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There are lot of great deals on silver and gold bullion on eBay. Almost all of the major online bullion dealers have eBay Stores. They frequently will run specials on items on eBay to move inventory. Especially when they are running an eBay Bucks bonus promotion.
However, there are a lot of fake or counterfeit bullion being advertised and sold on eBay. Sometimes the listings look legit. If you fall victim to it and you verify what you bought was fake eBay or Paypal will get your money back. But that can take weeks and will most likely leave you with a sour taste in your mouth from buying from eBay in the future.
There are times when a seller might be selling an item and they aren’t familiar enough with bullion to know what price would be expected. It’s rare, but it has happened. I’ve gotten some genuine Silver Eagles for under spot before because of this. The odds are much greater that something isn’t right.
There are some things to look for that stand out as red flags. These are the things that I look for when I see something with a price that’s too good to be true.
The seller’s location
If the items are going to ship from China then avoid the auction all together. 99.99% of bullion items that ship from China are fake. Sometimes the fakes are so good they pass some verification tests.
The seller’s other items
Does the seller have other items listed for sale? If so are they also bullion items below spot price? If they only have one or two bullion items below spot price there is a good chance they are fake.
However, if they have non-bullion items for sale, such as items you’d find in a pawn shop or from an estate sale? If so, they might not know exactly what they are selling. Though you should still proceed with caution.
The seller’s activity
Does the seller have a lot of recent activity? Is their recent feedback as a buyer or as a seller?
If most of their feedback history is as a buyer and they’ve never sold anything before, then there’s a pretty good chance that their account was hacked and someone has used their account for fake bullion listings.
If they have feedback as a seller, is it recent? I’ve seen some auction where the seller had a great selling history, but had never sold bullion items before. Their feedback activity as a seller was also more than a year old. Stale accounts like this are prime to be hacked and used for selling fake bullion.
Trust your instincts
Ultimately though, you need to trust your instincts. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. If you find a listing that shows a ‘Buy It Now’ price on something that is significantly below spot price it is more than likely counterfeit. Experienced sellers don’t make major mistakes on the price of items.
Thanku…this info on fake silver is very useful!