How do you handle seemingly legit sellers selling fake items?

[RH | 4,918]

I don't want to share the post (yet) on eBay but I have a saved search for some semi-rare items that value in the $150-300 range.  A new item popped up this morning and when I checked out the item.... it was 100% a fake.

Now, I'd assume this was someone being a bad seller but due to the uniqueness of the item, I can see why the seller might think it was a legit.  They also had some other game items for sale but mostly, they seemed to be the type of person who probably shows estate sales and thrift shops so I doubt they have any clue what they have (although they did do enough research to price it correctly.)

I've not heard back from the seller, but I messaged them and let them know the item was fake.  At first, I wanted to see about reporting the item to eBay (if that's even possible?) but since the seller seemed legitimate, I just informed them with all the info I could about how to verify the item.

So what about you guys?  I mean, I'd probably  ignore something under $50 if it seemed like an honest mistake but since this was priced at $200, it seemed like the nice thing to do was let the seller know they were selling a worthless bootleg.

[SNESNESCUBE64 | 541]

Not everyone can be an expert. Non-collectors will look a game title and list it. It's just if it becomes a pattern. If their main thing is selling games, then they realistically should know what they are selling. However your estate sale person isn't going to know anything about games.

And even if you are messaging them, they may not care. That could be a bit of a problem but not everyone is willing to take advice from what would ultimately be a stranger on ebay. Too many ulterior motives.

I think that some of the responsibility of not buying a fake product on ebay still falls on the buyer. If you are willing to spend hundreds on a game, least you can do is make sure that what you are getting is legitimate. Basic things like learning to recognize fake labels and bootleg/unoriginal boards is not a super difficult task with the vast amount of resources online.

That said, a seller should be doing some research as well. If the fake is blatant, I'd hope that they would recognize the differences.

To answer the question "How do I handle it personally?", if a seller is trying to consistently pass off fake goods as the real deal, I ignore their listings and move on.

Edited November 29, 2023 by SNESNESCUBE64

[RH | 4,918]

10 minutes ago, SNESNESCUBE64 said:

Not everyone can be an expert. Non-collectors will look a game title and list it. It's just if it becomes a pattern. If their main thing is selling games, then they realistically should know what they are selling. However your estate sale person isn't going to know anything about games.

And even if you are messaging them, they may not care. That could be a bit of a problem but not everyone is willing to take advice from what would ultimately be a stranger on ebay. Too many ulterior motives.

I think that some of the responsibility of not buying a fake product on ebay still falls on the buyer. If you are willing to spend hundreds on a game, least you can do is make sure that what you are getting is legitimate. Basic things like learning to recognize fake labels and bootleg/unoriginal boards is not a super difficult task with the vast amount of resources online.

That said, a seller should be doing some research as well. If the fake is blatant, I'd hope that they would recognize the differences.

To answer the question "How do I handle it personally?", if a seller is trying to consistently pass off fake goods as the real deal, I ignore their listings and move on.

Well, the problem is, #1, the label is a straight-up printing from an ink jet printer.  But the flipside of that is that these are prortotype carts so... I could semi-understand why a non-game collector could think it was legit.  I mean... prototypes are often weird.

Edited November 29, 2023 by RH

[Code Monkey | 2,011]

I heard prototypes and got here as quickly as I could.

[RH | 4,918]

2 hours ago, Code Monkey said:

I heard prototypes and got here as quickly as I could.

Not NES

[fcgamer | 4,729]

If they're selling a ton of gaming stuff for researched prices, one fake makes me call everything into question.

[RH | 4,918]

9 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

If they're selling a ton of gaming stuff for researched prices, one fake makes me call everything into question.

Well, the seller never responded to me but it looks like they pulled the sale.  For context, it's no secret that I track Game Factory/New Leaf cartridges as they appear.

Well, one popped up in my email feeds for my saved searches yesterday and when I went to check it out, I glanced at the label to pull off the serial number.  Keep in mind, it's a small image and I legit was just looking at the number so a fast glance gave me what I needed.

I already had those digits tracked, so when I started browsing through their images (they had a lot, which also makes me think they _might_ have felt it was legit) I noticed that the label was, as I said an ink jet, cheap scan that was printed, trimmed and either taped or really poorly glued.  Honestly, it was the worst bootleg label I'd ever seen and I can't imagine it'd fool anyone and it made me wonder why it existed to begin with.

Anyway, it was 100% clear it was not the cart I've already tracked.  If this was a popular game, I definitely would have felt that the seller should have known better, however, since they have thousands of items listed, and only had maybe 20 video games, I figured they just did a google search of this odd cart, saw how they are prototypes, and he listed it a modestly fair price, assuming legitimacy.

Again, to me that label was a fake as fake could be, but as someone who's also enjoyed looking at a lot of protos, across several systems, they can look cheap from time to time, so I can understand the ignorance.  Let's not forget that when it comes to NWC carts, part of the reason why people prefer the greys to golds is because that cheap, easily fakable ink-jet label that some intern was probably tasked to create and slap on with a dot of Elmer's glue.

My point for this discussion is that we can all make mistakes.  We all pretty familiar with games, but I too browse everything at yard sales and thrift shops and I have a pretty decent eye at spotting valuable items.  But no one's infallible and for a market I'm not familiar with, I could possibly spot a fake and think it's legit.  If I missed the signs, I guess I'd appreciate a buyer kindly telling me if I was selling a bootleg/knock off of something.