eBay offers no protection to bidders from many illicit auction practices. They have no way to prevent syndication by one or more bidders, neither can they prevent "chandelier bidding" by shills driving prices up artificially. Only PayPal allows some redress of wrongs and using PayPal's system isn't always easy. What's worse, and I believe is currently being litigated, is that they continue to let criminal sellers operate long after receiving legal notification of their crimes from multiple sources! The posture they have adopted is that they are merely brokers and can't be responsible for the acts of sellers. They're laughing all the way to the bank. I think this is going to have to change soon. I certainly hope so.
George Hollenberg MD
CT, USA