Counterfeit listing on eBay? What eBay's own records show

In May 2026, NBC Connecticut found four eBay listings for one-ounce Silver Eagle coins at around $25 each, when real ones sell for about $90. The station bought all four and had them tested. They were copper with traces of silver. eBay told the station the sellers had been suspended and the listings removed. Other listings just like them, the station reported, were still up.

If a counterfeit listing on eBay is using your brand, expect something similar. eBay filters out a lot by itself, but a listing that gets through can sit there until someone complains. eBay says so itself: "Sometimes, listings stay live simply because they haven't been reported yet by the rights owner." OpenBait files these reports for companies, and the last section says which listings we can take and which we can't.

Doesn't eBay catch fakes on its own?

It catches a lot. These figures come from eBay's 2025 Global Transparency Report, published in May 2026:

The 4.3 million is the row to look at. Those listings made it onto the site and came down because somebody outside eBay spoke up.

What the report leaves out is more useful to a brand owner. It has no count of counterfeits on their own, no count of reports filed or refused, and nothing on how long a listing stayed up before it was removed. So nobody outside eBay can say what share of fakes gets caught. We can't either.

One old ruling helps explain why. In a 2010 appeals ruling, Tiffany v. eBay, the court held that to be liable for sellers' fakes, a marketplace must have "more than a general knowledge" that counterfeits are being sold on it, and that it takes "contemporary knowledge of which particular listings are infringing." That's one old decision from one federal circuit and we aren't your lawyers. Still, eBay's process looks the way that ruling would predict: somebody has to point at a specific listing.

eBay described its role in plainer terms in 2026. Investigating replacement air bag inflators, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ordered eBay in January to identify every listing in the past 10 years where it learned a substandard or counterfeit air bag product had been sold. eBay's March reply said it "does not maintain records that would enable it to provide a complete and accurate response," and that it searched the seller accounts NHTSA had named. The same letter says eBay "only acts as a publisher of sellers' listings." That answer was about air bags, which eBay has since banned from the site, so don't stretch it to every product.

Can a small brand use VeRO?

VeRO, the Verified Rights Owner program, is what eBay built for this. eBay's Seller Center says it's "designed for intellectual property (IP) owners and their authorized representatives." Nothing in that sentence sets a minimum size. We didn't find an eBay page saying a registered trademark is required to join, and we also didn't find one saying it isn't, so treat that as open.

The harder part, from what we can read, is finding the listings. eBay's process starts with one somebody has already spotted, and on a site with 2.5 billion of them, someone has to find it first. That's a lot to ask of a shop owner between orders.

Then there's the wait. The eBay pages we read don't give a review time, and we won't guess one.

Someone is using my photos on eBay. Is that even allowed?

Ask this on eBay's own forum and you'll get several answers. In a thread from November 2025, one seller described a newcomer who had lifted his pictures so carelessly that they still showed his inventory numbers: "This seller is so lazy he's not even correcting my spelling errors." Another said, "I spent thousands to get equipment that allows for photos to be catalog worthy." Others told them it was allowed, or that they should take it as a compliment.

eBay's wording explains part of the mess. Its US policy page, as archived in May 2025, told sellers their content "may be added to the eBay product catalog, and may be used by other sellers in their eBay listings." That sounds like a free-for-all. Its Irish policy page, read on November 1, 2026, is clearer: content selected for the catalogue can be used by other sellers, and otherwise, "You may not use images and videos from other sellers without permission." We couldn't open the current US text, so we can't confirm it says the same.

In a July 2026 discussion on eBay Community, one poster remembered a man running a nonprofit shop that sold vintage and custom fishing lures. Someone was taking his photos, and customer service had told him "tough luck; others can use your photos." Another poster summed up what people usually hear: "this isn't against our policy." A different seller in that thread said such listings can be removed.

What if they're selling my real product?

Work this out first. If the goods are genuine, it's probably not a counterfeit listing at all. eBay's Seller Center says it doesn't accept reports "based solely on issues like selective distribution agreements, minimum advertised pricing (MAP) policies, or other private contractual terms." A reseller undercutting you with genuine stock is annoying, but it isn't something this program was built to stop, and we can't help with it either.

An account posing as you is different. eBay's intellectual property policy treats using "a third-party trademark in your username or store name without permission" as a possible infringement when it implies a connection to the trademark owner.

How do big brands deal with this?

Some sue sellers in bulk. Duke filed against 78 sellers in September 2025 over alleged fakes on Temu, Walmart and eBay. The company behind Panic! at the Disco filed in Illinois on September 8, 2026, against unnamed sellers on eBay, SHEIN and Temu, saying they work "under one or more Seller Aliases to conceal their identities, locations."

A court can do things a report can't. In one North Carolina case involving twenty seller aliases on AliExpress, Alibaba and eBay, the order told platforms to freeze funds and hand over records identifying the operators, according to the plaintiff's law firm. We don't have a reliable figure for what they cost.

Will the listing stay down?

We don't know, and we haven't seen anyone publish that number. eBay's Seller Center says an item reported as allegedly counterfeit through VeRO "can't be relisted," and that repeat violations can end in permanent suspension. Those rules attach to an item and an account, and the sellers in those lawsuits are accused of running aliases. eBay's VeRO page also says a listing "can be reinstated if the seller successfully appeals or corrects the issue."

Can someone do this for me?

OpenBait is a takedown service: we report fake websites, cloned stores, impersonating accounts, and eBay or Etsy listings that use a company's photos or text without permission or sell fakes under its registered trademark. A takedown is $199, paid once, on any plan. Pro is $299 a month for up to 3 takedowns and Business is $499 a month for up to 10. All of one seller's listings reported together count as one takedown.

You sign one letter of authorization in your dashboard, we file the report, and we keep checking eBay listings daily. We aren't affiliated with eBay, and we can't promise how fast it will act or what it will decide.

Two limits. The photos or text have to be yours, so a manufacturer's product photos don't count. And for a fake listing that uses your brand name but none of your own photos or text, we need a registered trademark we've checked. Without one, we can't take it today.

Create a free account and add the listings from your dashboard, or compare plans. How it works covers what happens next, and you can see how we compare with other services. For a fake website rather than a listing, read who can take down which part of a copied site or run the free look-alike domain check.