On Sun, 19 Dec 2004 16:57:08 GMT, "Emmo" wrote:

the great American rip called ebay

In what way is eBay a rip? An auction is the fairest possible way to
establish a price for something, and eBay's fees are really quite cheap, far
less than the 10% buyer's premium that most live auctions impose...

I am serious in asking this, risking that you might just be a troll...

If it were a live auction, I might agree, but on ebay/payscam, you
have no way of knowing if you're bidding against a legitimate buyer or
the one that owns it and is just pumping up the price.

"Reserve prices", in a live auction, there is sometimes a minimum
opening bid, and it's announced. Ebay hides this, hoping for more
traffic.

The ebay toolbar is listed in SpyBot as one of the files to kill,
which probably means they're getting all kinds of information they
have no right to.

Horror stories about ebay are many, Harold has one, there has been one
on the soaring group, something about paying $18000 for a glider and
then finding that it was sold to someone else, before it ever came up
on the auction. Those are just two of many. Ebay will not back up
the buyer, or the victim as it usually is. Paypal, being part of
ebay, will do just as little, or less. You have to go to court to
fight it, cost that you should not have to incur, ebay should have to
pick those up. They don't.

A 10% fee to a legitimate auctioneer is not excessive, taking chances
on the internet with a brainfart called ebay is, at any fee.

"Feedback", crock of bull****, nobody leaves negative feedback on a
seller, because the seller has the option of scorching the buyer if
negative feedback is left. The "Great Ebay lie." 100 positive
feedbacks and no negatives mean only that you still don't know
anything about the seller, and they're usually rips anyhow.

"Antique" micrometers, hoping for huge prices for worn out junk, when
what they're advertising is a 30 year old Starrett 436P, that I can
buy a brand new one for less than they get for the junk. Rip by any
other word. As antique is normally taken to be 100+ years old, maybe
..01% of what ebay says is antique might be, but probably just old
junk.

GO down and look at the llist of completed items, many times old junk
goes for more than brand new would cost from a legitimate dealer. Rip
off.