Some eBay Buyers Pay Too Much for Gold Coins
Some idiots pay too much for coins, including base metal replicas, on eBay where up to 97% of listings are misleading or fraudulent.
Often these buyers are a victim of their own stupidity, but misleading and fraudulently described items such as the following, do not help.
Why eBay permits such blatant misrepresentation, we will never understand, unless our suspicion is correct, in that eBay do not care about ethics as long as not too many people complain, or law enforcement agencies do not get involved. Otherwise, we reckon they simply take everybody's money and keep it.
Brass Coins Described as Gold by eBay Vendor exceeding_customers_expectations
Examples
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Item # | Title | Reality | Paid | Worth
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160299528754 | Lot of 50. KRUGERRAND GOLD MINI COIN BULLION/BAR/SCRAP | Brass Rubbish | $107.50 | $3.50?
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Lot of 50. KRUGERRAND GOLD MINI COIN BULLION/BAR/SCRAP
No Reserve, Last One To Bid Gets The Gold!
Category Coins & Paper Money: Bullion: Gold: Mixed Lots
eBay Vendor - exceeding_customers_expectations
eBay Shop - Wholesale-and-Surplus-Auctions
NO RESERVE SALE.
STATRING (sic) BID AT 34.95
You are bidding on
50 Mini MEXICO (sic) 1978 Replica Krugerrand (sic) Coins
Weight: .5 Gram
Size: 10mm
Material: 8k-22k (HGE) GOLD
I am unable to garantee (sic) the gold content amount in the coins because Krugerrand have been minted in various way's of content.
Range from 8kt-24kt HGE real gold.
Value of these coins are in the range of $15 - $30 dollars retail. (the lot? - LC)
Shipping is free!
Last One To Bid Gets The Gold!
THANK YOU AND HAPPY BIDING. (sic)
I DO NOT SHIP OUTSIDE THE USA..... (thank goodness! - LC)
Descriptions
Are the coins properly described? Over half the eBay listings we see are inaccurately described. One typical get-out is for the buyer to claim he knows nothing about coins, he is not an expert. OK, this may be true, but it may be an advance excuse.
This guy says he can't guarantee the gold content. We are not surprised, but then he goes on to state that it is between 8 and 24 Kt (HGE) real gold, without explaining that HGE stands for Heavy Gold Electroplating. We also think the "Heavy" is an exaggeration.
The wording on the reverse of the "coin" says either "PURE BRASS" OR "FINE BRASS", unfortunately, but conveniently for the seller, this wording is not very clear, however we have seen many other, slightly better photo's of similar items.
What's Wrong?
The quickest, easiest, most concise, and probably the most accurate answer would be "Everything!"
It is difficult to find anything about this listing which is accurate or honest, but in an attempt to elucidate and enumerate, here goes:
- Item is incorrectly and misleadingly listed under the incorrect category "Coins & Paper Money: Bullion: Gold: Mixed Lots". These round discs are not made of gold.
- Item title "Lot of 50. KRUGERRAND GOLD MINI COIN BULLION/BAR/SCRAP" The word "Krugerrand" is a registered trade mark of Rand Refinery Limited, of South Africa.
- Item title "Lot of 50. KRUGERRAND GOLD MINI COIN BULLION/BAR/SCRAP" The discs on offer are made of brass, not gold.
- Item title "Lot of 50. KRUGERRAND GOLD MINI COIN BULLION/BAR/SCRAP" The metal discs on offer are not coins.
- Item title "Lot of 50. KRUGERRAND GOLD MINI COIN BULLION/BAR/SCRAP" The words "BULLION/BAR/SCRAP" are misleading spam, and breach eBay's listings policies.
- Item Subtitle "Last One To Bid Gets The Gold!". They do not contain any gold. There is possibly as very thin "flash" gold plating, but the use of the word gold is intended to mislead.
- STATRING (sic) BID AT 34.95. The illiterate vendor cannot even spell.
- You are bidding on... No I am not!
- 50 Mini MEXICO (sic) 1978 Replica Krugerrand (sic) Coins. When did Krugerrands come from Mexico? Actually the garbage on offer may well come from Mexico (or China, India, or the vendors back garden).
- Weight: .5 Gram. We cannot comment on the accuracy of this statement, but have seen many more similar offerings from other eBay vendors who mainly state the same. The smallest real (tenth ounce) krugerrand weighs 3.4 grams.
- Size: 10mm. We have no reason to doubt this, but the smallest real (tenth ounce) krugerrand measures 16.50 millimetres. Its surface area is 2.7 times as large as these brass discs.
- Material: 8k-22k (HGE) GOLD. We strongly suspect the vendor knows that HGE stands for Heavy Gold Electroplated, but deliberately decided to omit this explanation in case it alerted would be mugs into evasive action. Even so, we do not know whether or how the vendor knows the thickness of the plating, in which case he should not claim it to be "heavy".
- Material: 8k-22k (HGE) GOLD. He appear to be trying to imply that the discs are composed of gold between 8 (33%) and 22 (91.6%) pure.
- I am unable to garantee (sic) the gold content amount in the coins because Krugerrand have been minted in various way's of content. He cannot guarantee the gold content because there isn't any! Presumably this, and some of his other statements are intended as a "Get out of jail free card" in the very likely and hopefully frequent even that he get challenged.
- Krugerrand have been minted in various way's of content. No, either the vendor is truly ignorant, or he should not make any claims. All four sizes of Krugerrands are made of 22 carat gold.
- Range from 8kt-24kt HGE real gold. As previous.
- Value of these coins are in the range of $15 - $30 dollars retail. For the lot maybe, but even this is a wild exaggeration. We have seen similar crap offered by a different eBay vendor at 7 cents US each.
- Shipping is free! Very generous of him apparently, but actually motivated by eBay's possibly unethical preferential treatment given to free shipping items which discriminates against genuine sellers.
- Last One To Bid Gets The Gold! Repetition of misleading claim from the item's subtitle.
- THANK YOU AND HAPPY BIDING (sic). Biding one's time would be very advisable. We guess he means bidding!
- I DO NOT SHIP OUTSIDE THE USA..... (thank goodness!), probably because it would interfere with the "free shipping" claim.
- Winning bid: US $107.50; (approximately £75.91). Another sucker, especially if he actually pays.
- Feedback 384. How can anybody receiving this sort of garbage be so pleased that they leave a positive feedback, unless they are still in idiot mode and believe that there is some gold content, and they have bought a bargain.
- 99.7% Positive. It is enough to make one despair for democracy. Perhaps buyers are too embarrassed to leave a negative because it would draw attention to their own stupidity?
- exceeding_customers_expectations. Some customers must have very low expectations!
Value
We have seen one eBay vendor selling a variety of these and similar "mini" coins at 7&c; each, which is probably a fair estimate of their value if you really wanted to buy one. They probably cost between about 1&c; and 4&c; to manufacture.
One of Thousands
Just as there is one (sucker) born every minute, there also seems to be one eBay fraudster born every minute. There are certainly thousands of similar items listed on eBay be a number of different vendors.
The Greatest Culprit
We only monitor a small section of the various eBay sites. We find thousands a fraudulent listings just in the coin sections. On the odd occasion we look a diamonds or other gemstones, we see a similar pattern, very many items obviously misleadingly described, all from small time crooks and charlatans. The one big offender is eBay itself which hosts and condones it all. We are aware that from time to time they (eBay) publish statements to the effect that they take fraud seriously, but we firmly believe that it is all bullshit propaganda. They also claim that the vast majority of eBayers are honest. We remain unconvinced and sceptical.
In our firm opinion, eBay could and should do more to police their sites. The reason the fail to do so is that a large proportion of their fee income comes from the huge number of misleadingly described junk items which individually constitutes low level fraud, but aggregated constitutes major fraud at an international level and scale.
Lemmings - Don't Be One
In January 2009m we noticed a number of record prices paid for bog standard Krugerrands on eBay, as high as 27% premium. We are thinking of awarding a prize to the idiot who pays the most ridiculous price.
eBay Scam Example Goingfast3 $1.2 Million Fraud Attempt
We helped to save potential buyers getting ripped off for over $1 million. eBay appears to have done nothing or very little.
New - Buy / Sell Prices on Gold Sovereign 4 Coin Proof Sets
We have recently created a new version of our original Proof Sovereign Sets page, with buy and sell prices quoted.
Selling Gold Coins & Bars on eBay
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Pure / Fine Brass Sold as Gold on eBay
eBay Index
Pure Brass Sold as Gold on eBay
Could these photographs be deliberately bad so as to make the wording "Fine Brass" illegible?
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