zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

Thank you for your well thought out and informative post. As an Ebay seller dealing mostly in karat gold jewelry and silver bullion items (especially 1964 dated Uncirculated 90% silver Kennedy Half Dollars),.......i too have in the past reported both obvious fake and often listed as "replica" watch items only to see them continue to conclusion!

I was EXTREMELY grateful to another ebay user who warned me of my 2 purchases of supposidly "Antique" Curio cabinets from a seller she informed me were NOT going to match the photo of the items presented in the listing. She even documented past auctions featuring the identicle items pictured, and informed me she had purchased the same item as pictured only to recieve a modern piece of crap curio cabinet! Her's arrived broken and some pieces missing, and the seller claimed it "must" have been broken in shipping. Quite a feat when there were actual pieces missing, yet the package was SEALED properly!

She also informed me the seller would be raping me with shipping charges, which he attempted to later do. On each of 2 curio cabinets measuring about 20 inches X 14 inches X 6 inches and weighing about 15 pounds each he wanted $75 EACH to ship UPS ground! Wouldn't combine shipping either, and these charges were not posted in the listing and only conveyed after the auctions ended.

Anyway, i informed the seller that unless he would assure me the items he would be sending were the EXACT items pictures,....and that he would send them C.O.D. with me being able to open them in the presence of the delivery person with pictures of the items in hand,......that i would not be sending funds.

He of course refused, and threatened negative feedback (of which he had a fair share already and i was even then 100% positive). I had neglected to check his feedback before bidding, but i was fairly new to ebay back then.

Several emails to Ebay's "Safe Harbor" went without ANY meaningful support for my concerns, and was basically told to follow thru as i bid or recieve possible negative feedback from the seller! Safe Harbor my A$$!

What a load of crap from what i thought was the "teeth" of the ebay organization. I lucked out be explainiing to the seller that he already had plenty of negatives, and did not need another from me, and that i would just walk away from the purchases and not leave any feedback at all if he would do the same.

I made it clear i would not be sending any funds no matter what, as it was clear i would not be recieving what i bargained for. And time passed and i was saved from what would have been an undeserved negative to me.

What truly bothered me more than this scum seller was the TOTAL lack of support and effective protection for the ebay buyer acting in good faith!

I have to conclude to those of you using ebay that IF you find a responsible seller on ebay you stick with them, and reward him thru repeat business in the future. Check the prior feedback carefully to make sure the numbers aren't just for the seller's past "buying" experiences. (often for small amounts done to build a "shield" of phony reputation on ebay before the sh*t hits the fan!) And make sure the seller has sold some items in the same price range as what you are considering. These steps will go a long way to offer you some protection,.....and much more than you can ever expect from ebay itself.

For me,....because the items in my own feedback can't be seen after 90 days,.......i have begun to add comments to a lot of my own feedbacks while i am still allowed to do so (up to 90 days) in my feedback response describing the item and it's price paid.

This way potential buyers on current items will have a handle on which to judge me,.....long after the individual items can't be pulled up. I suggest other conscientious sellers do the same.

This is a BIG flaw in the ebay feedback system, and by adding the details as a comment after feedback has been left on yourself serves to overcome a lot of that flaw.

For those of you who might be interested in my items, i have included the link to my store. Hope i'm not breaking any rules in doing so.

Joe T

( joe-jeweler on ebay))

: Being quite the avid fan of Omega watches I do
: a lot of surfing for pics and I look at
: sites like Ebay quite a lot for a bargain.
: I've seen the bait but never bitten.

: In any event I was shocked at the ammount of
: counterfeit items for sale and within a few
: weeks I'd identified over a hundred SEPERATE
: counterfeit sellers running over a THOUSAND
: seperate international auctions. Most of
: which had the use of the word 'replica' or
: 'fake' and some other more duplicitous
: people who showed a fake purporting to be
: real.

: Deciding a little action was needed I make some
: enquiries and with a little help was able to
: set up a join Police & Trading Standards
: monitoring group for the net. We would
: contact the sellers of these goods, identify
: ourselves and suggest they might wish to
: withdraw their auctions. We also contacted
: buyers on counterfeit auctions where a
: purchase had been made to alert them to our
: findings. In extreme cases where a large
: ammount of money was at stake we would
: intervene and gazump the auction to prevent
: the crime.

: Deciding that three of us were vastly
: outnumbered and overworked I contacted their
: law enforcement liason in their Trust &
: Safety Dept at Ebay UK. I explained what we
: were doing, I verified our group's identity
: as law enforcement officials and I asked for
: help in the detection and prevention of
: criminal offences against their customers.
: The response I got was just shocking.

: Ebay's facility to alert them to a counterfeit
: item for sale is dire because you can only
: direct them, via their own site, to an
: auction. No method exists to tell them why
: this is a fake. So while £50 replicas get
: weeded out, the £3000 Rolex Daytona
: counterfeit which is described as real stays
: in. Clearly this was unacceptable to us and
: I mentioned that some form of direct contact
: was needed with his organisation to alert
: them to these high stakes auctions and
: facilitate their removal. While this was
: ongoing my group were alerting Ebay to
: upward of 50-60 auctions PER DAY concerning
: the sale of counterfeit goods. Approximately
: 50% of these auctions were allowed to
: continue. We identified approximately 30
: regular 'hard core' sellers who sold in bulk
: on Ebay and on other sites and concentrated
: efforts to remove the selling power of these
: individuals by removing the means, ie their
: Ebay accounts. Evidence was provided to Ebay
: in the form of COUNTLESS infringing and
: illegal auctions. To this date NONE of these
: people have had their accounts suspended,
: none of these people have had their selling
: privelleges removed by Ebay. Instead of
: concentrating on the fact that major fraud
: was ongoing each and every day, Ebay's only
: interest and agenda when dealing with me and
: my group was to prevent us from interfering
: in auctions and to protect the extent to
: which the 'rot had set in' from being
: exposed. My group were given no direct and
: consistent form of alert and conact in spite
: of being Police officers pro-actively
: investigating potentially serious crimes. My
: group were given no support in removing the
: sales means of these criminals. My group
: were repeatedly harranged for making contact
: with sellers and effectively threatening
: them with prosecution (which I think is fair
: enough really under the circumstances). We
: were harranged for contacting buyers to warm
: them that they were about to buy counterfeit
: goods and we were told in no uncertain terms
: not to intervene in their auctions to
: prevent crime. After a short while we were
: told in no-uncertain terms not to contact
: their members. Clearly this was not
: something we found acceptable and continued
: in the fashion we had previously deemed
: suitable. However in all my dealings with
: Ebay I found them unhelpfull, obstructive
: almost bordering on assisting in the
: comission of crime and unwilling to protct
: their customers.

: My only saving came in dealing with Rolex,
: Breitling and Omega who were more than
: willing to take the details of sellers as we
: obtained them and prosecute in the civil
: courts, which became our main function in
: the end. we find the criminals and allow the
: civilly infringed to ake civil action (which
: is often more effective than criminal
: prosecution in any event). These companies
: were more than willing to open a forum for
: us and help, I was sad to tell them we had
: to shut our group down having found only
: four verified, checked and cleared genuine
: regular sellers in the UK (if you're in the
: UK and you want to know who these are I am
: happy to tell you).

: Now I stress these are my own findings and my
: own opinions based on my experiences but
: they paint a very worrying picture.

: My colleagues and I found our workload
: unmanageable after a while and have since
: had to relinquish these duties in favour of
: an increased mainstream workload but for me
: as a watch lover, if you like, it was a hell
: of an eye opener.

: Ebay seems to nice and colourfull, so inviting
: so nice. Yet behind these pleasant images
: hide serious and organised criminals who
: have no better intention than to take £5000
: from you and send you a cheap Chinese Rolex
: copy, or Omega copy or Breitling copy or
: indeed whatever you like. You know what
: else? If you spend £5000 on a fake rolex
: sold to you as real Ebay don't care. Ebay
: have done nothing about it and the news I
: hear about trademark owners suing Ebay for
: allowing and assisting in the breaches of
: their trademark is GREAT news. It can only
: help make this online community safer.

: My advice to you all is to steer well clear of
: Ebay. It's a dangerous place with plenty of
: villains happy to take your money. Where
: will ebay be? Hiding behind their automated
: customer service email system of course.
: They don't care. They got their money, the
: seller gave it to them.

: Pete J