One way to report counterfeit coins on eBay
MFeld
Posts: 15,126 ✭✭✭✭✭
Recently, a poster asked how to do this and the question has come up here previously, from time to time.
There are other ways to make reports, but copied below are the steps I take. I’ve been a fairly heavy reporter of counterfeits and scams during the past 20 years or so. Often, I feel like I’m beating my head against the wall and that with all of the counterfeits being offered/sold every day, my efforts are futile. But I feel better, at least trying and I have a decent success rate getting counterfeits taken down by eBay (and in some instances, by sellers, whom I message).
This is how I report counterfeits:
Click on “Report Item”
Under “Report Category”, select “Prohibited And Restricted Items”
Under “Reason For Report”, near the bottom of the options, select “Stamps, Currency And Coins”
Under “Detailed Reason”, select “Replica coins, replica paper money, and replica stamps”
Click on the “Continue” tab and a “Brief Description” box opens up
You can type a message there. I usually write “Counterfeit”. Sometimes I write “No genuine examples of this date were ever produced” or “Seller had this item listed previously and you ended the listing” or other.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Comments
I do this all the time, especially for early dollars.
Me too, and usually for Trade Dollars. Good post, Mark.
I do not report, it would be a full time unpaid job.
Thank you for this step by step.
Wayne
Kennedys are my quest...
I think you have performed another good service here, Mark. Thank you.
JIm
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
Thanks for posting this because it can be frustrating if one doesn't select the proper categories in the pull-down menus.
Again, Click "Report item", then...
1) "Prohibited and restricted items"
2) "Stamps, currency and coins"
3) "Replica coins, currency, stamps"
Then leave a brief explanation.
Wash, rinse, repeat if necessary.
@MFeld .... Thanks for posting those instructions... It can be a big help to other members who are unfamiliar with the process. Cheers, RickO
I tried it just now, for a counterfeit 1844-O half dime.
But after typing all the stuff in, and adding a photo comparison,
I get an error message "Report submission failed."
Any clues on what I did wrong?
Date digits shape comparison (genuine on top, fake on bottom).
Ebay link to seller in China:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/197683589135
And 2 more supposedly different sellers in China with the same photos
https://www.ebay.com/itm/146829162130
https://www.ebay.com/itm/376501444867
A good reminder. Wouldn't hurt to run a copy of that just to have handy....
non-text, non-punctiation characters are not allowed
quotes, slashes and more throw an error. stick to - , . : ;
and this eliminates posting urls
My post was from 2021 and some of the reporting particulars have changed since then. Also, sadly, these days, a much higher percentage of my reports - even of the most blatant of counterfeits - are rejected,
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Curious how effective that has been @MFeld?
I have more luck with the following approach:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/136451552859
I haven’t had any success getting bad listings taken down in quite a while.
@burfle23, as mentioned, I started this thread in 2021 and things have changed since then. Until the past year or so, I had a high success rate in helping to get counterfeit listings removed. But more recently, the results have been very poor. I’ll start trying it your way and hope that will help - thanks.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
I don't bother anymore - ebay always sides with the seller and doesn't find anything wrong with the listing.
Thank you @burfle23 .
I tried it using the IP category, and it was not rejected immediately.
That is, I did not get the "Report submission failed" error message.
None of my reports that ended up being rejected were done so immediately.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
The listing in my post was immediately removed...
In case people are interested in the counterfeit 1844-O half dime listings, I got this in a reply:
Kinda sad they can't see a CN counterfeit even with my comparison photo.
The upper photo is a MS-65+ finest known that sold for $40k.
May I suggest that somebody start a new thread with a step by step series of screen shots showing what you click on and what you say, etc?
OK, I made a new thread with detailed screen shots.
But I will defer to @burfle23 if he would like to make a better version.
https://forums.collectors.com/discussion/1116888/how-to-report-an-ebay-counterfeit-coin-2025
Thanks very much.
Mark Feld* of Heritage Auctions*Unless otherwise noted, my posts here represent my personal opinions.
Appreciate your efforts @MFeld as well as all those who are so vigilant against this crap.
Thank you.
I'm just glad some people are taking the time to do this, 👍