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eBay tells me...."They allow forgeries" I'm NOT JOKING GUYS.

I brought up eBay seller: this-n-thatsportscollectiblesplusmore the other day and after going through his account and calculating how much money he has made on forgeries, I decided to call eBay yesterday. After being transferred around, I finally get a hold of someone in (Fraud Resolution) and this person seemed to have knowledge of autographs.

At any rate, I firstly explained my frustration with eBay allowing forgeries to constantly be sold on their site and how it seems that eBay has a serious lack of concern in relation to the problem of forgeries being sold on their site.

HIS RESPONSE: The Fraud Department does its very best to weed out easily identifiable forgeries and those of higher valued items by using Third Party Authenticators to look at items that have been reported. However, it is the buyers responsibility to do their own research before bidding

I then asked why Global Authentication is still an eBay approved authenticator with their reputation of authenticating thousands and thousands of forgeries on a monthly basis.

HIS RESPONSE: I will have to defer on that question because I don't have an answer for you. I will pass that comment along to the fraud department.

I then brought up seller this-n-thatsportscollectiblesplusmore who has sold over 250,000 $$$ dollars in forgeries all authenticated by Global Authentication. I explained that I go in weekly to report his items, yet they never get removed.

HIS RESPONSE: In order for an item to be removed it must be reported by multiple eBay users.

SO AFTER THIS WHOLE CONVERSATION, I feel that eBay is very passive on forgeries. Based on this conversation, it honestly seemed to me that they don't give a rats tail if people sell forgeries.

LET'S DO THIS...GO TO this-n-thatsportscollectiblesplusmore and report every item you think is fake. Let's just see if we all report if eBay will do anything about him. He has sold over 1,000 Tom Brady signed Helmets and Footballs and I have reported EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. By myself NONE OF THEM HAVE EVER BEEN REMOVED. Let us see if as a team, we can get action. So go look at the autographs you feel are fake and report them. Will it get a response out of ebay?

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Permalink Reply by Steve Zarelli on October 26, 2014 at 7:15am

The [eBay] Fraud Department does its very best to weed out easily identifiable forgeries and those of higher valued items by using Third Party Authenticators to look at items that have been reported.

How does one define "easily identified forgeries"? The person's name is spelled wrong? My sense is the bar for "easily identified" is extremely high. Same with "higher valued." Maybe they have someone look at $50,000 Babe Ruth baseballs, but clearly thousands of $100+ fakes are sold on eBay weekly.

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Permalink Reply by Jason Poulos on October 26, 2014 at 7:20am

You are absolutely correct. I see tons of easily identifiable forgeries on eBay daily, yet..........EBAY DOES NOTHING TO STOP IT.

Go through and report all the items you feel are forgeries by seller this-n-thatsportscollectiblesplusmore . I want to see if several people report, if ebay will pull his items. That is what the " fraud department " said...........I have to see it to believe it.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on October 26, 2014 at 7:29am

Well written, Steve.

Ebay sellers of forgeries know the market (the Ebay market), and they know who to target.

Thousands of forgeries are sold on Ebay every week; the majority of those forgeries sell for under $100.00. Ebay makes a fortune on forgeries every single week.

Ebay counts on the fact that the majority of Ebay autograph buyers are wannabe autograph collectors; they have ZERO knowledge of autographs.

For approximately two years Ebay did a credible job of removing forgeries.

There is too much money for Ebay to lose if they remove forgeries.

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Permalink Reply by wascher on October 26, 2014 at 7:19am

I know that we can report individual items, but do they have any place anywhere on eBay where people can report individual sellers by their seller name instead of just single items?

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Permalink Reply by Jason Poulos on October 26, 2014 at 7:23am

Not that I know of Wascher. This particular seller this-n-thatsportscollectiblesplusmore has sold so many forgeries as of late that I decided to make it my personal mission to get him banned. If you look at his past feedback you will see he has graduated from Tom Brady 8x10 forgeries to now selling footballs and helmets. He is making a killing selling this Global authenticated garbage. I'm fed up with forgers and the ones with power feedback like he has, almost have a free pass to rip people off.

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Permalink Reply by Mike T on October 26, 2014 at 8:49am

I know legit sellers who have had items removed and accounts suspended because they were trying to fight forgeries. Once you start costing these crooks thousands of dollars in sales, don't expect them to play nice. They can report legitimate listings just as easily as we can report bad ones. This was a big problem in the eBay Beatles autograph market a while back.

While I wish that eBay would take a harder stance, its not something they have the resources to benefit from attacking. They can't win. If they had TPAs review every item posted, people would complain about their postings being limited to the opinions of TPA's. If they let buyers do their own research, it breeds a lot of forgeries. The reporting system isn't terrible, at least it's something. Autographs are such a small slice of ebays business and they have to worry about fakes and counterfeits in every other category as well. I think the fact that they do anything is positive. It will only get better as the dedicated people on this site keep fighting.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on October 26, 2014 at 8:55am

Mike T wrote "I know legit sellers who have had items removed and accounts suspended because they were trying to fight forgeries. Once you start costing these crooks thousands of dollars in sales, don't expect them to play nice."

I know, it has happened to me more than once....

But I don't care; I'll continue to do what I've been doing for over a decade; exposing Ebay sellers of forgeries!!!!

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Permalink Reply by Mike T on October 26, 2014 at 9:18am

It's people like you that make this hobby so much better for the rest of us. Thank you for what you do and keep up the good work!

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on October 26, 2014 at 9:33am

Well thank you, Mike, but there are quite a few people who battle Ebay and the sellers of forgeries despite the obstacles and frustrations.

Unfortunately, there are too few of us, and the scammers know it.

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Permalink Reply by Mike T on October 26, 2014 at 9:45am

If you right click on the "Report Item" link on the listing page, you can select Copy Link and paste that link directly into your AML posting. For people like me who are constantly on mobile devices consuming the site, it will cut out about 4 frustrating steps in the reporting process.

I've had the most luck reporting items for copyright and trademark infringement, under which you can select a counterfeit item sub-category. In my experience they act more quickly on these reports.

I'm sure you already know all of this Christopher, but I figured I would post it for the benefit of others as well. Thanks again for your dedicated work.