Tiffany’s Sues eBay Over Fake Jewelry Sales
NBC 11
PALO ALTO, Calif.
— Some jewelers have an issue with an online auction Web site.
CNBC reported Tiffany and Co. filed suit against eBay in 2004 after it bought 200 Tiffany-listed items and deemed at least 150 of them as fakes. As a result, Tiffany claimed, eBay banked hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions from those illegal sales.
“If you’re getting something for $30 that’s supposed to go for $300, it’s probably not real,” Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Heath Terry said. “I think the odds for this hurting eBay are pretty slim.”
The Web site conceded that, at any given time, an average of 6,000 auctions for sale may be fraudulent.
While that may represent a small fraction of the 70 million items up for sale, many industry experts said eBay’s estimates may be conservative at best.
“Trust and safety is a huge division in the company. They have a number of safeguards in place, but it is a very diverse marketplace,” Pacific Growth Equities analyst Derek Brown said.
While eBay said its tough to police the 70 million items currently for sale, they said the site’s verified rights owner program offers counterfeit protection. If copyright or trademark holders discover a bogus item for sale, they can have the auction de-listed from the site by just filing a complaint.
