eBay

the_van · ‎02-10-2014

I have been browsing eBay for a lot of years for various things. One of my passions is collecting authentic sports jerseys. Sadly, Chinese counterfeits have infiltrated sports jerseys over the last decade or so. I report most of what I come across, but there are just so many counterfeit jerseys on eBay! It's impossible to report them all. The other sad reality is that in this world, all most people care about is price and they would rather pay little for something that will fall apart in 2 days rather than actually support their favourite teams and players.

My question is why doesn't eBay work with suppliers like Nike, Reebok, Adidas, etc and the professional leagues (NHL, NFL, NBA, MLB and major soccer leagues across the world) to essentially rid eBay of counterfeit product? It's not hard to see which jerseys are fake and which are legitimate. I've yet to see reports I've made result in an item being pulled. (I do check the items again occasionally.)

Maybe I'm just not seeing evidence on searches and there is work being done by the aforementioned. It just seems like an issue that has little effort being done to tackle.

bb_cool_stuff · ‎02-10-2014

Trust me, eBay has worked very hard to eliminate counterfeit jerseys from the site.

A large seller in Montreal who specialized in counterfeit jerseys has been dispatched from the site, along with quite a few more.

VeRO continually looks for listing violations for the major suppliers, but cannot do anything unless the items are reported.

The major problem is the manufacturers of the counterfeit items always try to stay one step ahead of VeRO & eBay.

These countries have many family members with multiple addresses.

Actually quite easy to slip through the cracks & have multiple selling accounts .

While these sellers have not been totally eliminated, the site is leaps & bounds above what it was a few years ago.

Unfortunately, counterfeit jerseys have now flooded the Kijiji sites.

Major problem on the horizon.

World Cup is this year, so there will be an influx of counterfeit soccer jerseys creeping there way back on the site.

I imagine there are a million counterfeit jerseys sitting in warehouses, right now, in the Far East.

You did the right thing by reporting the violations.

the_van · ‎02-16-2014

I'm sorry if I gave the impression that I think eBay doesn't do anything about fake jerseys. While it does feel like it sometimes, I know that's not the case. I guess I don't understand the process in how eBay deals with the reports. For example, when I report an obviously counterfeit jersey, howcome it's not pulled down? My common sense on how it should work is that someone working for eBay sees the report, checks the item, sees that it is an obvious counterfeit item and deletes the item from the site.

I get that the counterfeit jersey problem around the world is a fight against the Chinese Government, which pretty much makes it reality that fake jerseys are here to stay. I work in sports retail, so seeing these jerseys out there drives me ape****. I do know there is a perception in the jersey collecting community is that the effort to police their sales on our side of the world just isn't enough. Again, I know the effort is there, but I don't get why reported counterfeit jerseys aren't always dealt with via the reports.

pjcdn2005 · ‎02-17-2014

For example, when I report an obviously counterfeit jersey, howcome it's not pulled down? My common sense on how it should work is that someone working for eBay sees the report, checks the item, sees that it is an obvious counterfeit item and deletes the item from the site.

When you report an item, ebay doesn't know how experienced you are on spotting counterfeits so they often don't rely only on a users report. For all they know, you are a competitor trying to cause trouble or you could be wrong about the item being counterfeit. You may believe that the jersey is an obvious fake but it is impossible for ebay to hire experts on every type of item that could possibly be counterfeit so they have no way of validating your report. If the rights owner of that product reports it..then they do take down the listing so you might want to report the fakes to the companies that own the rights to those jerseys.

the_van · ‎02-26-2014

That's fair. I understand that they can't just take one user's report and delete the item, but when they get these reports, how it's dealt with is what is a mystery to me. Upon receiving the report, would they not forward the item page to people from Reebok, Nike, etc (or Gucci and brands like that for other items) and get confirmation that the items are counterfeit?