Ebay Reporting fakes is useless, Ebay seem to condone fake items being listed!

[pjbracer1]

I like to browse for things like watches and other luxury items to keep up to date with pricing and trends, and maye find a bargain!

Of late i was looking at Rolex GMT Master 2, and found several items clearly fakes but with people placing bids on I assume what they think is a bargain, they even had the authenticty blue tick! 

I know a fair bit about them as ive been a watch nerd for many years and owned a few, I decided to use the report function to hopefully save some poor person being scammed out of money and a fair chunck of it too. 

I reported them as counterfeit which they are, and some were laughable, they were so bad! All of the items reported were allowed to continue after and ebay customer servcie person reviewed them and found them not to be in conflict with the there terms! 

This has to raise questions on the safety of any value items listed and that the authentcitiy program is also not fit for purpose (i appreciate that its happens after the sale but perhaps a quic glance at the listing by a pro for high value items wouldnt go a miss and and to stop alterations after any edits require re-apporval by a pro so stop listing a gen item nd then updating pics to the couneterfeit or not even bothering.

There is on the other hand the idea that this is not a listing for the item at all and is just a fake listing to pay for other types of goods, in plane sight, as it often the case of "getting paid" through legitimate channels so to speak! 

I guess i dont expect Ebay to really care in the slightest however they, do have a duty of care. 

Food for thought but for anyone reading this be extra careful with any high value items even if through a high posi feedback account, its worth checking the previous sale items as many will be pennies and ebay only allow the last 6 month or so! they should at list put the desctipion for the listings on the feeback previous sales to stop that too! 

Good luck and browse safe 

[samyoza]

I reported 6 obvious fake watches today, one even had a AAA replica sticker on the face.

ebay got back to me and said.....

" We looked into your report and didn't find the listing to be in violation of or policy, this decision was made by a customer service agent."

They were obvious fakes being sold as genuine high end watches, the Agent wants sacking as he/she is not doing his job.

This illegal activity has been ignored by ebay, so let us see if Trading Standards are interested.

There are so many obvious fake watches being peddled as genuine on ebay - that it has become embarrassing.

[dch2112011]

Ebay seem to have adopted the policy that they will only take action against sellers of fake items if the complaint comes from the rights holder or trading standards.

Reports from members are simply responded to with the standard no violation response probably because ebay do not feel that it is worth their while endorsing their change in policy towards fake goods - it simply would not cast them in a good light.

I suspect that like all things ebay they only take action when forced to do so (it affects their income) as a result ebay is perfectly happy to be known as the place to be for the dishonest, scammers and conmen. 

ebay justify this by proudly touting their MBG as the saviour for all the unsavoury traders and buyers on ebay. 

Sadly the MBG is very limited in the protection it gives - once 30 days are up - no protection - private seller businesses - limited protection - cancellations within the law -  no protection - poor feedback - removed at will - sellers claiming authentic or offering guarantees or fake copyright - no protection 

[beerbeerbeer!]

I have , in the last week, reported two items that are clearly counterfeit as the manufacturer do not sell these items separately, therefore they have to be fake.....

eBay dismissed my report out of hand and when i appealed, they did the same....

eBay are clearly uninterested in removing clearly fake items, they are actively facilitating the selling of fake goods , they dont care at all

Another reason why i dumped eBay ..... sooner a large manufacturer sue them the better

[dch2112011]

A couple of major heavy weight manufacturers did take ebay to task concerning sellers selling their branded items without permission - these manufacturers were serious heavyweights and the result was the introduction of the VERO program to avoid legal action which ebay considered would not end happily !

[lucy_farmer]

'Ebay seem to have adopted the policy that they will only take action against sellers of fake items if the complaint comes from the rights holder or trading standards.'

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Well, ebay's largest selling customer base is probably Chinese. And China is well known for being the home of, shall we say, ...'copies' 😎.

If ebay chased down the sellers of fakes they'd lose a fortune....

[pjbracer1]

Of course it's best nothing is done about it! Just because there are a lot of Chinese sellers on there doesn't mean they are all selling fakes! 

The point is if something is reported then its should be reviewed not just a tick box exercise by Stevie Wonder! The cant do it at source but if a report is made then it should be fit for purpose!