Shill or clever. With ebay fees through the roof for every turn you make you can easily run up a big bill with something as simple as a bicycle. What with posting fees and reserve fees quite a bit more then the .25 cents per post that they started with back in 96.
Now if you can figure a way to beat this system, let's say by posting an item at a very low price with no reserve then turning around and bidding it up youself to your real reserve price.
Just wish I thought of it first.
Ray Homiski
Elizabeth, NJ
Ray:
So you would encourage criminal activity? Hmmm.... Not wise, atmo.
Let's do a quick reality check: who pays for everything on eBay? The buyers do. Any fee that a seller pays to eBay or PayPal is paid from funds that his/her buyers have already paid (or will pay in the future) to him/her. Without buyers, eBay ceases to exist. In the end, however, EBay only cares about one thing: making ever-more profits. They only do things like fraud prevention grudgingly, and only to minimize bad publicity and keep the wheels of 'progress' (i.e. more profits for eBay, see Rule #1) greased.
In fact, the number of buyers on US eBay is slipping, as buyer retention has become a problem. That's no wonder, when 99% of the policies on eBay and PayPal favors sellers rather than buyers. Amazon.com had more buyers in 12/07 that eBay did. That is probably a trend.
Fortunately, beginning in May of this year, eBay will prohibit sellers from leaving retaliatory negative feedback for their buyers, so the fear of retaliation that stops buyers from posting perhaps 80% of their negative feeback comments will no longer exist. However, the several scams that are in place to help sellers get as many of their negatives removed as possible will remain, so savvy sellers will still be able to whitewash their feedback ratings somewhat, but at least things will get a tiny bit more fair on eBay beginning May 2008.
Greg Parker
Ann Arbor, Michigan
États-Unis