EXACTLY! And I have to say that while I understand the reasoning behind naming some ebay sellers as "bad" and some as "good"....the fact is that many of those "bad" sellers probably aren't. One of the criteria seems to be that if you're selling in batches of 50 or 100 or more that they must be fakes. We've been trading for about 8 years now....and we have several thousand pins....and we go to the parks a couple times a year. Imagine what our collection might be like if we lived near the park and could go every week! And the "good" sellers, many of them seem to sell hundreds of pins, but they sell them in smaller lots or individually (check their completed auctions, or just look at their feedback...you don't get thousands of feedback points unless you've sold thousands of auctions...and figure that the average ebay buyer doesn't leave feedback unless the sale goes bad, so they sold a LOT more than their feedback indicates)...so if they have a huge inventory then who is to say they're not buying them in bulk somewhere and just selling less at a time but making just as big of a profit. If I can make $1 a pin profit selling them 100 at a time, I'm making $100....but if I can sell them individually and make $3 a pin profit then I only have to sell 1/3 as many to match the other guy. But I'm selling JUST AS MANY.
I've seen many "experts" tell everyone that this or that sellers' pins are fakes but then admit they've not actually touched the pins. Huh? And if the fakes are actually being made from the original molds, just that the manufacturer didn't stop at the 1,000 pins they were supposed to make....how will you ever know unless you have knowledge of where every one of the 1,000 originals live and therefore any more must be fake? Ahhh, but then is the 1,001st that you find the fake...or was it the 245th that you found that was the fake? You will NEVER EVER know.
And if they're made from the same mold, they are real pins...just unauthorized, and frankly that's a problem Disney could/would/should deal with if they felt it was as widespread as the "experts" would lead you to believe. I mean, really, if the "experts" are right these fakes seem to account for more pins out in the wild than the real ones, which means Disney isn't making as much profit as they could. Don't you think they're big enough that they could just change manufacturers if they felt the run counts were being distorted?
And the "experts" have yet to come up with a way to tell which are fakes and which are real.....and in my opinion that's because you can't. If they're made by the same manufacturer using the same materials and the same molds....ummm, I'll guess that even Disney can't tell the difference because there IS NO difference. Yes there are some very obvious ones out there, even a novice can feel the weight difference and on some even a child can see that the colors are off or the markings are missing. Obvious fakes are easy to spot and CMs will either reject them or some will trade a child for them but then not put them back on their lanyard, they slip them into a pocket. We learned this our first time trading when a CM pointed out one we had traded for earlier that was obviously different. We had noticed the difference, but figured it was just how it was made...before we even knew there were fakes to worry about. The CM had offered to trade us for it so we didn't have a "bad" pin, but my daughter declined. We chose to keep it because we liked it, but remembered to never try to trade it. We still have that pin and still love it for it's differences, and have a few others that are obviously "fake", but we love them too.
So...my advice......Buy from whom you're personally comfortable...and trade for ones that you like. Having read tens of thousands of ebay auctions over the years I think I can honestly say that the only way to actually earn a living on pins is to be doing it full time and probably more! Now...that's not to say that when I'm old enough to retire that my pins from 30 years ago aren't going to be worth something, but that's a bit of a risky long term investment, lol. And I'm just sentimental enough I doubt I'll be able to sell them...they're like family now, imagine in 20 more years, lol.
Enjoy pin trading for what it was always meant to be....a fun hobby and a chance to have a little souvenior of your time at a Disney park. Don't suck the fun out of it for yourself or your children by over analyzing every trade!
Most of the "experts" (who aren't experts, we are just avid pin traders) speak ONLY on their own personal experience. I can review a seller and give an educated opinion but I say that in my replies. It's either IME (in MY experience) or IMO (in MY opinion) and I'm usually very clear on what I'm giving. There is one particular person who says EVERYone sells fakes, that makes me crazy, she doesn't know for sure, it's just her feelings but what she posts makes it seem like everyone on our green list is a bad seller, which isn't true because I'm on the green list! LOL I don't have any pins up for sale right now tho and when I do list them they are complete sets or small lots, I do NOT sell in lots of 50 or 100 pins. I have however purchased many of those lots and found out that they were fakes, every.single.time......
And yes there ARE ways to tell scrappers from legit pins, and yes I know quite a few BUT I also know I have purchased pins in the parks from Disney myself and they've had "markers" for being scrappers. Obviously they weren't because I bought them, but they have the markers! I've had people turn down trades because of that, even when I had the receipt for the pins still in my bag.
Again, we have thousands of pins, we have a huge number of scrappers, we DO NOT CARE if they are scrappers as long as we like them.
Bottom line, MOST of the sellers who have large lots up for sale are selling bad pins, they are getting them directly from China, the molds are either sold or stolen and then used in different factories, or they are simply making extras and Disney wants them tossed but it doesn't happen. And NO Disney will not refuse a trade, that wouldn't be very Disneylike would it.
They DO shut down scrapper sellers when they can, I've seen it happen.
I've seen many CM's put pins in their pockets when they think they are bad, but many more don't know anything about scrappers so they put it on their lanyard and trade it away.
Just curious where the green list and red lists are to be found? I would like to check before we buy more on ebay.
Also, I agree with a lot of the posters here. I let my kids trade for what they like even if they are trading a more valuable pin for a less valuable pin. I just don't worry about it and enjoy watching them have fun at it.
Michele
Follow the link in my sig to find the thread on the Collector Board, you will find the green/red list there.
As I've said over and over, we do not claim to be "experts" on the collector board, we are simply people who enjoy pin trading and do not appreciate the scrappers out there (scrapper means it's a pin that was NOT approved by Disney and was to be scrapped aka thrown out, hence the term scrapper, so no I guess they aren't "fake" but they ARE UNauthorized by Disney and should not be traded when possible). Will we make them go away? Probably not but our goal is to help others who want to trade authorized pins and not pay an arm and a leg for them, personally I feel we do a good job at that.
We can argue until we are blue in the face about the rights and wrongs but it's a personal choice in the end, and personally, I chose to try to trade authorized pins as opposed to scrappers. Do I know everything about every pin? No. Do I want to know everything about every pin? No. But I do want to enjoy pin trading, I do want to do it on a budget and I do not want to spread scrappers. So I use the thread in my signature to help others who want to do the same thing.
It's MY personal opinion that Disney should train the CM's better regarding scrappers, but I don't expect it to happen anytime soon.
I won't stop pin trading, nor will I stop buying pins on eBay, I will however, learn what I can about scrappers, markers for them and I will try to buy from people who sell good pins.
My son then selected another pin to trade with him 
. We even framed one of the sets we managed to complete. I just checked our favorite seller and they are on the red list
. Now I'm sad. My fun memory is somewhat tarnished now. I would not have purchased from the seller had I known they were fakes. They look good to me.
