NY Times article today about Ebay counterfeiting problem

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Posted By: Joann

Long, sorry - but this issue is a genuine concern to all electronic commerce in these cards and therefore to this hobby. Think what you might about ebay, but they are very important to the ability some of us have to particpate at all.

Link is below. Excellent article focusing on jewelry as examples but directed at the problem of counterfeiting in general. Tiffany Jewelry is suing ebay for facilitating fraud, and the article says that if successful it could dramatically change ebay - maybe even shut it down.

When you think about it from ebay's side, as represented well in the article, what really are they supposed to do? They don't have any expertise in product. If they go by what others say they are vulnerable to being used to settle grudges, disrupt competitors, etc. Who are they supposed to listen to in accusations like this?

They say they rely on the trademark owners like Tiffany's to pursue recourse against the counterfeiters, but what about vintage cards and the like that have no trademark owners?

It seems to me that this community (Net 54 VBC) is maybe uniquely positioned to propose some creative solutions. One of the striking things about this board is how widely represented the hobby is - no cliques or "special groups". Also, while members may have individual short spats, the group definitely seems to band together against outside threats to the hobby.

What would happen if we collectively and en masse violated ebay policy about not contacting bidders on false material? They can't shut down all of us, right?

And it seems to me that the hobby is so well represented here that there should be some way that it can be identified as the experts in this area. I wonder if there is a way that people wanting to sell something on ebay can get an endorsement of their auction by a recognized body (in this case, some manifestation of the people on this board) and show the endorsement in the auction. Then in each area (cards, jewelry, whatever) buyers would be made aware of the availability of the endorsement so they could bid with more confidence on endorsed product.

It could get sticky though, couldn't it? Maybe not to say affirmatively Yes or No to any single card, but more to create enough concern on the buyer's part to look into it, and maybe even links to a web page about spotting fakes. That's what ebay should do - host spotting fakes pages for routinely counterfeited auction items, and maybe recognized endorsers.

Sorry for the long post - but it seems like there must be a way for these communities to police themselves on a slightly more official level than now, without putting ebay in the position of having to be responsible for fakes they know nothing about.

The cohesiveness of this board seems to put us in a good position to try or propose something like that. Not as an offical Net 54 activity, but more as the central trading post for knowledge and expertise on fakes and counterfeits of vintage cards.

Thanks for listening. And for thinking.

Link below from today's New York Times. If it wants a password or something to open it, just go to www.nytimes.com and look for Katie Hafner's article in today's Technology section.

Joann

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/technology/29ebay.html?th&emc=th

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Arnold & Porter (Tiffany's attorneys) are heavyweights; they won't pull punches or settle short of trial unless ebay rolls over.

It would be nice to get rid of all the fake crap but I fear all ebay would have left in the vintage card field would be slabbed cards. Anything else could be challenged all too easily. What I think will happen is that ebay will have everyone who wants to list sign a statement under penalty of perjury that the items are genuine, and have anyone who wants to bid sign a disclosure that they assume full risk of the item being fake and hold ebay harmless from liability if it is a fake.

I don't think we as a board could or should get into the authenticating game. First of all, it is impossible to authenticate something without seeing it in person, although you can spot an obvious fake on line. I sure would not want to attest to it. Second, none of us are making money off this board and I dont' think anyone wants to start that.

One thing that Ebay has always been able to do but has never done is to seek the advice of experts in vintage cards who could scan the listings and stop fraudulent items. Hire me: I'd rather read ebay listings than practice law.

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Posted By: Joann

Yeah, I know no one would want to be officially involved - I was really just kind of riffing while I was thinking as hard as I could of some simple and creative solution. But anyone that got involved would assume a duty to the buyer and potentially be liable if something bad did get through.

I was trying to find a way to capture the learning that this board provides and make it available in a condensed version to potential buyers unfamiliar with the field. There really is so much knowledge here, and all concentrated in one spot, that I was trying to figure out some way to virtually can it, so to speak.

On the other hand, the knowledge on this board is available to anyone that wants to look for it, so maybe it is on the buyer to deal with the result of a bad buy if he doesn't take advantage of the availability. I know I invest a lot of time into trying to educate myself on these issues, including reading this board, keeping scan files of reprints and fake, watching ebay to 'practice' spotting fakes, etc. So maybe it is up to the buyer to invest the time needed to at least avoid the obvious scams. It's right here for anyone to use for free - just willingness to read and look a little.

All I know is that if ebay were to somehow have to fundamentally change their business practices in these kinds of things it may severely affect my ability to collect many of these cards. I like your prediction of having to sign buyers and sellers waivers. It would keep things moving, anyway.

Joann

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Posted By: leon

First of all very good points made and I think this can be a good discussion. It affects all of us in how we collect. I think Adam is correct. There is no one making money off of this board, per se, except whatever anyone does in the BST areas. The little link of mine at the top of the page is all I get, and I pay for that with the yearly dues and time I put in, imo.

I think ebay needs to take a little harder stand against fraud but the "caveat emptor" and "only a venue" arguments/statutes must have stood several court battles thus far. I don't know about anyone else but I don't want to take responsibility for declaring something fake or not, especially if there is no remuneration for the service. I don't propose that for this site either. Maybe I will elaborate more later....regards

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Posted By: Patrick McHugh

Although legal issues can be tricky ebay will be fine. In our little card collecting world on ebay we do see many frauds. Just think how many more scams are on ebay, jewelry, cars, coins, boats, etc. Just ask this will Prada shut down all new york city streets because the streets are the venue for the counterfit bags.I agree I wish all the crooks on ebay would just go away.

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Posted By: Cat

I believe the good that could come out of this lawsuit is that EBay finally admits that there is a problem. My personal view by seeing interviews with the CEO and spokespersons is that they portray EBay as "one big happy problem-free community." I can understand them having this public persona...it's good for business, but there business model fails to admit (behind the scenes) that there is a problem...even if they don't want to admit it publicly.

I believe cards are a huge part of EBay's revenue stream...I wouldn't venture a guess as to a percentage...but it is material. There are a couple of little things that they could do to cut down on the fraud, at least in the card market. Failure to do a few simple things over the years tells me they do not care. Perhaps Tiffany's will force them to care.

1. Do not allow private listings. It is so easy to help fellow buyers out if you have a mechanism to contact them. But when you do not know who the bidder is, the system falls apart and there is no way to inform an uninformed bidder/purchaser that the card is a fake.

2. Do not allow people to hide their feedback. What is the use of having a feedback system if you can't see it.

3. Stop retaliatory feedback. Why can someone leave me, as a buyer, negative feedback when it is proven I have paid through PayPal. As a buyer, my responsibility is to pay. If I do that I should never have to worry about negative feedback and therefore can leave accurate feedback without retribution. Since EBay owns PayPal now, this would be such an easy change for them to make. It may actually move more people to pay with PayPal.

4. Change the feedback system to categorize the issues. Feedback that is either a global "A" or "F" just doesn't cut it. Sometimes I read where a seller got poor feedback just because they didn't use quite enough bubble wrap in the buyers opinion. SHEEESSSHHH. Perhaps there could be feedback categories such as this: Speed of shipping, quality of packaging, product accurately described, etc. etc. Grade all these on a one to five basis.

5. In the feedback system leave the product listing description available for eternity...this would take just one extra line in the feedback system. You can get into a sellers feedback and read every feedback comment since they joined EBay, but you have no idea what those items were. If I am bidding on a $2,000 card and the seller has 150 feedback it doesn't do me any good to know that if I can't determine what those feedbacks were based on. Big deal if they have 150 feedbacks if they were based on selling 99 cent Yu-gi-oh cards. I would think most honest sellers would actually appreciate this change. I have sold many high dollar cards in my past, but you can't tell this necessarily by my feedback, because many of them were years ago and those listings are long gone out of the system...only a comment with no description as to the card remains. A dollar price of the item sold may help too.

I am sure there are 50 more simple changes they could make to fix their problem, but I'll leave that to someone else.

Edited to correct typos unless otherwise noted.

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Posted By: MW

Cat,

#5 is a good idea.

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Posted By: Cat

Well 1 for 5 gets me to the Mendoza line. LOL

Edited to correct typos unless otherwise noted.

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Posted By: Joann

Bravo Cat! All good ideas, and all completely addressable by ebay without having any of the buy/sell communities involved.

To #5 I would add: If feedback by either party is negative, have the entire auction including photos, description, etc available for a much longer period of time. So if comment is "sold me a reprint" anyone could look at the original description and scans and see.

And they should change their policy on auction interference to allow bidders to be contacted by other ebayers for fraud alert. Even if some want to use it for retaliatory reasons, or it's all he said/she said, at least the buyer should be sufficiently alerted to decide to investigate a little bit. Just giving someone that bid $200 on a Cobb reprint a link to the board, some of the other net sites dealing w/reprints, etc would be enough.

I think ebay will survive too, and maybe the gloom and doom talk is just grandstanding and veiled threats to ebayers (live with it or we'll go away). But I do think that even vague threats to ebay's fundamental operations are serious enough to at least consider.

Joann

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Posted By: davidcycleback

1) Enforsement, prosecution and pentalties against fraud.

We on this board know of regular and eternal fraud sellers on eBay. The have existed for years, the will continue for years, eBay knows about them and in fact created their own category (paper stock cutouts category = give me a break, eBay). If these sellers who we at Net54, those at CU chatboard and thost at eBay are allowed to sell daily and eBay accepts the $$ for their sales, all the other other details are irrelevant.


2) Many collectors aren't interested in educating themselves.

For a week, I had a copy of my booklet "Judging the Authenticity of Early Baseball Cards" listed with BIN on eBay in baseball card section. All a newbie baseball card collector has to do is read the title of the booklet to know what the booklet is about-- the title's not written in Latin or haiku or sign language. The booklet went unsold, but, during that week, probably 100 paper stock cutouts, PRO and AAA graded cards and "selling as reprint" T206s and Goudeys sold, each at a price much higher than the cost of the booklet.

There will always be eBayers who are uninterested in learning about what they buy, and these are the folks who buy 95% of the fakes. If you skipped all your classes, never opened a book and took your finals hung over, you would have a lot of gall to blame Harvard for not giving you a bachelors degree. Yet, many eBayers choose not to educate themselves about what they are buying, then blame eBay because they bought what are obvious fakes and scams.

I once wrote a small beginner's booklet to wirephotos and offered it for a few dollars to anyone who was interested in purchasing. The first buyers were not newbies, but people I knew to already be knowledgeable about photographs and wirephotos. At first this suprised me, as I had assumed it would be the newbies not the knowledgeable who would want the guide. It soon dawned on me that the result should have been expected, as it is only natural that the knowldgeable are the ones who purchase and read books about the subject that interests them.

Since then, I have known this is how it works. All collectors have the same access to the information, books, websites and information. Some chose to access the information and some don't. Those who access the information are typically the ones genuinelly interested in what they collect. If you're fascinated by cards or antique baseball bats, you'll naturally be interested in learning about how they were made, their history, leap at the chance to ask the top experts tons of questions, etc. On the other hand, those who don't access information are typically not interested in the material beyond the 'inventment' or 'resale' value. Ironically, it is the latter who are most likley to make big 'investment' blunders, in part because the are ones most likely to fall for scams and fakes.

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Posted By: Cat

"If you skipped all your classes, never opened a book and took your finals hung over..."

I've been outed.

Edited to correct typos unless otherwise noted.

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Posted By: martin dalziel

Cat,
Excellent post and some good ideas. My thoughts on your suggestions.

1. Do not allow private listings. It is so easy to help fellow buyers out if you have a mechanism to contact them. But when you do not know who the bidder is, the system falls apart and there is no way to inform an uninformed bidder/purchaser that the card is a fake.

MD - 1) Ebay forbids contacting bidders, so theres no basis for Ebay to make this happen 2) I think there are legitimate reasons for private listings - eg. there are legal but controversial things on ebay, along with high dollar items, where bidders prefer to remain annonomous - a suggestion may be for the bidders themselves to be able to choose to be visible or not

3. Stop retaliatory feedback.
MD - I don't see how, without a tremendous amount of administration, that this could be put in place. I should have the right to respond to feedback and offer my side of the story. It doesn't follow that the first one to leave feedback is the one who is right.

I agree 100% on your other suggestions.

Theres really not a lot I'd change about Ebay - like many others on here, i've used it for years (9+ for me) and have had few problems, and the two that i have had were of my own making (didn't ask questions) and thus my own fault. I don't think Ebay has any obligation but to ensure that their site stays up and functions - its up to the rest of us to figure out whats good and what isn't.

I do think that allowing people to contact bidders is fraught with risks - theres enough concern about bidders contacting sellers to end auctions early, how much better if you can now legitimately scare off the competing bidders. You'd hope that people wouldn't/don't do that, but you know it will. No different than wishing people didn't knowingly sell fake crap.

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Posted By: Charlie O'Neal

I agree with Cat on the points that he made in an earlier post about how to inprove eBay with one exception and a couple of things I would like to see added myself.
I like the idea of Cat's #5 but I'm a little uneasy with having the final price I paid for all the auctions I have won b/c overtime it would be to easy for a thief to go thru and find people that make high dollar purchases thru eBay and then request that person's contact information and then scope him/her out and take what they want from the person when they are away. Basically robbing you blind b/c they have a very good idea of what you have at home. I know it's being very parnoid but with one of my experiences it has made me change the way I buy on eBay.

Things I would like to see changed on eBay:

1. For items that will go over a set amount make the seller add his/her ebay id on a written piece of paper to ensure that the scan is not stolen.

2. Make ebay in charge of feedback. If a sell doesn't go thru for what ever reason ebay leaves the feedback such as buyer did not pay. Seller did not ship item etc. I would hope this would make a feedback rating more accurate since people would not be scared of ruining there feedback rating b/c someone is dishonest.

3. Ebay gets rid of 1 cent auctions entirely. Too many people are getting there feedback rating b/c of using this methoid to boost there score before they sale anything and it's not a truely honest feedback.

4. A seller has to be very well establised in the eBay community before a seller can list auctions that bring in large amounts of money. Just b/c I'm tired of seeing a $25,000 card trying to be sold by someone with a feedback under 5.

I'll get off my rant now.

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Posted By: Joann

Clip from ebay announcement by the VP of Policy Management. Announcement was from Thursday. I wonder if it was b/c of the NYT article scheduled for publication today. At least it will address one of the frequent frustrations of people here - the maze you have to go through to try to report a fraudulent item. So... some progress.

Although ... I think some of the ideas posted here are even better.

Joann

Making it easy to detect policy violations
One of the most important ways we learn about listings that violate our policies is through reports from other Community members. You've told us that the process for reporting suspicious activity has been too cumbersome. So to make it easier for members to send us these reports, in the spring of 2006, every item page will have a "Report this Item" link at the bottom of the page. This link will bypass the Contact Us flow and take you to a list of possible reasons why a listing needs to be brought to our attention. It will save you valuable time and help us review the listing quickly.

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Posted By: martin dalziel

Lets hope that come of spring of 2006 when the listings fees go up that people will remember why - to provide more service Ebay'll need more people, more people is more money, and more money should means higher fee's. Just don't stick it to us shareholders by eating into profits

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Posted By: barrysloate

I read the article too and like everyone else a lot of things crossed my mind. First, it is apparent that most of the board members buy and sell on ebay, and by the impassioned responses on this thread we all have a host of complaints about how it functions. We would all like ebay to better police its site but the article stated that at any given time 60 million objects are up for sale, in thousands of different categories from collectibles to cars to clothing, jewelry, etc. How can they ever police that many items, and how could they become expert in everything? It would be impossible. Most of us can spot a fake T206 in about two seconds; but could you look at pictures of a classic car and know whether all the interior parts are original as stated by the seller? No possible way. I think we can all thank our lucky stars that most vintage cards are slabbed; good or bad, that gives us all the peace of mind to buy items from a seller we may not know. Nevertheless, we find countless examples of sellers stealing images- such as the ones recently hijacked from the T206 museum- so no transaction is foolproof. I think in the end we all have to exercise really good judgment because for every scam exposed two new ones are being hatched.
Ebay allows all of us to give and receive feedback but we all agree that system is deeply flawed. Quite frankly, I would be afraid to give even the worst customer negative feedback because I have a 100% rating and I fear retaliation. There needs to be improvement in that area so that if say a buyer is scammed he can leave a negative and then the seller is locked out until he can state his case to ebay. But it seems this behemoth company just wants to present itself as an impartial middleman that brings buyer and seller together. I can understand their position, but the fact is ebay is both the best marketplace ever created and at the same time a dangerous place to shop. The vast majority of one's experiences are good, but when you deal with some unknown quantity operating in cyberspace you do in fact take a chance.

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Posted By: Anson

Personally, I would like to see a vintage card-dedicated auction site that run continuously. Not so much an auction house but something more in the framework of a real-time auction National Sportscards site.

Maybe a system that sustained purely on a buyer's premium with no listing fees or special consideration. All listing functions and parameters would be defined by the site itself and it would be MUCH easier to police. Being that the folks running the show would be vintage-card focused, they could bump off any trash that came on boad.

Yes, I'm dreaming but I need to keep my imagination fresh somehow.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Anson- that sounds like a good idea but I think if we all started one we might reach about 1% of the audience that ebay does. Like I said, in some ways ebay is the best marketplace in the world, but it needs many improvements.

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Posted By: identify7

Like most others, I am unhappy with what has become of our hobby. I hate the fact that I have to go into my family bathroom in the dark with baseball cards and a black light, while everyone else in my family looks at me as an even greater screwball than normal. And then what? Look at other cards with a microscope? Get a grip, Gil.

It is not a hobby when you have to do this. I agree with the inexperienced collectors - this should be for fun. I lament that unbridled fun is gone from our hobby. That Cycleback's book is necessary is clear. That Cycleback's book is necessary somehow makes it less fun for me.

Tiffany & Co. will not be able to impact the eBay process as it relates to baseball cards sufficiently to make a real (no bathroom/black light) difference imho. But Tiffany & Co. isn't trying to impact the baseball card practises of eBay.

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Posted By: davidcycleback

Counterfeit trading cards and fakes have been around for years. It wasn't invented by eBay.

My advice to beginning collectors who want to have good clean fun is to make a list of quality sellers and buy from them. Ask around, start by buying inexpensive items and seeing how the deal goes. If the deal works well, you've got yourself a good seller. Good sellers were put on this earth to make your life as a collector easier and funner. Take advantage of their services.

My other advice is to start by buying inexpensive items. If you spend $5 on a 1974 Topps Tom Seaver and it turns out to be a reprint, no big deal. If you spend $15 on a Hank Green berg wirephoto and it turns out to be second generation, the photo may still be worth $15. If you have no clue what you are doing and purchase a postcard for $2 at an antique store because it looks nice to you, I see nothing wrong with that purchase.

There is no reason a collector has to make $1,000 and $2,000 purchases to have fun. In fact, I bet the average collector purching $3 trinkets that catch their fancy at the local antique store or will look nice on the hallway wall are having twice the fun of those droping thosands on PSA 10 Gem Mint cards and Kobe Briant signed UDA/PSA/GAI/matching hologam jerseys.

So, I am all for beginners having good clean care free fun collecting inexpensive items that they think are super cool. If you think that $15 concert poster looks swell framed and hung from your wall, I'll tell you that it was well worth the purchase price whether or not it was original. And if you bought a $10 aluminum baseball ring that you've enjoyed wearing on your finger for the last year, I'll tell you that that you made a fine purchase even if neither you nor I have a clue as to the ring's age or book value.

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Posted By: Anonymous

That Quote - about adding the link at the bottom of the page, was actually made in an email from eBay many moons ago....

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Posted By: identify7

I have to agree with those statements, Mr. Rudd. I find quite often, and as recently as this week, I get as much enjoyment from a $20. purchase as one for many times that amount.

And when faced with the "necessity" for a larger dollar purchase, one avenue available which eliminates the necessity for a trip to the dark with eerie lights is to purchase the card in a holder from a reputable company.

Because although we have heard stories of those holder companies mislabeling cards and assigning a grade which the consensus says is too high or too low; I do not recall any slabber of repute stating a fake to be a genuine original card. Although they have clouded the issue with questionable terminology, such as "questionable authenticity".

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Posted By: tistaT206

Great discussion as many have made excellent points. As a newbie to vintage card collecting, counterfeiting, trimming, altering etc... are all a concern to me. I have read and researched these issues long and hard before making my first purchases and have done my best to determine which sellers appear to be "honest". It does appear that many make purchases on eBay, and high $$$ purchases at that, without doing any due dilligence, and then wonder why they got taken? Sure eBay can make improvements, but people need to educate themselves...ignorance is no excuse in my opinion.

If anyone can point me in the direction of materials regarding determining counterfeit/altered vintage cards, I would greatly appreciate it. I am also willing to pony up a few $$$ for anyone's write-up's, pamphlets, guides, etc...that they may have put together. Davidcycleback, I would be interested in purchasing your booklet if still available. Thanks.

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Posted By: Dennis W.

Some very good points have been made here concerning ebay and their policing (or lack of) auction ads for frauds. I'd like to throw my $.02 in on a few things.

First of all, I'd hate for ebay to put additional restrictions on the buyers or sellers as some have suggested. This just penalizes the honest folks and there's already enough of that going on in the world.

A question to some of the law professionals on the board. I'd compare ebays business model as similiar to a shopping mall owner with ebay's website being their "mall". They themselves declare that they are nothing more than a gathering place of buyers and sellers. If a shopping mall allowed one of their vendors to set up shop selling fake Coach handbags could they be held liable? I don't see the difference.

I don't think keeping completed auctions available indefinitely for feedback reference purposes as being feasible. Ebay has 10's of thousands of auctions active at any given time. Archiving all of those transactions long term would be a logistical nightmare. Also, many sellers don't use ebay's servers for hosting their images they use external servers. That's why sometimes the picture is gone when browsing completed auctions. It's doable but not without significant costs involved and guess who'd end up absorbing them?

The biggest problem I have with ebay concerning the card market is that they do not make people use the proper categories. The clowns that sell cut-outs in the card categories should be forced to use the cut-out category or have their auctions ended and/or NLRU'd. This would cut down on some of the fraud. Same goes for the reprint category. If you're "selling as a reprint" (that phrase is starting to make me ill) then list it in the reprint category. Ebay doesn't enforce this because they would make less money that way.

Lastly, I believe the ebay as we know it today is on the verge of major changes. Ebay is a monopoly whether most people believe it or not. Some could argue that there are other online auctions, but the reality is ebay essentially owns the market. Just ask Bill Gates. What these changes will be is anyones guess.

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Posted By: Josh K.

"Lastly, I believe the ebay as we know it today is on the verge of major changes. Ebay is a monopoly whether most people believe it or not."

Some of you corporate lawyers out there can correct me if Im wrong (its been a long time since I took corporations in law school), but I dont believe that there is anything wrong with being the only player in the game (i.e. a de facto monopoly such as ebay). The problems arise when the monopoly tries to prevent others from competing in the market. This is what got microsoft into trouble.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Intellectual property rights owners have been emboldened by the RIAA's success with the file sharing sites, who also claim to only be a middleman but who have been slaughtered because they knew what was going on and did nothing to prevent it. I think that is the direction Tiffany's is going. The issue is whether and when a "neutral" party, knowing it is enabling a crime or fraud, has the duty to step in and stop it. I think we passed the point of plausible deniability a long time ago with ebay. Fact is, ebay is undoubtedly aware that there is a ton of fraudulent crap being sold through its site, yet it does nothing about it and it profits mightily from it. How many complaints have members of this board made to ebay over the years? And the result is...paper cut out crap sold as cards in the graded cards section of ebay, fake Wagners by the dozens, "selling as a reprint" so common that it should have its own category, etc.

All of the suggestions made in this string are, with all due respect, not that hard to figure out; it strains credibility to believe that ebay cannot figure them out too. If you have thousands of complaints, millions of dollars of losses, thousands of victims, entire web sites devoted to ebay scams and frauds, large corporate profits, and a company that does none of the easily implemented disclosure and/or monitoring steps that we can brainstorm, it is only a matter of time before someone with sufficient skin in the game gets angry enough to file a case and push it to the end.