Thanks for the detailed description, Richard.

I will admit that I have greatly reduced my patronage of ebay and in fact
have not implemented my plan to sell a lot of stuff on that system as it
has become larger, less responsive and increasingly coercive.

You will understand that I cannot comment further on my friend's departure
from the company. (Not that I know very much more than anyone else.)

This seems not to apply to you, but I still think it wise to be a little
skeptical of those who rail too long and too loudly at the dishonesty of
everyone else.

Norm

"Richard Steinfeld" wrotf:

"norml" wrote in message
.. .
| "Richard Steinfeld" wrotf:
|
| eBay's public mouthpiece is a former public radio host turned
a
| government mouthpiece, and now eBay's. He claims, in
innocence,
| that there are thousands of successful transactions every day,
| and why, eBay "is only a venue."
|
| While not technically untrue, this is a mean-spirited
description of the
| man, whom I personally know to be of impeccable integrity.
|
| And, FWIW, he left ebay last September. I know nothing of his
successors.
|

Norm, I know you used to work with him. I protected his identity
as I am still doing. And I used to respect him (I won't mention
names). I understand your kind feelings for him. In years past,
you both did a good program every day. With the replacement host,
it is sitll a really great radio program.

But I was distressed to hear how he responded to the complaints
that came in when he appeared in the eBay capacity on the radio.
The complaints are very legitimate. In fact, I wonder if you were
on the board that day, so you may recall it. I have read,
repeatedly, that the largest class of complaints to the FTC for
the last few years have been about being cheated in on-line
auction transactions. In other words, a really great number of
people have been ripped off via on-line auctions. That means
eBay. I maintain that internet auction seller ripoffs are a
plague. Your friend, as eBay had done before he'd gone to work
for them, presented the same response: things are just fine. They
aren't. I think that our man really wasn't as experienced as many
of the actual buyers and sellers.

Further, I am pleased that you wrote that he'd left. I submit
that he is too good for this company!

| Are you, BTW, contending that there are NOT "thousands of
successful
| transactions every day?" With one picayune exception, my ebay
| disappointments have been caused only by clueless packers not
unscrupulous
| schemers.

|
No. There are indeed thousands of successful eBay transactions
daily. There are many honest sellers.

| I am a little sceptical of those here who claim loudly and
often to have
| been cheated.

But, Norm, with all due respect for you, too, I want to point out
that the experiences that I had were as I stated. I found that
eBay threw obstacle after obstacle in my path, one self-help
hurdle after another, "help" sequences that after a number of
steps, returned the user right back to the beginning. They bloody
wear you out, Norm. You are given stage after stage of
generalized "advice" to use in the attempt to solve the problem
without ruffling their feathers. Have you actually been through
the sequence all the way through attempting to obtain an
"insurance" refund through eBay? Sometimes the path is
successful. Sometimes not. William made out OK, after the
deductable. I did not.

I have attempted to communicate with eBay many times. I have yet
to receive an answer that wasn't boilerplate, and rarely has one
of those boilerplate answers been squarely about what I wrote
about. Can you discuss anything on the phone with them? One's
fingers can get mighty tired. Remember, you can't post an actual
message to anyone until you have plowed through page after page
of autooated FAQs. You can't, for example, fire off an email to
an email address because you can only initiate an email via the
self-help slog. You've gotta play the game all the way through at
considerable cost of your own time (not theirs).

When I asked my witness to produce yet a third letter of
verification, he blew up in rage and refused. I'd already
submitted two letters he'd written to eBay; each time they
politely refused to accept it: they rejected his letter the first
time because it was on disk, not on paper; they rejected his
letter the second time because it was on paper, but not on
printed letterhead. Their requirements for accepting
documentation of fraud were not spelled out in advance; the
submissions were only rejected after I'd gone through each step
in turn. First, you and the seller have to go through a 30-day
purgatory. During this time, you and the seller yell at each
other. In my case, the seller had told me that I was a fool to
expect that "mint" meant anything other than "used." ("You have
bought a used CD player in mint condition. Everything sold on
eBay is used.") Then you submit the claim. And wait.

Let's run through the second part of this script in a bit more
detail this time. Let's say that you've asked your friend Harry
to sign a statement that he has seen that the CD player that was
advertised as "Mint" is, in fact, scratched, scuffed, and filthy,
that the loading door is mindlessly going in and out, that the
remote control is coated with a thick, wide blob of adhesive
glop. You send the letter on a disk, with photos you've
painstakenly taken, paper copies of the auction listing and all
correspondence to eBay in Salt Lake City. Your proof is a slam
dunk: the seller has lied. And they reject the whole thing
because they won't put a floppy disk into their computer. It is
the year 2003, and eBay, a superbly computerized operation, will
only accept paper photographs. I didn't make this up. My
experience with them was that when there's a problem, their
systems are user-hostile. Perhaps this has been improved since
then. I've already done approximately 50 transactions on eBay.
And, yes, most bad received merchandise has been due to bad
packing, as you said.

Unfortunately, I stand by everything that I wrote. The CD player
example I've been talking about is my own: the scuffed,
scratched, filthy "Mint" product with a loading door going in and
out nonstop. I do not think that this company is willing to give
adequate help to people who have been cheated in the system that
they've set up. They do a fine job protecting their own
interests, however, and buying up and crushing any competition.
Reminds me of Rockefeller and Microsoft. Sorry, Norm: that's what
I see and that's what I've experienced. Your friend did not help
dispell the illusion and experience of many people. Luckily, I
was able to clean the machine with a lot of work and alcohol. The
scratches and scuffs remain. I was able to clean and relubricate
the complicated loading door mechanism. The door, of course,
would still benefit from a "mint" belt like what I paid for. And
the machine sounds good. But the fact remains that I was cheated
and that eBay did a fine job of wearing out the buyer.

In the other case in my earlier post, the seller was hiding
behind totally bogus contact information. That's a clear eBay
address violation, right? Wrong: they accused me of wanting to
pull out after winning with a stern notice.

Regarding the issue of mispacking damage, here's what happened.
Between myself and a few other people I'd corresponded with, I
noted that I had either bought or knew about 18 turntables
purchased on eBay: every one of them damaged due to mispacking.
So I wrote to eBay about this epidemic of broken turntables. I
suggested that they send an automated email to all listers of
turntables with packing instructions. They have the technology to
do this; I also figured that they would care. You know what they
did: nothing, Norm. Didn't even have the courtesy to answer me.
Right into the trash. Hit the delete button.

Regarding business practices, I found and bought on a competing
auction site three times. I was happy to find an alternative. But
eBay sued them for name infringement, and sued them again after
they'd changed their name. That company is a ghost now. I used a
competing payment service. eBay bought up that service and
promptly shut it down. There comes a point at which the behavior
of the 900-pound gorilla becomes very clear.

As much as I respect you, I must disagree in this case. I know
what I've gone through and what I've witnessed. I cannot regard
this company as a good corporate citizen: there's a fig leaf of
responsibility, but that fig leaf is etched very clearly. Yet, it
has been useful. I am grateful to have been able to purchase
certain items that I never though I'd ever be able to find again
during my lifetime: wonderful historic audio treasures. I still
use the service from time to time, a lot less than earlier. Why?
Because it is the only game in town. You play that game or you
don't play at all. That's the way it is.

I hope that I have presented a more fleshed-out explanation this
time, Norm. In the beginning, I really had hope for this venue. I
wanted eBay to be a success; I wanted everyone to play by the
rules. I wanted eBay to police their "community" and keep things
fair. I wanted the company to behave in an enlightened manner, in
the spirit of what they'd created and in the spirit of the
message that they put out (Safe Harbor and all that). Now, sadly,
it's just, "Buyer beware."

Richard