By Jack D. Young
Come on eBay! You can do better than this!
Several friends notified me of an obvious scam on eBay recently involving a PCGS certified 1882-CC image used by multiple sellers (showing the same origin location) listed for sale at a bargain price.
Past auction listing- I added seller’s reverse image to this
I have written previous articles on these “bait and switch” tactics by MANY eBay sellers using genuine coin images (to help fool artificial intelligence, which needs little help to do currently) to sell counterfeit coins. I have actually purchased a couple in the past just to see what a buyer would get and reported them and received my purchase price back.
So, a couple of bad signs with this listing:
Image of a genuine PCGGS certed example; PCGS shows a value of $450.00.
Listed price $39.99 with 2 sold and more than 10 available.
And the seller’s feedback notes:
Well, at least they show eBay “Verified purchases”!
And while I was reviewing this one 5 other listings with the same stock images but different sellers popped up; I started saving images and organizing my files:
From this I put a note together and sent a message to eBay alerting them about this scam and reported the subject listing.
Note to eBay
I reported them all through the feeble AI reporting process with all coming back as no policy violations including the subject example.
And so I decided to buy this one and see what I would receive.
And I received a typical CN counterfeit CC Morgan with the slashed eagle reverse!
I emailed the seller with no response; looks like he packed up his “shop,” and nothing now listed.
And going back to check the listing and follow-up I find eBay now removed the listing! It did allow me to request a return and leave appropriate feedback for the seller.
Now 3 negative feedbacks for the counterfeit bait and switch!
So we’ll see where this goes from here, as eBay stated they will step in if requested May 1. Pretty sure I won’t hear back from the seller by then.
And he apparently sold MANY of these through several different seller IDs right under eBay’s nose.
And continued reviewing turned up the genuine example and seller the scammers used for their listings:
So, come on eBay! You can do better than this.
We can do better, too, as hobbyists by learning how to identify fakes.
If you like posts like this, please go to our counterfeit archive with reports from Jack Riley, Jack D. Young, John Lorenzo and Michael Bugeja. Also, please subscribe so you can be informed whenever there is a new article or column.
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