Does eBay Care About Fakes?

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

I wonder why they don't just do what they do for every other high dollar items and have you send it to them to authenticate. 

I think cards, shoes, clothes have a $500 threshold. 

[dogbowl | 150]

Its too new for Ebay to be able to authenticate.

Its up to the graders really -- I sure hope WATA and the other look for and are able to reject fakes.  Can anybody cofirm that they do?

[guitarzombie | 924]

40 minutes ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

I wonder why they don't just do what they do for every other high dollar items and have you send it to them to authenticate. 

I think cards, shoes, clothes have a $500 threshold. 

I had an idea similar to this, to prevent any fuckery from the buyer.  I sell a 5 screw Tyson, person gets it, opens a return that its fake, sends back a fake one.  Ebay sides with the buyer.  So now they have your game and their money.  If you were able to do that, then it would help that what you sent to the buyer was what you listed in the pics.  Or have ebay list it for you with any high dollar items, so they take the pics and ship.

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,013]

12 hours ago, guitarzombie said:

I had an idea similar to this, to prevent any fuckery from the buyer.  I sell a 5 screw Tyson, person gets it, opens a return that its fake, sends back a fake one.  Ebay sides with the buyer.  So now they have your game and their money.  If you were able to do that, then it would help that what you sent to the buyer was what you listed in the pics.  Or have ebay list it for you with any high dollar items, so they take the pics and ship.

The thing is that if ebay committed to this, it would become the definitive market place for high dollar retro games any game over $500 would just go to them like they do with watches and shit. 

The crazy thing is that there are already established used watch, shows, pursew, etc. marketplaces that ebay is competing with. What other market place authenticates games w.o grading them? 

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

On 7/13/2023 at 9:35 AM, fcgamer said:

I just prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to untested - I've been on both sides of the coin and in many cases, there isn't some sort of malicious play at works. There's a similar situation with Japanese auctions and scrap items or whatever they call them, where more times than not they work just fine. Maybe Corey is just trying to make a joke or be sarcastic or something, idk, but I personally don't feel such a negative view towards sellers (and by extension humanity) is necessary, especially when from my personal experience, it hasn't been the case, in 25+ years collecting.

I worked face to face retail for 8.5 years at a used movies, music and video game store. I had people trying to sell non-working stuff all the time. Broken, unworking, fakes, bootlegs, etc. Almost daily I had sellers in my face trying to get me to give them money for literal garbage. So no one gets the benefit of the doubt from me. I've seen it first hand at a rate higher than most. If the person selling to me isn't a known and trusted seller, they will get every ounce of scrutiny I can possible give them.

[spacepup | 2,404]

33 minutes ago, CodysGameRoom said:

I worked face to face retail for 8.5 years at a used movies, music and video game store. I had people trying to sell non-working stuff all the time. Broken, unworking, fakes, bootlegs, etc. Almost daily I had sellers in my face trying to get me to give them money for literal garbage. So no one gets the benefit of the doubt from me. I've seen it first hand at a rate higher than most. If the person selling to me isn't a known and trusted seller, they will get every ounce of scrutiny I can possible give them.

I completely understand this approach.  While I would love in my heart to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, when you've encountered so many bad actors out there, it's hard not to be skeptical.  So that's the way I try to approach things - not necessarily treating people I don't know as guilty until proven innocent, but processing everything with a healthy dose of skepticism and caution.  

Over time, we all also learn lots of little tips and tricks, and things to avoid when engaging in transactions online.  We know a lot of the red flags to look out for and avoid them, and usually have better experiences as a result.  

I don't always assume the worst - for example, if something says untested, there could be a number of reasons for that - laziness, too much stuff, etc.

The beauty of all of this is, each person can have their own opinion on the matter and choose to engage in transactions however they see fit.  If someone sees "untested" and immediately assumes it is too risky, they don't have to buy.  If someone else sees it and wants to take the gamble, more power to them.  

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

Its not about assuming anyone is guilty. Its about reducing risk via being an educated buyer. 

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

49 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

Its not about assuming anyone is guilty. Its about reducing risk via being an educated buyer. 

Precisely. And it's one thing if we are talking my personal collection. But if I'm buying for a store and get burned, the store owner takes that loss. And that's not good if I wanna keep my job. 

[spacepup | 2,404]

54 minutes ago, MrWunderful said:

Its not about assuming anyone is guilty. Its about reducing risk via being an educated buyer. 

True.  I think many of us do it all the time, we just know the things to look out for by now, to reduce that risk a lot.  For that reason, it definitely is very rare that I actually get scammed.  Not because almost all the sellers are great, but because I mostly know what to avoid.

It's sad, but the reality is, there are a lot of people out there who will absolutely lie, cheat, manipulate, and scam you.  Not everyone of course, but enough that we have to be vigilant.

[Tabonga | 2,318]

9 minutes ago, spacepup said:

It's sad, but the reality is, there are a lot of people out there who will absolutely lie, cheat, manipulate, and scam you.  

I thought we weren't supposed to talk politics.........

[3rdStrongestMole | 430]

But all this is the reason I can't ask for video games for my birthday. 

[CodysGameRoom | 2,008]

13 minutes ago, 3rdStrongestMole said:

But all this is the reason I can't ask for video games for my birthday. 

haha yea, its not an option. I don't think my fiancé is gonna track down, what, a complete copy of Herc's Adventure or something? Nah, not even bothering asking for that kind of stuff haha

[GPX | 1,370]

9 hours ago, MrWunderful said:

Its not about assuming anyone is guilty. Its about reducing risk via being an educated buyer. 

And the reducing the time wastage and hassles of returning an unwanted item. 

[Armageddon Potato | 124]

Many years ago I actually spoke with both Ebay and Nintendo at one point regarding this. When I was speaking with Nintendo I asked them to navigate to Ebay and do a search for "Pokemon" in the Gameboy Advance category. I asked them how they felt about the first 700+ pages of results at 100 items a page were all fake Pokemon games, and if Nintendo found this totally ok? Their response? They linked me to their anti-piracy page which had a document buried somewhere in their awful website design that basically was 100+ pages explaining how they planned on asking China nicely to stop doing that. It was one of the most laughable things I've ever read. They've since completely taken down their anti-piracy page. Nintendo 100% doesn't care unless for some reason you're some unlucky randomly chosen person hosting roms somewhere and some random dude who works there is in a bad mood that day. Ebay doesn't care at all since they make a ton of money off of fake stuff, and that's part of their game. Why spend money policing something that is actively making you more money?

Just to add to this story a friend of mine is the brother of a guy who bots the crap out of a ton of online games for profit. At one point he was one of the biggest reseller of Diablo II items online. I remember one day he was talking about not liking Diablo 3 and that botting the game wasn't really worth it compared to Diablo II and other games at the time. He also used the same kind of software used to bot Ebay and sell fake stuff from China. Apparently there's a place to buy that kind of stuff, and it ain't cheap but it is insanely effective.

The moral of this story is three things are certain: Death, Taxes, and Bots.

[Tanooki | 4,934]

I thought the revised Nintendo game plan with piracy when that was pulled down was to be more tactical.  The approach I've seen since is going specifically after websites that do PAID downloads and paid to stream and play on the web of their first party IP stuff or their partner third parties who given them the nod as well.

They don't seem to go after random "reproduction" (BOOTLEG) makers, pandora box peddlers, android devices with roms on a card, flash kits as a multicart with roms on a card, individual listings etc.

I don't think they were even caring about their hypocrisy about emulation and roms when they got caught using them and others emulators or rom dumps THEY grabbed for ease...oops.  It was the paid crap that they go after now because it's such a hit for them and their base paying to use stuff to a scumball and not them.  They couldn't hire enough IT specs to run bots or lawyers to prosecute each clown for bootlegs and rom peddling so they gave up which was the smart thing to do.

[Gentlegamer | 174]

23 hours ago, Armageddon Potato said:

Many years ago I actually spoke with both Ebay and Nintendo at one point regarding this. When I was speaking with Nintendo I asked them to navigate to Ebay and do a search for "Pokemon" in the Gameboy Advance category. I asked them how they felt about the first 700+ pages of results at 100 items a page were all fake Pokemon games, and if Nintendo found this totally ok? Their response? They linked me to their anti-piracy page which had a document buried somewhere in their awful website design that basically was 100+ pages explaining how they planned on asking China nicely to stop doing that. It was one of the most laughable things I've ever read. They've since completely taken down their anti-piracy page. Nintendo 100% doesn't care unless for some reason you're some unlucky randomly chosen person hosting roms somewhere and some random dude who works there is in a bad mood that day. Ebay doesn't care at all since they make a ton of money off of fake stuff, and that's part of their game. Why spend money policing something that is actively making you more money?

Just to add to this story a friend of mine is the brother of a guy who bots the crap out of a ton of online games for profit. At one point he was one of the biggest reseller of Diablo II items online. I remember one day he was talking about not liking Diablo 3 and that botting the game wasn't really worth it compared to Diablo II and other games at the time. He also used the same kind of software used to bot Ebay and sell fake stuff from China. Apparently there's a place to buy that kind of stuff, and it ain't cheap but it is insanely effective.

The moral of this story is three things are certain: Death, Taxes, and Bots.

So Bowser should have just been selling bootlegs then.

[Bonanza125 | 55]

Ebay just doesn't really enforce its own policy. I have reported multiple listings as well in the past and nothing was done about it. The listing really has to say clearly a reproduction, custom made or reprint and they might take action but most of the time they don't. Unless some sort of government action happens and steps in then there really isn't much that can be done other than what others have stated Buyer Beware.