TL;DR: eBay’s enforcement systems — VeRO, autograph authenticity, counterfeit detection, and seller protection — are failing at historic levels. Sellers face arbitrary removals, zero transparency, no due process and bogus contradictory explanations from useless customer service. Meanwhile, every day thousands of eBay buyers throw money away on fake autographs that are more rampant than ever. The only explanation is mind boggling incompetence.
eBay’s Ethical Failure to Police Authenticity
As the world’s leading eCommerce platform for collectibles including autographs and trading cards, eBay has an ethical, if not legal, responsibility to reasonably ensure the collectibles offered on its site are authentic.
The federal court case Tiffany vs. eBay was decided in the latter's favor, largely absolving them of legal responsibility for fraudulent items sold on its platform. You don't have to be a cynic to note that ALL products sold on eBay, real or not, generate revenue for them.
However, eBay management should understand that its reputation for being an unregulated free‑for‑all marketplace — where fraud is commonplace — is damaging to its brand, not to mention allowing its buyers to be ripped off. If it's going to attempt to police its site by removing fake and infringing products, it should strive to do so competently, fairly and objectively. Specifically, eBay should:
- Police its site in a manner that doesn't let bots make final decisions — incorrect bot decisions cause serious inconvenience, or worse, to affected sellers.
- Offer affected sellers recourse through a transparent, timely process.
- Ensure that enforcement actions are fair and objective — not arbitrary or inconsistent.
- Crack down on the countless autograph sellers obviously listing forgeries with absurdly low prices, unlimited inventory and fake or zero “authentication.”
eBay’s VeRO Program: 30 Years of Undermining Its Own Sellers
On all of the points above, eBay is failing miserably, and things are declining. Let's start with VeRO (Verified Rights Owner) removals. It's common knowledge among eBay business sellers of branded products that many, if not most, VeRO takedowns are 1) based on false legal premises, 2) malicious removals by direct or indirect competitors, or 3) both.
And yet, eBay has not bothered to even slightly tweak its VeRO program in the almost 30 years I've been selling on eBay. 100% of VeRO takedowns assume the listing is infringing and the seller guilty of infringement. There is nothing resembling transparency or due process.
In fact, the only way to fight back against a false VeRO takedown is to sue — or at least seriously threaten to sue — the company that removed your listing. Not small claims court either — civil court, which means hiring an attorney and paying a retainer. I know, because I was forced to do so many years ago, and nearly a second time last year when Upper Deck improperly used VeRO to remove two Tiger Woods Sports Illustrated magazine photos clearly protected by the First Sale Doctrine.
I also had many listings improperly removed via VeRO that I grudgingly “accepted” before I understood my legal rights or because suing would’ve been too costly. Even forcing a company to restore your listing isn't a "win" because the damage — wasted time, lost sales, and stress — has already been done.
If your listing isn't restored, eBay assumes you're guilty of infringement, and your account faces an escalating series of punitive actions if you get more VeRO removals. Does eBay bother to even give a cursory look at the VeRO complaint to see if it has any legal basis whatsoever? Of course not. They rubber‑stamp 100% of the takedowns, as long as the company affirms “under penalty of perjury” their claim is legitimate. The companies who issue bogus VeRO takedowns know damn well that 99.9% of their targets don't have the time or resources to fight back, which means they will never face any "penalty" regardless of how many times they knowingly and maliciously commit perjury.
At a local San Diego eBay on the Road event with maybe 200 sellers on May 15, I briefly chatted with eBay VP Ron Jaiven, outlined in detail all of the above complaints about VeRO and pleaded with him to fix it. Ron listened and replied that I wasn't even the first seller AT THAT SAME EVENT to tell him almost the exact same thing. And yet -- no surprise -- nothing has changed. eBay would rather see their sellers get repeatedly screwed than use paralegals or even AI to weed out the huge percentage of illegitimate VeRO takedowns.
Fake Autographs on eBay Are Worse Than Ever
Now on to the fake autograph situation. In its early days, as eBay grew, predictably so did the number of fake autographs. At some point — roughly around the time the FBI conducted Operation Bullpen and Operation Foul Ball to clean up the fake sports autograph market from 1999 to 2006 — eBay finally started cleaning up its site.
I was personally, though informally, involved in those efforts. I don't recall the exact time period, but I still have e‑mails from 2017 where I was directly e‑mailing eBay employees about accounts selling fake autographs. eBay would investigate them and usually shut them down. For a time, my reports of fake autograph listings were given higher priority via the Enhanced Member Reporting system, and over the years via EMR and direct e-mails, I was responsible for many thousands of forgery removals.
Flash forward to the present. Just last year, the first major fake autograph bust in years with Mister Mancave shocked the autograph business. You would think eBay would respond with more enforcement. Nope. It's my considered opinion that the sheer number and percentage of fake autographs on eBay is at an all‑time high and still rising.
The EMR system that allowed me to help clean up eBay? Either I was removed long ago or the program was terminated. Either way, 95% of my recent reports of obvious forgeries were ignored by eBay, so I don’t waste my time any longer. eBay employees whose dedicated job was to remove forgeries? Also apparently long gone -- I'm still Facebook friends with the eBay employee who did the most to clean up forgeries in its entire history, and he hasn't worked there since 2015.
CGC/JSA Witnessed Lou Ferrigno Autograph Removed as “Counterfeit”
As if that wasn't bad enough, on July 7 eBay improperly removed my Lou Ferrigno certified autograph card that was witnessed and authenticated by CGC/JSA — an eBay‑approved authenticator — as "counterfeit" with this notation: "This determination was made by a customer service agent. This came to our attention because of a user report."
I appealed with the specific CGC database link proving without question that this card was signed, witnessed, and authenticated on January 31, 2025. My appeal was denied without explanation. After multiple phone calls and chats with CS agents and supervisors, I received various excuses:
- Excuse #1: My title containing "Incredible Hulk" was infringing. FALSE: this is legally permitted under the doctrine of Nominative Fair Use.
- Excuse #2: The card itself was infringing. FALSE: if that were the case, I would have received a VeRO takedown, not an authenticity removal, and no “user report” could initiate it.
- Excuse #3: eBay "doesn't allow custom cards." FALSE. A search for "custom card" in the Sports Cards category returns 76,000+ results and another 24,000+ in Non-Sports Cards.
Why This Matters: False eBay Policy Violations Threaten Seller Accounts
Three absurdly contradictory bogus excuses and a SECOND denied appeal later, I've now wasted many hours fighting an unfair, ridiculous false "policy violation" that is nothing of the sort. I’m done fighting eBay about this card. All I can chalk it up to is more staggering stupidity and mismanagement.
Adding insult to injury, another seller has the EXACT same Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk card listed -- same manufacturer, exact same signing, exact same authentication and encapsulation -- active and ready for purchase. Yet more evidence of eBay incompetence and hypocrisy.
Since the removal, I reached out to over a dozen eBay executives or managers via e-mail and LinkedIn. Not one has offered to even investigate. I understand my tiny drop in eBay’s bucket means nothing to their bottom line. However, as eBay faces increasing competition from other platforms, such horrible customer “service” may eventually cause them to lose a significant chunk of sellers.
You may wonder why I'm making such a fuss over a card of modest value I can sell elsewhere. The reason, as with VeRO takedowns, is the policy violation. Since eBay considers sellers guilty until proven innocent, further removals could result in serious account consequences.
And since eBay management is so incredibly incompetent, it wouldn't surprise me if more bogus takedowns were coming my way. I would cut eBay some slack if it appeared they actually cared and were trying to fix these issues. Unfortunately, they don’t, and they aren’t.
