FEATURE: EBAY: No Fakes. No Fraud. No Doubt?

With adverts like the one above eBay is doing its best to convince us that their site is a super-safe place to buy watches. Of course, when it comes down to it only watches above the value of £1500 are actually sent for verification/certification - but to the casual observer who's not paying too much attention to the finer details eBay is depicted as a safe marketplace, which is... convenient. While I applaud eBay taking some kind of action, we've already seen people receiving watches with warranty cards that don't match their watches so I guess the question is do we trust the super-duper eBay authentication service? And if we're supposed to trust them to spot the super fakes of 2024 then presumably it should have no trouble spotting a really bad fake on their site, right? 

Apparently not. 

This terrible fake S/EL (listed as a 4000 Series oddly enough) caught my eye and I decided to report it to eBay. I haven't done this for a long time (because generally speaking it's a waste of everyone's time) so I was surprised to get an email from eBay telling me that my report had been noted and that they were looking into it. Okay, that's new - in the past you just got a 'Thank You' page and that was it.

A while later I got another email telling me that, 'Hey we looked into this and it looks just fine to us'.

So, I reported it again. And guess what... yep, they 'looked into it again' and still didn't notice anything untoward. Even though the second time I pointed out (in the incredibly small number of characters allowed) that the links should be separate and the dial layout is all wrong. 

Now okay, I know the people who check listings are not the same people who inspect watches when they come in, but this is such an obviously terrible fake that it should be fairly obvious to someone who spends their day checking listings in the Watches & Jewellery category. Not so obvious to someone who's just getting into the hobby and who wants to get a nice watch for a few hundred quid though, sadly - and who might not even realise they've bought a worthless piece of garbage when it arrives.

Don't get me wrong, I realise that eBay can't check every single listing, but when someone points out something obviously bad (twice) and you still don't pick up on it, well... 

Down the page I also noticed multiple listings from a different seller, peddling what I'm pretty sure are also fakes (conveniently priced at £1099, so not troubling eBay's authentication service), but I don't suppose there's much point reporting those since if they can't spot a terrible old fake like the one above then they have zero hope of spotting an excellent modern one (even though someone has already left negative feedback on the seller's profile clearly stating that they were sent a fake watch).

But then why on Earth would they want to bother, the seller has already sold 41 just of this particular model, just think of all those lovely fees that eBay are creaming off the illegal counterfeiting market. But oh, just like Facebook and all those other big corporations denying their responsibilities 'It's not us, we're just a platform.' 

The problem is that real watch enthusiasts aren't getting caught by these scammers, the people who go on the forums are more aware, but it's the people who are attracted to Swiss watches but put off by the high prices in the boutiques. They are the ones who go on eBay and think they are saving a grand, when in reality they're wasting a grand.

It would be great to have a proper platform where you could buy and sell watches where fakes were caught and stopped, even if it was a charged for service. Maybe eBay will get there eventually but they will need to lower the threshold significantly. If they can get it down to the point where 'NEW' Aquaracers are being sold for £600 because the checking threshold is £750 then I think it will be so obvious that even newbies might be given pause for thought. As it is though I'm afraid eBay have a very long way to go before they can claim 'No Fakes, No Fraud, No Doubt'. 

My advice remains unchanged: if you need to ask, then you shouldn't buy it. The only way to know for sure is to buy from a TAG Heuer boutique or an authorised distributor. Failing that an established company that you can go back to if/when you discover that you have been sold a pup.