In a message dated 1/7/02 8:57:31 AM, WickedSky@aol.com writes:
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I receive one ridiculous email after another from elitist members who are upset with ebay auctions. Stop for a minute and reread the comments that YOU posted for CR regarding this guy trying to sell his Bianchi (ebay auction #1058273341). You make a couple of grade-school level comments (to the CR group) regarding the parts on this guys bike. Then you write a merry little note to the guy who is selling this bike. This is not your auction, so where do you get off sending your "corrections" to this guy?
It's called misrepresentation or, more coldly, fraud. Many ebay bidders are taken in by bad descriptions and I don't think that it's out of line to attempt to correct them. I've done it and, I suspect, many others have.
Another thing that bothers me are all of the Bozo CR members who have problems that involve items on ebay that have sold to the people of Japan for what US citizens believe to be outrageous prices. The Japanese people have good reason to spend the kind of money they do on the parts they are interested in and it is no one in the United States' business what the people of Japan want to buy or are willing to pay for a bicycle part. Did it ever occur to anyone that the bicycle is the primary source of transportation in Japan? And with that did it ever occur to anyone that the people of Japan may have a greater sense of passion for their bicycles than us weekend warriors?
The expensive parts have nothing to do with transportation bicycles but are, for the most part, rare French pieces for which the Japanese (and others, including myself) have a great love. The Japanese buyers tend to display the parts while we tend to use them. Different philosophy.
One good thing has come out of all of this. And that is I now have incentive to start my own vintage bicycle discussion group that will not be governed by silly rules and filled with childlike rhetoric. And if 550 members is all you can gather worldwide, I would say something is definitely wrong.................
Childlike retoric? From a guy who calls us "Bozos?"
REMOVE ME FROM THIS LIST
Ted E. Baer Palo Alto, CA >>
Bye bye now.
Phil Brown
NoHo. Ca