Lately, a lot of our friends and kind customers have been finding other sellers listing Tiffany items which seem identical to ours. There is a reason for this: apparently, it’s easy to copy and paste pictures from other listings on eBay. So a malitious seller can use our photos, copy our descriptions, and then who knows what they’re really selling?

As a rule of thumb, if our pictures are great, thank you, they’re Marc’s. If you see my fingers in the picture, sorry, but at least you know that I’m actually holding the item I’m selling. If you see other sellers using Marc’s beautiful pictures, please know that they do this without our permission and could be selling ANYTHING.

I recently bought a beautiful Tiffany gold key ring on eBay. Imagine my surprise when I opened the box and found that the “Tiffany gold key ring” was actually gold-painted straw. When I contacted the seller, they insisted that they had shipped an authentic gold Tiffany key ring. I could have lived without the aggravation and hassle that came with trying to return the piece of straw to it’s owner. Fortunately I paid with Paypal and they helped me sort that out.

I have noticed an alarming increase in counterfeit designer jewelry on eBay recently. Someone is banging out a lot of silver cufflinks and charm bracelets (in addition to the usually suspect pieces). When I notified eBay that the increase in counterfeits was getting alarming, their answer sounded a lot like something I heard two-years ago. That, “many people like buying counterfeits and enjoy wearing them.”

I have to wonder, how many buyers will see the first counterfeit as the “final straw” that keeps them off eBay forever. One person selling counterfeits hurts all online sellers.

If you’re considering buying an item where the seller is showing a piece that’s too perfect (only Tiffany themselves sell their items new), or using a photo that is so blurred that the details are lost, be reasonably cautious and ask for additional photos; honest sellers who actually have the pieces they’re selling shouldn’t be too hard-pressed to take some extra pictures.

It’s funny…just two weeks ago I was musing that it’s been a while since eBay summary banned me for selling real Tiffany (as they used to like to do). Then I got a notice from eBay that they’re getting rid of their PowerSeller ranking. But…for a decade we’ve been working on climbing the PowerSeller ladder for the wonderful incentives; 15% off final value fees is what lets us offer nice things like free domestic shipping and complementary gift wrap on many orders.

That’s being phased out. The new “gold star” will be the blue “Top Rated Seller” ribbon. According to eBay, the ribbon will be worth a whopping 20% off final value fees. It’s a fantastic incentive, but those PowerSeller stars that we’ve been working hard toward for so long will be capped at 5%. I know it may not seem like a lot, maybe only around $4 or $5 difference per transaction, but those are savings which we have been happily been able to pass along to our clients.

Ebay assured me at length, while dismissing my concerns, that these measures are meant to weed out dishonest sellers. But if this incentive switch is meant to make eBay a safer, more inviting place for people to shop, why spend 10 years baiting us honest sellers with the PowerSeller rankings just to slash them so dramatically? There’s nothing stopping the systems from being fairly combined; the power sellers I’ve asked are, naturally, reaching for the highest mark to reflect the quality they consistently offer. With the Blue Ribbon discount, I could probably start offering patterned tissue instead of solid when gift-wrapping. There’s no need to threaten us honest sellers with cutting incentives and, as great as the Blue Ribbon might seem on paper, I’m seeing a lot of sellers who have less than glowing feedback, a couple even selling blatant forgeries, sporting a “Top Rated Seller” badge.

Of course, in our particular field of fine jewelry, the greatest concern we have is for our clients. With the ease that some classes of seller seem to be able to acquire a blue ribbon (according to one source, “some scammers will even setup 100+ accounts just to make themselves look like a trustworthy seller), I’m most worried that the line separating the good from the bad just got blurrier.

It seems to me the height of irony that, in their effort to remove counterfeits from some sellers stores, eBay is creating a stronger incentive for the dishonest few to counterfeit their own feedback.

ps…for any other fans of courtroom drama, I got to sit mere meters from Kenneth Starr (my new celebrity crush) and Gerald Ullman (also riveting) during a moot court proceeding this week at Santa Clara University School of Law. I was wearing a peach-cashmere sweater set and gold Peretti jewelry. In a courtroom filled with law professors and students in shades ranging from charcoal to navy, I hope I stood out enough to catch his eye.