It is quite common on ebay to get carried away after seeing a title which says something like:
Heavy Silver Chain for £4.99 + £1.99 P&P

Only to discover that it was only Silver plated and it was in fact pretty cheap and nasty. Real silver chains (we are talking for men here) weigh a minimum of £20+ to anything up to £300 depending upon the weight, length and thickness etc.

Always read the description as although you may think the title is miss leading ebay does not leave much room for a title if you have to have long winded words in there. look out for things like SP or 18KGP. The important information should be written in the listing.

However if a listing says sterling silver in the title and the description says silver plated that is a deliberate attempt to miss sell and should be reported to ebay as genuine Sterling Silver is a) not cheap and b) it affects those selling the real deal. It should be clamped down upon.

So how can you tell once received if it is real silver well there are several ways Sterling silver is 925 silver which means it is 92.5% pure silver with the rest made up of (depending upon the factory) usually copper, there are still some which sell with nickel. There should be a hallmark of 925 on the silver. However in the UK you do not need to hallmark anything under 7 grams (approx) and many baby bangles with not be hallmarked but rather marked silver this means that it is still sterling silver. Usually real silver is heavy than its plated counterpart as well (but this is unreliable).

There are other methods to discover if one is real or not but I will let you discover that for yourself ie. google it ;)