Warning - eBay Gift Certificates

There have always been restrictions on what you can buy with eBay gift certificates, among which were bullion coins and bars. Now they have extended the prohibition to cover all coins and banknotes.

This is a major irritation. I can see no reason why this change was needed and what purpose it serves. It's particularly annoying as I'm holding a couple of them right now and for the foreseeable future my coin buying budget is restricted to an occasional $50 gift card from the cashback on my credit cards.

I guess I'll buy a case of 2x2 flips and maybe an album or two but I really wanted some coins dammit! I'm getting withdrawal symptoms.

I didn't know any of that about eBay gift certificates. I suspect that they extended the prohibition largely because of the issues we have discussed elsewhere on this forum: the problem of knowing which coins are "real" and which coins are actually bullion.

For example the Canadian bullion Maple Leafs carry a face value (e.g. $50 for the 1 oz gold), so are they actually coins? I suspect eBay's lawyers took the move because of the confusion arising from bullion coins and other non-circulating "coins" such as the CDN $20 silver coins which people are returning to the Mint because the value of silver has gone down.

I had the pleasure of learning this the hard way after my wife got me gift cards to buy coins... so I just bought supplies but what a lame rule. As though my purchasing of some nice old coins is like laundering!