moral obligation of forvm

[georgius]

What I may be saying is just old news.  But listen to me.  This fakes discussion board has unearthed many of the world's coin forgeries.  We have an extensive fakes gallery to top that.

But what good is it that if it is not available to the public?  A top priority should always be to note the nuismatic world of our discoveries.  And especially to report to eBay where and who is selling fakes.  I know many of us may be doing that, but this may need organization.  Instead of just submitting fake reports, someone should be in charge of spreading the word.

[Federico M]

I did listen, but I respectfully disagree and this is why:

First of all I'd like to highlight the fact that, in my hopinion, there are only "moral obligation" in favor of "forvm", if you write it with "v" (and with uppercase F). What I mean is that Forvm is already doing more than he could be reasonably asked to do and I think we may only thank Forvm staff for this.

About your proposal, the main problem is that this forum should NOT be considered or look like an instrument of Forvm to attack other sellers: if Forvm explicitly organised instruments to alert buyers of other suspicious sellers, this would be considered an offensive attitude and could create more problems than benefits (especially to people kindly hosting these discussion boards).

As you said, at individual level, users can already alert bidders in danger and this is the maximum we can do, in my hopinion, without charging an additional cost and additional problems on our hosts. But -in general- if we want people to contribute to this forum and read these pages, we can simply advertise this forum with friends and other collectors and in our webpages and so on

In any case, when sellers are found to knowingly sell fakes, they are always reported to EBay by someone and there are frequently sticky post here to alert buyers.

Regards,
Federico

[amarillo]

I agree Federico, Forvm has by far excelled in its quest to date.

However it does remain the moral obligations of others to spread the word as Forvm cannot ethically do this as a conflict of interests would arise.

I am a little crap at website, but a website to name and shame would be a good idea, listing wares and id's once voted for on a poll.

It's an idea.

[maridvnvm]

I would add that directly approaching buyers, even about such things, can get you into trouble with ebay. There are mechanisms in place for reporting the selling of fakes to ebay and they can take action. One major problem is that some sellers, such as the Toronto group, try and list and sell in 1 day, with private auctions. There is no way for anyone other than ebay to get the bidder information and contacting ebay gives them little time to close things down. Forvm has provided the Fakes board as a mechanism of listing known fakes as a means of education. I, for one, attempt to contact the seller if I believe that they are inadvertantly selling a fake and if I make no progress I report it to ebay. When I see a Toronto group sale I report it to ebay. There is no moral obligation upon Forvm but I feel that if there is a moral obligation upon us as individuals to record and report as and when we can.
Regards,
Martin

[Joe Sermarini]

I believe providing the fake coin reports and discussions on this board is as far as FORVM will go.  I already regularly receive emails from sellers claiming that FORVM is infringing upon their copyright by publishing pics of their fake coins.  We will not allow organization of a notification program here.