Thread: flea boy

I have to ask, did you do *all* your correspondance with the seller via eBay's message system or did you do them privately with normal email?

Email is *very* easily forged (not saying you did this, btw). I'm just saying that you can't use email as a means to determine anything because quite frankly, I can spend about 30 seconds and forge up an email that looks completely legitimate and yet proves that you promised to send me your entire razor collection along with your first born in exchange for a half eaten pudding pop and a bit of pocket lint. If you do all your messaging with the other party using eBay's message system they can easily track it and determine that nothing has been messed with. That won't guarantee that you're protected but it does help.

Now, I'm not defending the other guy in the transaction here at all, I'm just saying that a lot of people ascribe a lot of power to eBay that legally we do not have. We don't have the power to arbitrarily decide things, we have to go by very precise rules and laws. That's the reason why a lot of our policies (which may seem silly and arbitrary) are in place... so that we have a means to enforce something when a transaction goes awry.

eBay can't just go in and make people play fair. They also can't just decide on a whim who's right and who's wrong, even in clear cut cases like this when someone has obviously egregiously violated the rules. We have to follow rules just like anyone else and believe me, we get hammered when we don't. It's "damned if you do and damned if you don't" and you'd be surprised how many unscrupulous sellers get all uptight and lawyered up when we *do* bring the hammer down. People love to get pissed off at us, but very rarely do they ever just step back and think "well, how *could* they have protected me from this and still been within the law?"

I'm sorry you had a bad experience. Unfortunately, people suck and there's no good way to ensure that every single person on each side of a transaction is going to be upright. Sometimes people are just shitbags and if you have a way of *legally* ensuring that neither side can be a shitbag and prosper from it that stays within the bounds of the law then please feel free to let us know. We *do* try very hard and keep as many of them off eBay as we can but sometimes it's like sweeping the tide back with a broom. We do what we can, but there's this pesky thing called the legal system. We don't have a lot of the same rights that normal retailers have because... WE ARE NOT A RETAILER. We are more like landlords who rent out a building so that someone can run a storefront in it. We meddle a lot more than normal landlords would though, and we come by and try to scare the thugs away but they always come back because people suck.

-- Gary F.

Originally Posted by gfoster

... Unfortunately, people suck ...

Luckily, not everyone. You're a stand-up guy, G.

X

I tried to find the store marysgoround on ebay so I could send a letter saying i wouldn't do business there either.... and could not find it! I would love to let these people know what others think of business practices such as this. Sometimes this is the only way to get the point across....

Sue (Mama Bear)

What a horrible thing!!

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAP...d=marysgoround

Here you go Sue