Deagol wrote:
Bidder ids are hidden so your id is not visible to others.

IMHO your bid is more likely to give the item some credibility rather than put others off. Also, if you have outbid others at the end of the auction, the seller can still second chance offer to them after you pull out.

I was hoping my bid may put off people who want a 'bargain' signature (we all know why it is a bargain, NOT)

I am interested in the point about my bidding adding credibility, I don't know, do people think it does? (thanks for bringing this up as it is a point I had not considered).

Interested in views.

Very surprised that my bid has not been cancelled yet.

While I agree that this signature may well be a fake, is this not vigilantism?

It is, I am trying to stop Alan Formhal's fakes being resold on secondary markets, so yes it is.

Do you think I should not bother about his fakes?

I don't have a strong view on this one way or the other. I don't have a great interest in or knowledge of signed items full stop. While it isn't healthy for collecting in general for people to get ripped off, ultimately if they don't do their research then they leave themselves open to this type of thing - whether the seller is aware of the fake or has themselves been duped.

Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with private individuals getting involved, I just raise the thought for discussion - a moral maze type question if you will. Somewhere down this road is a line not to be crossed, but where is it? Who decides what is genuine and what is fake? How far should one go to prevent a sale, etc.

Was that a wee BBC Radio 4 reference there Deagol?

I'm also fairly ambivalent about this. The only thing I'd question is, perhaps, discussing some of your action(s) in the public part of the forum --is this entirely wise? I mean, I've no idea how many people read these forum discussions, but you're laying it all out for everyone to read. Just a thought...

BH

Sadly, all I can do is delay this fake item being bought on ebay by someone who thinks they have got a bargain and a genuine signed Lord of the Rings

ebay prevent me from stopping the sale, so sadly someone is going to buy this crap and think it is real

You see, you touch on the main issue here: eBay. The problem really is eBay's failure to act on items that are reported. You also have very little space to explain why you're reporting something. I mean, quite a few of us must report quite a lot of stuff --& it's all books & Tolkien. It's actually a bit of a surprise no one has been contacted. I find all this more annoying than the sellers trying (in full knowledge or not) to sell these items, as frustrating as this (also) is. eBay really need to address this, themselves.

BH

It is all economics: eBay makes money when fake items sell, unless they have been sued by a large enough brand or designer or the like to make it more economical to enforce removing fakes for those particular brands.

Look at it from their perspective - they have no idea who Trotter is, nor do they know who the seller is. They certainly don't have the expertise in house to spot a fake Tolkien signature. So, they do nothing.

Yes, I know what you're saying --but there are two responses to this. One, where is the ethics here? I have a real problem with any corporate entity that wilfully ignores possible law breaking right under its nose --particularly where they stand to benefit financially from such activity. Secondly, why have a report function, at all, if you're not going to do anything with the information provided? Or course, we know the answer to this: to be seen to be doing something. It's shameful. I hate capitalism. At a less moral/philosophical level, the collateral effects of capitalism's singular pursuit of money (& very little else), is just deeply annoying.

BH

In eBay's defense, I have had an auction of mine taken down due to someone reporting it, so the reporting button/function does work - I am guessing they just don't know what to do with something as subjective as "is that a forgery or a real signature"?

Longer story - I was selling a boxed software product and as it turns out, that particular version was distributed as "not for resale" and I didn't know that - you could only tell from the UPC code. I didn't relist the item once I knew what I had. The report was made by the software maker, so they had "legitimacy" in the eyes of the eBay minion who handled the report.

I have a feeling that if the Tolkien Estate legal team notified eBay, the item would be taken down. That's probably the only way to get an action from them.