@katoombasales

@australianauctions

which I figure is the same person.

You say that you bought the coin so you had proof it was false and for sure, your feedback photos back you up. And I am sure you think that might help buyers.

But do you realise how many steps it takes for buyers to even see them?

There are a lot of buyers who don't even bother to check feedback at all. They might look at the overall rating and say oh it's up there at about 98%, that's okay.

Then there are some who will hit the feedback tab, and what will they see?

I tried it out. At first it takes you to a screen view that shows 6 'recent' feedback, all positive and not in order. What I saw was a positive from this last month plus some from within 6 months, then ending in another positive from this month.

At this stage, a lot of buyers would say-looks all positive over the last few months and stop there.

If they make an extra click, "see all feedback' as I did, they come to a general page. Mine shows 25 comments per page. There is only one neg on that page and it is low down. Your comment is actually 3 pages back for me. so somewhere almost 75 comments back before I can see your neg & I will only see photo details if I open your neg properly.

Of course I could just click on negs and your comment comes up faster, but what I am saying is ebay doesn't make it easy for customers to see. Your comment shouldn't be after some from 6 months back.

I think the item location misrepresentation is important in that the coins are coming direct from a country where counterfeit is legal.

I admire your efforts to get sellers like this shut down. Most of us here would love to see ebay acting more against scammers but unless the big guns get involved, Aust mint etc, I fear they will continue to thrive in ebay. I am glad you managed to get an ad pulled but as you say, the seller wasn't deregistered, just put up a different ad.

Here's a screenshot of where your comment is showing for me. And if you see the comments, how many people are swearing the products are genuine, which I think is probably not the case.

Just an update: Ebay has authorised return to her at Victoria address and supplied return label. The listing I bought from has supposedly been removed (This listing has been removed for a policy violation.) but it seems she has just replaced with an identical one

@katoombasales

Yes, on one of your photos (the sideways view) it clearly shows up that the coins are not the same.

At that price and suspecting it was counterfeit, I personally would not have bought it & I would be interested to know if ebay will grant a refund if you open a claim for this item, so please let us know.

I have been mightily confused by this thread as when I looked at feedback given, what i was seeing was that you bought it off a seller based in Australia.

Who is (of course!) one of ebay's most reputable sellers.

But it sounds as if they organise to have the couns sent direct from China.

I have not been able to look at the actual ads where that seller received recent neg feedback. So I looked at one of the seller's current ads for a coin and it is saying located in Bentleigh, Vic.

Did your ad say that? Then you may be able to get at them for false item location details, I am not sure.

But the chances of ebay shutting down this seller are about nil.

I think the problem is so many buyers won't have the real coins to compare to, so they are going to give this seller a positive. And every sale is commission for ebay. They don't really care if you, a private buyer, claim these are fakes. It takes big companies or corporations to intimidate them.

@australianauctions

"Really, do you think they can use bots to get feedback ?, I doubt it there needs to be a verified sale with tracking"

Perhaps take some time to read some of the threads here on our forum ?

Have you any idea how many hundreds to thousands of UK and AU accounts have been hijacked and had their country of registration changed to Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, to name just a few countries ?

The US site introduced eBay automated postive feedback well before the AU site so they all boosted their feedback for fake transactions there and are now happily scamming on the US site.

They have plenty of hijacked account IDs to fall back on.

Along with all the hijacked accounts and fake tracking for sale on Facebook !

Those are often linked to users in Pakistan.

eBay automated feedback IS just that, automated feedback left by eBay bots

Doubt away

All the bots needs is something was posted, something, nothing else is taken into account

Does not matter if it was what was listed or a pile of wet rags

eBay automated feedback has zero involvement from human buyers

Read up on it

You had all the evidence from the other buyers saying it was fake, there is no excuse to support a scammer seller. You are more protected if you do not buy from a scammer AND you help protect others by not helping a scammer stay in business

I wanted to see how good it was (very good) and use it as evidence. I should be protected under buyer protection anyway. Really, do you think they can use bots to get feedback ?, I doubt it there needs to be a verified sale with tracking

Looking at the seller's initial feedback when they first started , after that the majority of the following positive automatic feedback from eBay (for counterfeit items) will be a network of fake transactions, by sending 'something' to 'someone' that showed tracking.

Trying to build up good feedback to continue scamming ,

with eBay happily aiding and abetting fraud.

No surprise

eBay won't touch sellers in China

eBay fully support scammer sellers and refuse to do anything about things like knock off death trap batteries and used underwear

Regular members here are well aware

Why on earth would you intentionally buy one though?

All that achieved was to support a scammer

The seller already has numerous negs for fake coins and fake sunglasses and most of their positive feedback is from eBay bots

There was zero chance what you bought was going to be real