be ticked, or should ibe tickled, because, what the heck, thanks to whoever my competition was, you saved me a few extra hundred bucks in fees, and i get to relist tomorrow.

wondercoin

Welcome to the world of competitive ebay selling! You should be "tickled pink" - you saved hundreds of dollars in fees and you have a great story to tell in your auctions you might be listing tomorrow!

Wondercoin

Kaelasdad

You know me Mitch--I love telling stories, youre right, tomorrow will be fun. Russ

Enjoymint

The refunding of EBAY fees was a very nice appology IMO.

basestealer

<< <i>The refunding of EBAY fees was a very nice appology IMO. >>


I think that was their duty, or should I say the least they could do. It amazes me how large the pool of potential eBay employees is (believe me, it's extremely large and most are qualified with college degrees), and how absolutely incompetant most of them actually are. I know it's difficult to staff that sort of operation with a specialist for each category, although its not impossible to do so... they wouldn't need to worry about it so much if they didn't have so many confusing rules and such an incohesive method of enforcing them. We've all seen scammers as plain as day listing right and left, and eBay does nothing after mountains of reports, and now this--a totally erroneous report is acted on without thought or investigation. Should a report, no matter how absurd, trigger an investigation? Sure. But should a report, no matter how absurd, trigger an automatic cancellation of auctions and should all reports lead to action? NO! I could understand this happening with a '64 Peace dollar, but a 2007 Adams dollar? They minted 350 million of them! All the rep has to do to know it's legitimate is turn on the tv, OR go to the US mint website, or *gasp* check the plethera of other identical ebay auctions to verify that the coins do indeed exist... he has no way of knowing if they are counterfeit or not regardless, but common sense would dictate a little mass produced dollar token wouldn't be a counterfeiter's choice medium.

LincolnCentMan

You could always sue ebay for liabal.

-David

basestealer

<< <i>You could always sue ebay for liabal.

-David >>


Maybe libel per se, but if all the buyers completed the transaction he'd have a hard time proving damages.

Kaelasdad

The way Ebay acts on these canceled auctions is the same: if Ebay cancels your auction, it immediately reverses all fees associated with the auction. Its not an apology or an act of kindness. Its to take away any recourse you might want to have to sue them--in their eyes, youre the bad guy already for selling something so sinister as a counterfeit, so no way you would sue for lost sales, and then you cant sue Ebay for keeping your money as well.

What has been noted is that if John Adams coins were suspected counterfeit, all John Adams auctions should have been taken down. Only mine were taken. Also, anyone who bought any MS65s still showed as completed auctions on my Ebay page, only MS66 sales disappeared. Its pretty clear that Ebay received a complaint that somehow, my 66s were counterfeit, and all auctions with 66s were eliminated, and my auction for 65s was taken down, perhaps because it referenced my 66s in other auctions.

I have had some friends tell me that Paypal is a pain and costs too much. Theyre right of course, but in this case, it was a saving grace, Ebay took away every contact on those auctions, but they didnt touch any Paypal funds, so I had details on each sale and could contact each purchaser.

I had a friend go through something similar when he was selling smooth edges and someone made the same counterfeit complaint (he had not even shipped a single coin at that time, so how could anyone know if they were counterfeit or not?). All of his data was erased, he only took checks, and he had headaches from people for weeks asking where were their coins, or canceled checks, or checks from poeple with no notes to figure out what they had purchased.

If you are the victim of one of these attacks, Ebay gives you no opportunity to respond, your auctions vanish, your data vanish, and you are told nothing, and no one is ever revealed as the culprit.

I guess I need to print out my paid auctions as soon as I can to keep a paper file in case this competitor decides Im a fun target.

Sotty

Funniest thing I ever read here.

TwoSides2aCoin

When Meg gets too big for her britches, her pants won't fall down, they'll split at the seam.
Then you will all know the true meaning of CRACK OUT !
I had my finger on the trigger, too

LALASD4

Its not the first time I heard that story. It seems like they only do that to people with no counterfeits, if you are selling counterfeits, I bet they won't shut you down.