100 mills are usually very close copies of existing coins or bars, often without the word 'COPY" printed on them.
Once they have been bought, even if they are well advertised, there is nothing to stop them being sold on as genuine, I think this is where a lot of the distate comes from.
The rest is due to the advertising which can read as if the whole coin is 1oz of silver or gold. I am not even sure what '100mill' is meant to mean but if the seller doesn't use the word 'plated' in their description then they are being deliberately ambiguous. why not write, "Silver plated copper copper coin" unless you are trying to trick people into making a mistake?
I have never come across the "I only write what they tell me" defence before but it makes sense if resellers are just selling items without knowing much about them.
At $7 you would not think that this was real silver, unless you thought it was a bargain or a mistake in the listing, it is also not a direct rip off of an existing design.
Fake might be pushing it a bit far, misleading would be more like it.
$7 for a collectable round? The cardboard Woolworths animal cards are on eBay for up to $2 and it is not like you can get much else for $7 these days, plus as I said, some of the coin club members love them and they know they are not real silver, I don't think they even give a damn that they are plated to be honest, they just like the designs.
