Well, if it ever got to that point, what's to keep a seller from adding a clickable link or just putting their email address in their auction information?
As we all know, ebay can't enforce the rules it has now...so everytime they try to build a mousetrap, everyone just invents a way around it.
posted on December 22, 2000 06:59:27 PM
Very interesting reddeer. I don't see any real problems with what I see there. Although as Glenda points out, it COULD only be the first step to a much more restrictive system to come. You never know.
posted on December 22, 2000 07:15:04 PM
Its on all the auxillary sites..Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, England. I couldn't check Japan as I don't have the translator (?).
Doesn't seem to matter if the seller has an email addy id or a regular id. But..clicking on the buyer still brought you to the regular get email screen.
OH HECK...I'm to old to start learning new tricks!
(and I can't spell tonight)
[ edited by amy on Dec 22, 2000 07:16 PM ]
posted on December 22, 2000 08:49:11 PM
I still say just create a clickable link in your TOS or auction description directly to your email. Assuming, of course, that you want to receive email w/o ebay looking over your shoulder.
It would leave you at risk for being harvested for SPAM but if that doesn't bother you, then there are ways around this latest ebay invention.
posted on December 22, 2000 09:03:35 PMGlenda ....... Yes I know it's not exactly the same as Yahoo, but I never said it would be.
I also don't think it will be any more restrictive in the future. I started adding an email link in my auctions some time back.
If I have to, I'll change my user ID to my email addy, but I doubt it will come to that.
Just thought it was interesting that this was rolled out so soon, and was being tested on us Foreeners first.
I suppose eBay was hoping no one would notice until after Xmas. So much for that plan.
posted on December 22, 2000 10:39:04 PMReddeer: Yes I know it's not exactly the same as Yahoo, but I never said it would be.
I said: "I don't think they'll implement the "ask question" function the way it is at Yahoo."
You answered: "Wanna bet?"
You're right, you just sorta disagreed with me when I said it wouldn't be.
As to the timing, I think that form thing has been there for a while - I can't quite put my finger on it, but it seems to me I read a comment on an eBay threaded board and went to look. Couple of weeks ago, maybe longer, I think.
If eBay were to implement a process by which people would have to retrieve each "winner" through some online form they will kill all volume sellers on the site. eBay takes more time to manage than any other point of sale on the net and we do vend w/ the big boys such as Onsale, Home Shopping Network etc. It would be torture more so than it is now to manage sales, contact bidders etc.
The issue of fee avoidance IF eBay would listen is not the pre-contact of buyers its the post contact. How many bidders ever contact a seller before an auction is over and ask "Can I buy it now". A few, in fact VERY few. Even those with links to online shops and such can attest to this.
eBay is getting ripped off on the POST contact. In other words, some dude puts quantities of 1's and 2's up of whatall, a DVD video or Digital Camera etc. Whatever.
Competitive bidding ensues and at the end of the ficticious DVD auction there are say 25 bidders. The seller gets say $40 final value. They'd have taken say $15. So what they do is trod along and contact every single bidder from $15-$40 thats unique and sell to them direct. THIS is where eBay is getting ripped off heavy like. So say there were 7 bidders who made unique bids. This character gets a hundred? Two? Three hundred? in sales and eBay gets a lousy .25 listing fee and a commission on $40, smoked on the rest.
Thats SIMPLY PUT WRONG. You sellers may all yell BLAH BLAH thats so this & that, those who do it know who they are.
Lets look at it from a bidders view. JoBob Video Sales just sold him a DVD for $40. Yet, Bidder JrScience just got emailed as he was a $15 non-winning bidder saying he can get it for $15 and does. What thats called is fraud. The original bidder just paid better than double what a LOOSING bidder bought from the same seller for better than twice as much.
eBay gets ripped off on fee avoidance, the winner, in fact EVERY PERSON sold to above the "bottom sale" got ripped off. So the lady who was also a loosing bidder who was contact after auctions close and paid $20, the other guy who was offered it at $25... ALL of them got ripped off as it SOLD down to a non-winner at $15.
I have saw sellers YIP and YELL all about that stuff when the fact is. The consumers are ripped off, eBay is ripped off and the only one comes out like roses is the seller.
ITS WRONG.
Fortunately we already know how to fix it.
A bidder should be able to contact the seller at any point, again, "pre closure sales" are so slight its mute. We know it, all sellers who have been at eBay for years know it, now you do too
The BIDDER should NEVER be able to be contacted via eMail UNTIL AN AUCTION CLOSES.
When an auction closes ONLY the winning bidder(s) email address(es) should be made available. Sellers will argue well what if the winner does not pay and I need contact a secondary. FINE. Go through a eBAY FORM so eBAY can track those requests. CLEARLY if a seller has oodles of them something is awry.
The majority of FEE avoidance is occuring by sellers harvesting non-winner email addresses after auctions close and then selling to the direct external of eBay. If a seller cant get the loosers email addresses then they cant hardly sell to them can they?
In the case where a bidder MIGHT need to be contacted while an auction is running again, use a form, so eBay can track how much of it a seller is doing. We sell oodles of stuff at eBay and I'd say in... jeesh... certainly tens of thousands of auctions we have only needed to contact a bidder prior to close 2 times? 3 on the outside? and only to say "Hey! You have a -1 feedback... whats the deal". We have never engaged in contacting LOOSING bidders and say "oh by the way here". ITS WRONG, ITS ILLEGAL, ITS FRAUD. How would you feel in your used car which was bought by you in auction you paid $7,000 yet the auctioneer blew 3 others out to your neighboors for $2000? GREED I have saw used in this thread pointed at eBay and that just baloney.
We sell at some sites where commissions are as high as 25%+ for ANY sale + $2 listing fees. eBay is a BARGAIN and they are NOT the greedy ones. They have an immense site requiring immense human and technical as well as legal resources and folks that costs money. eBay is #1 in person to person auctions because Amazon or Yahoo and myraids of other lesser challengers will NOT commit those kind of resources to challenge a place that SPECIALIZES in it. Thats why the others fail where eBay suceeds.
On the other side of the cooin however, I dont understand why they allow the same seller to use multiple accounts to peddle the same stuff. Again, its wrong. If JoBob rips off a bidder but JoBob has ten accounts does he care about a negative or ten? Further, the reason sellers do that is to get cometitive bids. If a seller has 5 accounts, sells 1 DVD through each of the 5 the poor slob consumer thinks its 1. So he bids $40. Yet, on the sellers other 4 accounts it goes for $10. Same seller, same stuff. I can see multiple accounts for differing goods. So He sells video tapes too or music. Certainly Music should not be all mixed in with DVD titles casuing the bidder to search like a DOG for DVD titles. I would again "suggest" any "additional" accounts for seller MUST be located (somehow) under a main account.
So a PC seller might use Account A to sell PC's. Account B. to sell parts, Account C to sell Mac's. But ALL under 1 MASTER account.
eBay is loosing money, and bidders and the GREAT sellers get annoyed at those breaking the rules as those are all "sniped" sales. Who knows... the bidder might have come to us to "try winning" when they lost from another seller, but, we never get the opportunity as that seller sold to NON winners as well. Thats unfair to good sellers. We have for example NEVER engaged in that, agan it wring morally, its bad for the buyers, its bad for other sellers, its bad for eBay and the onlky joker laughing is the one who ripped EVERYONE off and that DESTROYS THE VERY FOUNDATION OF THE HONESTY/INTEGRITY AT THE SERVICE. Its also illegal. The WINNING BIDDER(s) are defrauded. I've heard arguements against that saying well the winner gets their stuff and if I contact the others thats not illegal or this or that, it IS fee avoidance but thats hardly against the law right? WRONG.
The fact is the Winning Bidder WON under a pretense that they were COMPETING with OTHER bidders. The seller under their OWN actions went and contacted LOOSING bidders and sold BELOW what the winner who COMPETED against them and won has had to pay. IMAGINE if Walmart did that... Or say the horse racing tracks to put a spin on it.
Sellers using multiple accounts to peddle the same stuff have the EXACT same effect.
The areas eBay needs to address to get back to a FAIR AND LEVEL playing field for both sellers & consumers is to enact what I have put above.
1. Seller needs to contact bidder(s) before auctions close. An online form must be used to get the email addy's and access to such a function should be tracked. Or perhaps even an "online email form" so eBay can SEE whats being said should they wish (sunno bout' legalities on that)
2. Seller needs to contact LOOSING bidder because winner has'nt paid. Go to #1. Same deal. In fact, perhaps even a special form. This would end it ENTIRELY. Seller has a quick form just like say the non-paying bidder form. Put in your userid, pwd, auction number and eBAY emails the secondary bidder saying the winner hasnt paid, doesnt want, what all and they now have the choice to buy.
However, at the SAME TIME and email goes out to the WINNING bidder about the non-payment.
In fact, incorporate it right into the Non-paying bidder form. This way if the winner DID pay the seller is certainly trying to get the loosers bids too... Viola. Problem solved.
3. Allow for a "master" account. So if we want to peddle beanie babies too or perhaps just diversify into selling other stuff than our mainstream stuff we can set up another account UNDER the master. Our feedback section would be pertinent to ALL accounts under the master. So for say a Powerseller thats a BIG plus. They retain the feedback theyve had. Consumers can SEE a TRUE indicator instead of 15 different accounts all with their own feedback. Consumers can be SURE of who they are dealing with and not get "gee this character ripped me off 5 months ago and here I am bidding again with them and I didnt even know it!".
I am sure doing this is probably a sizeable programming feat for multiple accouns under a master account, but, its good for the future of eBays health and long term vitality as is removing the sales to NON-winners.
Whay can I tell ya? I tell it the way it is.
We have always used eBay to the LETTER as we realize if eBay is damaged so are we and so are consumers. The damage is not generally caused by eBay or consumers. Its caused by greed on sellers parts to get every stinkin' sale they can by hook or by crook. We dont operate that way and btw, its why sites such as The Home Shopping Network etc. welcome us with open arms. Honesty is the best policy.
Fairness and trust are the very core of what made eBay eBay. Unfortunately with such popularity an element is attracted due to money that could care less about winners, loosers, eBay, other sellers but only care about the MAXIMUM that they can get. Doesnt necessarily mean they are BAD people. It means that human nature says "get all one can get". We get all we can get but we do it by being at over 16 points of sale on the net that are all high traffic. We wont do it by sticking it to others or sites that are in fact the reason we can sell to begin with.
Your Kid gives you a cookie and says thanks for being so wonderful to me. Do you then turn around and steal her piggy bank?
Might be a bad comparison but you get the idea. Here eBay operates so sellers get sales and eBay gets money and everyone should be happy. But unfortunately some sellers out there dont care. So they rip eBay off, rip the consumers off, rip other sellers off by stealing potential sales and ultimately end up ripping themselves off as the service gets destroyed or restrictions like those I noted above need be put in place. Its a pretty sad statement for that segment of humanity.
posted on December 22, 2000 11:23:03 PM
Given the time lag when a question is submitted to [email protected], I wonder how efficient Ebay will be in submitting these "ask" forms to the sellers and buyers.
posted on December 22, 2000 11:35:42 PM
Um, OK, if it makes you feel better Glenda. Funny how you never mentioned that there would be an online "ask a seller a question" form, in any form.
I guess that's why I misunderstood your comment?
As far as the timing, I'm not sure how long that feature has been on some areas of eBay, but it wasn't on eBay Canada last week. The only auctions I browse as a buyer, are on eBay Canada, and I used the "ask a seller a question" link just last week before placing a bid.
It seems rather odd that eBay hasn't bothered to mention this small detail on the AB.
posted on December 22, 2000 11:51:49 PM
I do not want to trust eBay with handling all communications regarding my business.
1. It's private. ain't none of eBay's business,a dn they don't need to be keeping track of it.
2. I don't trust their system not to break down.
3. I wonder if this might not discourage question-asking by bidders. Because of those same privacy issues.
4. If I should get thrown off eBay, for WHATEVER reason, my business is dead if they have total control over communications with buyers. I think not.
Now I have never been one to contact underbidders to make offers. I don't do that. I understand where eBay might feel ticked and ripped off over that.
But I am telling you, I think more people would stay within the eBay system VOLUNTARILY if they thoiught they could trust the eBay system.
I am not afraid to pay fees. I will gladly pay fees on anything I sell! But I do not want someone else to have that kind of control over my business.
A lot of buyers for boutiques have bought from me on eBay and later came back and ordered wholesale for their stores.
That is the kind of exposure I am looking for at eBay. If I cannot get that kind of exposure I simply will not list there anymore. Because the piddling ten dollar sale five or six times a week doesn't cut it alone.
For the month of November I paid $138.00 and some change in listing and commission fees. I grossed $607.73 cents in sales on eBay.
That was the Christmas season for me. They eliminated the category in which I sold and left me homeless. Right in the middle of the Christmas shopping season they did that to jewelry sellers. And I paid them damned near 25 percent of my gross earnings to do so.
My eBay sales alone do not justify the expenditures I make. I do it because of the exposure those listing fees buy me. You take away the exposure, and I am gone.
posted on December 23, 2000 12:06:36 AM
I don't see how Ebay could restrict access to the seller's email address (as some have suggested) and still encourage bidders to contact the seller and ask questions.. Then there's the ME pages with contact information. They would have to eliminate them.
How could they restrict access to the buyers email address without restricting access to the sellers email address? Many buyers are also sellers........
posted on December 23, 2000 12:58:13 AMWhyNot, I agree with what you are saying. I also believe that many sellers sell to underbidders in their auctions, and even bidders in other sellers' auctions. It screws eBay out of their money, and it screws other sellers out of sales. eBay should only provide email addresses between the seller and auction winner. I've seen FAR too many sellers state they see nothing wrong with using eBay as you describe.
Can I make one little suggestion? And it's not directed only at you.
Lose, Loser, Losing, Lost!!
Not LOOSER! And for heaven's sake, NOT "LOOSING!!"
posted on December 23, 2000 01:09:17 AMeventer, you said, "what's to keep a seller from adding a clickable link or just putting their email address in their auction information?"
reddeer, you said, "If I have to, I'll change my user ID to my email addy, but I doubt it will come to that."
outoftheblue, you said, "Then there's the ME pages with contact information. They would have to eliminate them."
Ebay CAN eliminate all email contact between everyone but the high bidder and the seller of a closed auction that's met reserve IF THEY CHOOSE TO.
I don't know programming, but I believe the engineers can write code for the program to DETECT EMAIL LINKS AND HYPERLINKS IN COPY, can they not? If your auction description copy contains an email or hyperlink, the eBay auction submission form can simply kick it back with an "error: copy contains disallowed links" and not let you submit it until you eliminate the links.
Ebay can also restrict contact information in the ME pages, too, though it's a LOT more trouble to find contact information if you have to read everyone's ME page.
Ebay can disallow any user names CONTAINING EMAIL ADDRESSES OR WEBSITE NAMES if they so choose.
As for the "question and answer" aspect of all this....Yahoo's procedure sends an email with the question to the seller, and the seller clicks the hypterlink in the email to go to the form page to post his answer. I expect eBay to (sooner or later) follow the same procedure. Yahoo does this NOT to prevent off-auction sales (since their site is free), but to protect everyone's privacy and safety, and it does---it eliminates ALL spam and junk mail and 'wierdo' (except for some high bidders) contact to user addresses, a major problem on eBay.
I think, in light of Amy's conversation with the eBay employee last month, these measures to restrict off-auction sales may be the LEAST of what eBay plans to do in the next few months, as their stock value continues to fall.
Get ready, because I predict you aren't going to like what's coming.
posted on December 23, 2000 01:59:50 AM
Twinsoft: I type over 100 words per minute, some spelled correctly, others typos. I just wing it here Something comes on he TV catches my attentions and my typing suffers the wrath of a beaten keyboard! LOL.
If eBay makes the service any more difficult to use/surf they will kill themselves, no doubt about it.
I COMPLETELY agree with one poster in the thread here who has excalimed the issues in categories. eBay is breaking categories down to their lowest common denominators and in doing so limit product exposure thus costing sales. I know of 6 sizeable sellers i our area of sales that have backed well in excess of 5,000+ auctions each of the site. Why pay the listing fee when exposure gets limited. Or, I presume, pay .50 to get the exposure in two categories that you used to pay .25 for in one?
Just like many places on the net everyones always tring to fix it if it isnt broken. Amazon did this. They had a good point of sale that could have grown considerable. But we gotta make it do thsi & that and that & this and now its a shell of its former self.
If a category has 10 pages of items or 1000 pages of items bidders look at whats opening and closing and thats it. Everything in between is a bog.
If eBay were to limit external linkage all they will do to the core vendors is promote more dirty dealing basically. Blatent displays of control or perceived greed will cause businesses to exit stage left, especially the types of business eBay wants to attract. As one person put it, they dont want their business controlled by ebay (though the same person probably uses paypal so is controlled regardless).
I am not speaking of control over your business. I am speaking of sellers who are A. Vending under many accounts, the exact same goods on those multiple accounts and thus totally making a mess of the service.
I am talking of the MAJOR revenue loss (see no Loooos LOL) of sellers contacting non-winners and as Twisoft pointed out even buyers from other sellers. We have had this happen several (more than several) times.
Hopefully eBay wont make the wrong decision. If they do we simply re-evaluate whether we and our VAR's attend. Amazon is "not" out of this game and others are taking some serious runs in same directions that think before they act. C/Net & Ziff Davis for example. ZD's new site once kicked into full gear is going to probably be the end of half.com. Why? Simple. They have so much more clout with games publishers, video publishers, review services and then some that half.com stands no chance. Its actually quite smart on the part of ZD/CNET. Are not many publishers happy with the "free for all" associated w/ the past of the services.
Atop that, Amazon's deployment of the Marketplace which is VERY much in its infancy. The full business model will give envery eCommerce site on the net a run for its money.
Slap atop all that GW Bush who WILL be "Internet reactive" unlike what we have had. What we had was an administration that believed technology itself evolves to protect itself. In other words as problems arise technology evolves to solve it. George W. is much more in tune with law, regulations, licensing etc. to legitimize eCommerce as well as "cleaning the web up". Already, whap today in Wired news states are instantly at it to set down taxation standards on sales and the moral majority is gearing to knock Porno and much much much more out of the net up to an including forcing ISP's to log ALL internet activity (so eBay control will be the least of your worries) and even forcing colleges or any not-for profit web access to be both limited and filtered content.
Perhaps in some measure eBay is trying to react to what they see coming down the line. Dont be surprised one bit if in the next year, perhaps two if you want to sell at any auction site that you need hold a state license to do so and thats not like a drivers license. It means accountability.
Sure, some sellers will draw a few sales of linkages to shops and such but its trivial believe me. If eBay is money concerned then they need eliminate sellers using 16 different accounts and require they go under one master account. And for the BIG fix take care of sellers contacting non-winners and other sellers winners and doing direct sales cutting eBay out and again, hurting everyone at the site.
If they make the wrong moves I guarentee you 101% that at the very least Amazon is waiting for it and should the opportunity present itself they will capitalize on it and do so in BIG fashion. Amazon's been working and working to refine a TOTAL point of sale and we're not just talking auctions & zShops.
eBay needs to listen to the GOOD sellers who have supported them for years as we have all saw the issues, confronted the problems and been through the ropes. We know whats generally right with the site & whats wrong with it.
Revenues are impacted everytime they make a change and the things that really need to be addressed where they really are loosing the majority of consumer confidence, sellers getting disgusted and exiting or going under and finally where eBay itself is getting ripped off need to be addressed. Everything else seems to get addressed but those issues.
When eBay changed about all these categories traffic fell off nearly 50% in hits on our items. So much so that as I noted many of our competitors just stopped relisting literally thousands of auctions.
posted on December 23, 2000 04:15:11 AM
What eBay will do by further breaking down categories is create more feature possibilities and increase their revenue.
There will be a lot of seller fees wasted as this is tried and sellers find some feature placement is dead in traffic as the categories are further divided.
Ebay will probably have a very expensive feature that comes up in a main category, then less expensive features on the sub categories.
The best thing a seller can do is set back and watch the others experiment and then put your listing dollars where they will be effective.
I might add that Amazon auctions tried something similar and it has had very poor results. These divisions hinder ease of navigation by buyers and many just give up or are driven to featured auctions with little effect.
[ edited by reamond on Dec 23, 2000 04:16 AM ]
[ edited by reamond on Dec 23, 2000 04:17 AM ]
posted on December 23, 2000 05:31:49 AM
To enforce this eBay will have to force some sellers who use their e-mail address as their ID to change that, OR some bidder might contact some seller!
What a pain!
This is our MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM EBAY! GEE they are so good to us!
posted on December 23, 2000 06:06:56 AM
Ugh, I hope it doesn't come down to how they have it on Yahoo and asking a seller right on the page. I say this because twice I asked two different sellers questions over at Yahoo and NEVER got a reply. Of course I didn't bid either.
posted on December 23, 2000 07:38:28 AM
To the best of my knowledge, eBay is not going to restrict email addresses from being posted in auctions, nor are they going to force users who have their email addy as their User ID, to change them.
What these new changes will allow is:
1. Users [both buyers & sellers] who are complaining about Spam, to have a means to avoid most of the off site spam they are receiving.
2. Avoid harassment from fellow users when posting on their various chat boards. [trust me, it happens]
3. Control offsite transactions, which includes helping to eliminate sellers who bottom feed off off of other sellers auction listings.
Yes, eBay is concerned about the amount of "under the table" deals that take place, but they are also addressing the spam complaints that they've received from users over the past year.
posted on December 23, 2000 08:55:06 AMReddeer: The international sites seem to do things differently than the main site - for example, eBay Canada's Sell Your Item form doesn't have the Buy-It-Now option or the option to list in two categories (at least, not in the same place as it is on the main-site Sell Your Item form). I guess I was thinking, when I looked at the email form, that it was just one of the ways they "do" things at that site, and that the reason I'd never heard about it was because it had been in use for a long time.
posted on December 23, 2000 08:59:55 AM
As pointed out above, Yahoo protects email addresses of users. They don't prevent you from giving out your email address.
If eBay were to institute a total ban on email addresses, within ad descriptions, on About Me pages, in user IDs, prohibit links to web pages, etc., it would be like trying to throw a sack over everybody's head. eBay may make this problem of off-site sales worse than before.
I do find it surprising that eBay is so quick to give out my personal info to any whacko that asks for it; but now when they feel that practice cuts into their profit, they discontinue. It seems like eBay cares more about their profit than my security.
On the other hand, there are just oo many sellers out to rip off eBay and other sellers as well. If you follow the rules voluntarily, you get burned by other sellers who could care less. I'll take a wait-and-see stance but I wish eBay would just be forthcoming about these changes so we can know what to expect.
posted on December 23, 2000 09:06:03 AMGlenda ...... Yes, you're correct, eBay Canada is very different in many areas compared to the main eBay site.
But, usually eBay Canada is the last place you'll find any new features, they're usually months behind the main site.
That's why it struck me odd that they would have this feature on the Canada site, but not on the main one. That, and the fact that nothing has been mentioned on the AB leads me to believe eBay is using their International sites as a testing ground.
I've also noticed that when going from my "MY eBay" links, to an eBay Canada auction, that feature [the "ask a seller a question" form], does not seem to be enabled?
Maybe that's why I haven't noticed it up until now?
posted on December 23, 2000 10:04:25 AMReddeer: When you go from My eBay to an auction, is there a brief pause and then you are "redirected" to the listing? That's how it works on main-site eBay.
Spelling issues aside. The point is eBay is loosing money and folks gettin' well... ripped off by after auctions sales to non-winning bidders.
Twinsoft appears to be the only one I see making any sense at all.
Another issue comes to mind if eBay were to ban links, ban email addresses in ad's whatall. If eBay were to engage in that would it not be basically a total reversal in a "we are just the venue" policy? Restricting content thats illicit, or generally controversial is one thing. Restricting it based upon site containment (if you will) is another entirely. Forcing content that is not "harmful" to surfers may even be in contention of civil rights. Dunno. But think about it, imagine if the postal service (and they are a venue) said no email nuthin' in all snail mail or a newspaper saying cant put your phone number in classifieds.
I'd think rather than test those waters and I am sure someone eventually would, why not just elimintate where those lost revenue sales REALLY occur. Its contact of loosing bidders and sale to them, that simple. Take an example from the B 2 C auctions like uBid. The seller see's the winner and thats it. If the winners card declines they generally just dump the sale, at eBay allow for a secondary bidder contact form.
This issue has been like a gas tank leak for years that really needs to be plugged up. While we never have engaged in it we have heard from enough bidders to know its where eBay looses the majority of revenues.
Signed: WhyNot!
posted on December 24, 2000 02:04:06 AM
Thanks, WhyNot. No big deal, just thought I'd mention it. So many people make this same spelling error.
You're right, how would it be if the post office prohitibed us from putting our email address in a letter? Absurd.
As far as losing the "majority of its revenues," I think eBay loses a lot (more?) to deadbeat bidders. (Of course, I have no way of estimating the losses due to off-site deals.) Deadbeats cost me $500 to $1000 per month. Generally, I sell inexpensive items and eBay's cut is 5%. That's $25 to $50 eBay loses in final value fees each month, PLUS the refund for listing fees. (Another, say, $10.)
eBay makes only a pretense of going after deadbeats. After repeated non-payment, deadbeats are NARU but the revolving door policy makes it easy simply to sign on again under a different ID.
I wonder about the logic of a basically unenforceable policy, while other more serious preventable losses are ignored.
And yes, I think it's carrying the "snitch out your neighbor" policy a bit too far to expect sellers to turn in potential customers. Come on, where's the logic?
